Harlem Globetrotters Legend Meadowlark Lemon Dies

Meadowlark Lemon, one of the legendary Harlem Globetrotters players, has died at age 83.

The team’s website said he played in 7500 consecutive games – the equivalent of more than 92 National Basketball Association seasons – in some 100 countries before audiences that included everyone from Britain’s Queen Elizabeth and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev to three popes.

“He was an incredible entertainer and brought happiness and lifelong memories to millions around the world, “said Globetrotters chief executive Kurt Schneider”.

Prior to the Harlem Globetrotter star death of Lemon, he lived in Scottsdale, Arizona, and also died there.

He played for the Globetrotters during the team’s glory years from the mid-1950s to the late-1970s.

In 2001, Lemon’s jersey number, 23, was retired as part of the team’s 75th anniversary tour.

A gifted player whose basketball skills were sometimes overshadowed by his on-court high jinks, Lemon was known for sinking half-court hook shots, throwing behind-the-back passes and pretending to spy on his opponents’ huddles.

Generations before LeBron James and Stephen Curry became faces of the NBA, long before the Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson and Larry Bird era… even before we knew Kareem Abdul-Jabbar as Lew Alcindor, Meadowlark Lemon was traveling the world making basketball fun.

I hate to break it to you, Rob Lowe, but you’re actually mourning the passing of Scatman Crothers, who voiced Meadowlark Lemon in those cartoons. For 22 years, until he left the team in 1978, Lemon was the Trotters’ ringmaster, directing their basketball circus from the pivot.

He ended up as arguably the team’s most popular player, playing an average 325 games a year for 24 years. “I was receiving a vision, I was receiving a dream in my heart”, he said in 2003.

“When they got to the basketball court, they seemed to make that ball talk”, Lemon said during his Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame induction speech in 2003. He also became an ordained minister in 1998.

He never lost touch with his beloved sport.