Harlem Globetrotter Meadowlark Lemon Dies At 83

Original Harlem Globetrotter Meadowlark Lemon, affectionately known as the “Clown Prince of Basketball”, died on Sunday, December 27, his wife confirmed to the team.

Lemon is one of only five Globetrotters to have their numbers retired since the team was founded in Chicago in the 1920s.

He left the Globetrotters in 1978 after a contract dispute but continued playing basketball until well into his 70s – clocking up an estimated 16,000 games in 100 countries. From his no-look pass behind his back, to those rarely missed halfcourt hook shots and his signature bucket of confetti in the face of “unsuspecting” referees, Lemon became a beloved global figure.

Also, in 2005, Tallahassee’s Ben Green authored a 414-page biography about the Harlem Globetrotters – “Spinning the Globe: The Rise, Fall and Return to Greatness of the Harlem Globetrotters”.

“I’m really excited about this”, Brown said. Born in Wilmington, North Carolina, Meadowlark Lemon III attended the screening of a movie at the age of 11.

His passing is more than a loss to the sport of basketball.

Mr. Lemon played for the Globetrotters during the team’s heyday from the mid-1950s to the late-1970s, delighting fans with his skills with a ball and a joke.

Lemon became an ordained minister in 1986, working with young people at basketball camps and youth prisons from his Scottsdale home base. In 2003, while being inducted into the basketball Hall of Fame, the Post reports, Lemon, the father of 10, apologized to his family for the Globetrotters’ grueling tour schedule. Lemon played his first season with one of the Globetrotter developmental teams, the Kansas City Stars, and played his first season full season with the Globetrotters in 1954.

Lemon also made several film and TV appearances (usually as himself), including the basketball comedy “The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh”, and the TV sitcoms “Diff’rent Strokes” and “Hello, Larry”, as well as a Saturday morning cartoon.

Every year starting in the 1960s all the way through today the Harlem Globetrotters have played an annual basketball game in the Tampa Bay area.