Meadowlark Lemon, Basketball Legend & Former Star Of The Harlem Globetrotters

Meadowlark Lemon, a skilled athlete and basketball court jester who delighted audiences for some 25 years around the world as one of the team’s star attractions, has died. He used an empty Carnation milk can as a ball.

Then he took his first shots, firing them like baseballs, sinking 1 out of 10 until his father came home.

He was 83 years old. “I want you to always remember that life’s most meaningless statistic is the half time score and as far as I’m concerned it’s always half-time”, he once said on his website.

Lemon starred in the children’s variety show, Harlem Globetrotters Popcorn Machine, also on CBS.

Lemon’s skills were said to be good enough to have gotten him into professional basketball, but he instead wanted to be entertaining.

“He was an incredible entertainer and brought happiness and lifelong memories to millions around the world, “said Globetrotters chief executive Kurt Schneider”. Lemon played 24 seasons and almost 16,000 games with the Globetrotters, the touring exhibition basketball team known for its slick ball-handling, practical jokes, red-white-and-blue uniforms and multiyear winning streaks against overmatched opponents. Czechs, Germans, Russians, Americans – they all look the same.

Anyone who grew up in the 70s watching Saturday morning TV or the sports programming that followed will surely remember the iconic court jester George “Meadowlark” Lemon.

Famous for his long-distance hook shots, sublime passing and pranks that included dumping buckets of confetti on referees, Lemon became the Globetrotters’ biggest star.

When Dr. James Naismith was pulling that basketball out of the peach basket many years ago in Kansas, it was simply impossible that he could envision the growth and popularity of the game today.

Has spent the past 40 years with the organization as a player, coach and now director of player personnel. Not to mention the standard indignities endured by black players of the day.

In April 1952, the Globetrotters received a letter from Lemon asking for a tryout, according to the team’s Web page.

Lemon became an icon in the 1970s, appearing in movies, including “The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh”, numerous talk shows and even a stint in the cartoon “Scooby Doo”, with Scatman Crothers doing his voice.