After his junior year at Kansas, basketball legend Wilt Chamberlain was ready to leave college to make some money. The NBA didn’t take players who left school early, so instead of playing competitively, Wilt joined the world-famous Harlem Globetrotters on a lengthy tour of Europe.
Seeing Wilt, one of the greatest players of all time, in a red, white, and-blue uniform, performing in a traveling basketball circus seems strange today. The decades that followed Wilt’s Globetrotter years have cast the great athlete in a narrow role: a killer,...
Seeing Wilt, one of the greatest players of all time, in a red, white, and-blue uniform, performing in a traveling basketball circus seems strange today. The decades that followed Wilt’s Globetrotter years have cast the great athlete in a narrow role: a killer,...
- 7/15/2023
- by Corbin Smith
- Rollingstone.com
“Sweetwater” is a biopic about Nat “Sweetwater” Clifton, the Black power forward who broke the color barrier of the NBA in 1950, three years after Jackie Robinson accomplished the same feat in baseball. It’s telling that Robinson remains one of the most celebrated heroes in sports history, while Clifton is still a somewhat obscure figure.
There’s a biting irony to that contrast. It relates to how the integration of basketball totally changed the game, even more than the integration of baseball changed baseball. “Sweetwater,” written and directed by Martin Guigui, is a straight-down-the-middle inspirational sports movie — and, one regrets to say, a kind of benign sketchbook version of the form. Yet it also tells the tale of the Harlem Globetrotters, the fabled team of barnstorming trickster prodigies who Clifton started off as a member of. There were several levels to the Globetrotters’ athletic magic, and the film captures how...
There’s a biting irony to that contrast. It relates to how the integration of basketball totally changed the game, even more than the integration of baseball changed baseball. “Sweetwater,” written and directed by Martin Guigui, is a straight-down-the-middle inspirational sports movie — and, one regrets to say, a kind of benign sketchbook version of the form. Yet it also tells the tale of the Harlem Globetrotters, the fabled team of barnstorming trickster prodigies who Clifton started off as a member of. There were several levels to the Globetrotters’ athletic magic, and the film captures how...
- 4/13/2023
- by Owen Gleiberman
- Variety Film + TV
A review of this week’s Winning Time, “The Good Life,” coming up just as soon as we attend the premiere of The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh…
Midway through “The Good Life,” Magic Johnson joins the rest of the Lakers for the world premiere of The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh, a 1979 basketball comedy which features several of his new teammates in small roles. Before we can talk more about this episode, we must first discuss a few things about one of the most infamous sports movies ever made:
1) The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh...
Midway through “The Good Life,” Magic Johnson joins the rest of the Lakers for the world premiere of The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh, a 1979 basketball comedy which features several of his new teammates in small roles. Before we can talk more about this episode, we must first discuss a few things about one of the most infamous sports movies ever made:
1) The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh...
- 3/21/2022
- by Alan Sepinwall
- Rollingstone.com
When former ESPN president John Skipper greenlit Bill Simmons’ and Connor Schell’s award-winning “30 for 30” documentary series, he also built the template for his new company, Meadowlark Media: Great content that may or may not be about sports, but is never afraid to show its politics.
“We have credibility in sports, so you use that credibility to get started,” Skipper said before boarding an airplane traveling south-by-southwest to SXSW. There, he and former ESPN host-turned-Meadowlark partner Dan Le Batard will tape leading sports podcast “The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz” March 13 and 14 (from 3-5:30 p.m. Ct) with a live studio audience at Austin’s Four Seasons Hotel. Le Batard is also hosting a conversation at SXSW’s Athlete Empowerment Summit with Ricky Williams, the 1998 Heisman Trophy winner who now does astrology readings on the podcast.
Skipper said he roots for artists as hard as he roots for athletes.
“We have credibility in sports, so you use that credibility to get started,” Skipper said before boarding an airplane traveling south-by-southwest to SXSW. There, he and former ESPN host-turned-Meadowlark partner Dan Le Batard will tape leading sports podcast “The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz” March 13 and 14 (from 3-5:30 p.m. Ct) with a live studio audience at Austin’s Four Seasons Hotel. Le Batard is also hosting a conversation at SXSW’s Athlete Empowerment Summit with Ricky Williams, the 1998 Heisman Trophy winner who now does astrology readings on the podcast.
Skipper said he roots for artists as hard as he roots for athletes.
- 3/11/2022
- by Tony Maglio
- Indiewire
Fred “Curly” Neal, the bald-headed, ball-handling trickster who was a core member of the Harlem Globetrotters basketball team during the act’s peak in popularity, has died at the age of 77. The Harlem Globetrotters confirmed that Neal died at his home in Houston, Texas Thursday. No cause of death was provided.
“Between 1963 and 1985 – before the internet and cable television really existed – it was Curly Neal and the Harlem Globetrotters who first introduced the sport of basketball to millions of people around the world for the first time,” the Globetrotters tweeted.
“Between 1963 and 1985 – before the internet and cable television really existed – it was Curly Neal and the Harlem Globetrotters who first introduced the sport of basketball to millions of people around the world for the first time,” the Globetrotters tweeted.
- 3/26/2020
- by Daniel Kreps
- Rollingstone.com
Meadowlark Lemon, the charismatic star of the Harlem Globetrotters for more than two decades, died Sunday in Scottsdale, Arizona, of undisclosed causes. He was 83. Dubbed “the Clown Prince of Basketball” for his on-court prowess and humor, North Carolina native Lemon joined the team in 1954 shortly after a stint in the U.S. Army during the Korean War. He soon became one of the barnstorming team’s most dynamic players, performing around the world and on TV. Also Read: Hollywood's Notable Deaths of 2015 (Photos) Lemon left the Globetrotters in 1978 due to a contract dispute. He later formed his own basketball teams,...
- 12/28/2015
- by Thom Geier
- The Wrap
An individual immunity record was on the line tonight, and a new alliance was formed and then broken. When all was said and done, a formidable player was voted out, leaving just five people vying for the million dollar prize. [Spoiler Alert: Read on only if you have already watched tonight’s episode of Survivor: Cagayan.]
Kass, Spencer, and Woo decided it was finally time to get rid of either Tony or his immunity idols. Problem is, he had two of them and only two Tribal Councils left to use them, so Tony wasn’t going anywhere. (Maybe that plan would have worked two or three weeks ago.) So when Tasha fell short in her bid...
Kass, Spencer, and Woo decided it was finally time to get rid of either Tony or his immunity idols. Problem is, he had two of them and only two Tribal Councils left to use them, so Tony wasn’t going anywhere. (Maybe that plan would have worked two or three weeks ago.) So when Tasha fell short in her bid...
- 5/8/2014
- by Dalton Ross
- EW.com - PopWatch
Here is the latest celeb gossip about the following topic from one of the freelance news writers at Green Celebrity Network. Racing for Cancer is not Andretti's only humanitarian and charitable activity -- so he probably did not feel too bad about losing. In 2003, he was featured in America's Athletes Charity Book along with other star celeb names like boxer Evander Holyfield, track and field star Marion Jones, and Harlem Globerotter Meadowlark Lemon. He also was on hand for Breakfast with the Fans at several racetracks, raising over $8,000 for charity during those events.That means Andretti is likely to help the group raise funds even if he was not going to get them from Donald Trump or the folks at Celebrity Apprentice. Keep reading...
- 3/13/2012
- by Jason Grant
- Green Celebrity
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