How long is a harlem globetrotters basketball game

Today, the Harlem Travelers are known primarily as basketball showmen. Few of the younger generation know that it was their tricks that were modernized and were taken as the basis of the so-called "new school" of streetball. The Globetrotters have a very long and serious history that began rather modestly...

The world-renowned Voyagers were originally formed from the Weddell Philips High School team. The team played in the Negro American Legion League and was called the Giles Post. Later, at 19In 1927, manager Dick Hudsen renamed it "Savoy Big Five" after the Savoy Gym where their games were played. In the same year, future Hall of Famer Abe Seperstein bought the team and renamed it the Harlem Travelers. True, only in a few decades they will justify their name, having visited the most distant corners of the Earth...

Saperstein was a man of good foresight. Born in London, he moved with his parents to Chicago at the age of four. Not having impressive natural data and talent in order to succeed in sports, he put all his energy into coaching and searching for talented youth. The Globe Trotters were the product of his love of basketball.

The team needed uniforms, and Abe got them - jerseys and shorts were made from blue and red-white-striped fabric found in the tailor shop of Superstein Sr.

The debut of the New York Globetrotters (which was the name chosen for the team at the beginning to emphasize that it consists of all black basketball players) occurred before the public on January 7, 1927 in Hinkley, Illinois. The first exhibition game attracted 300 spectators and the ticket sales fee was $75.

Saperstein took the team all over the Midwest, including the countryside, arranging games wherever possible. In that first winter of 1927, the Globetrotters won 101 of 117 games in front of a crowd of minimal interest in the sport. Rarely did they make more money from a single match than that first 75 bucks.

While Walter "Signal" Wright, Byron "Fat Man" Long, Willis "The Kid" Oliver, Andy Washington, and Al "Midget" Pallins (the original Trotter line-up) didn't make a lot of money, they tried to modernize their game by adding her new elements. Basketball performed by the Harlem team included sharp jerks and passes, dynamic dribbling. In two seasons, they gained a reputation as a very good team and were already known in their region.

Speaking of Abe Saperstein, it's worth mentioning what this man meant to the Harlem Travelers. He was not only the owner and manager of the team, but also served as a driver, press secretary and even a substitute player (in the third year of its existence, the "travelers" played every other day, and Abe had to go to the site instead of injured players).

Already 8 years after its foundation, the team has played more than 1000 games. It was quite a feat for the first all-black professional team at the time. After all, almost all the teams consisted of white players, and Saperstein had to work hard to find rivals for the Globetrotters.

Every year the Travelers become stronger and more popular. By 1935, they had victories over teams from the states of Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Michigan, Montana, Washington, North and South Dakota. Three years later, the team begins to participate in professional basketball tournaments.

In the same year, the head manager of Harlem manages to organize a historic meeting against the Boston Celtics. Two minutes before the end of the game with a score of 32:32, the Celts, during a timeout, fearing to lose, left the court without finishing the match. For the Globetrotters, this act was a ticket to their bright future. Their years of poverty are over...

Basketball Circus

liked it a lot. After the game, Saperstein told the players that he didn't mind adding a bit of clowning to basketball, but not until the Globetrotters secured a solid lead. He realized that if the Travelers wanted to gather a lot of spectators at their matches and make money from it, they should put on a show. To entertain themselves and the audience, the Globetrotters began to spin the ball on their fingers during games, throw it into the ring from the floor and even from the head. So, in fact, those "Travelers" that we know now appeared.

The innovation helped, and the team began to receive orders to host games, but in addition to the commercial component, Saperstein had another goal - he wanted the Globetrotters to become the best basketball team in the country.

In the same year, 1939, the Tramps played for the first time outside the United States, performing in Mexico, and a year later they finally received the right to participate in the first World Professional Basketball Tournament, which was held in Chicago. The team reached the semi-finals of the tournament, where they lost to Rens. The following year, the Globetrotters returned to win the tournament. In the final, Sonny Boswell closed a five-point gap from the Chicago Bruins in the last minutes of the meeting, and the Harlems won a triumphant victory with a score of 31:29in extra time. This win gave Abe Saperstein the freedom to book his team's games in the biggest arenas against the best teams in the US.

In the summer of 1940, the Harlem Travelers held their first basketball training camp in Sheboygan, Wisconsin. Since then, basketball teams around the world have adopted the practice and hold training camps every year.

Goodwill Ambassador

During the 40s, the Globetrotters added two players who became the most significant stars of the team for many years. Those players were Rees "Goose" Tatum and Marques Haynes. Tatum, a gifted athlete from Eldorado, Arkansas, who had giant arms with a span of 213 cm, gave up his career as a baseball player for basketball. Goose later came up with most of the classic Globetrotters comedy routines that stayed with the team for years to come. Haynes caught the attention of Saperstein when he led Langston University, Oklahoma, to a 74-70 victory over the Globetrotters. Tatum and Haynes formed the basis of the Trotters, which was able to realize the most cherished dream of Saperstein - the popularization of basketball around the world.

In 1945, another significant event takes place-the composition of the “tramp” is replenished by a black player Boyd Bui, who had only one hand. Despite his disability, Bui averages 18 points per game in his first season, which causes a standing ovation in every match.

On February 20, 1948, Saperstein leads the Travelers to a game against the NBA champions, the Minneapolis Lakers led by the legendary George Meecan. With a score of 61-59, in the presence of 17823 spectators at Chicago Stadium, the Harlemites win, which indescribably delights everyone in the hall.

“Lakers” George Mikan could not do anything with “Tramp from Harlem” . ..

In subsequent years, the Tramps, in addition to playing in the US, played games in Alaska, Western Europe and North Africa, Central and South America. Once at a match in Rio de Janeiro, they gathered an audience of 50 thousand spectators.

But the highlight of those early trips around the globe was a match in Berlin in the summer of 1951...

At the request of John McCloy, the US commissioner in Germany, who was seeking to ease anti-American sentiment among the Germans, the Globetrotters agreed to play at the Olympic Stadium, where 15 years earlier, Adolf Hitler had snubbed black US athletes. Harlemians received a great reception from a huge crowd of 75,000. During the break of the match, a helicopter appeared over the stadium, which brought a man in a black suit to the center of the site. It was Jesse Owens who became the star of the 19 Olympics36 years old, having won four gold medals to spite the "true Aryans". The audience gave a real 15-minute standing ovation to Owens, greeted him standing. Jesse Owens and the Globetrotters have been officially recognized as "goodwill ambassadors" by the State Department of Germany.

But the Globetrotters didn't always have such a large audience. A year after the memorable match in Berlin, the team played for one man, Pope Pius XII, at his summer residence at Gandolfo Castle, in Italy. The Bordiags showed Papa their world-famous Magic Circle warm-up to the song Sweet Georgia Brown, which on the same 1952 becomes the official "anthem" of the Harlem Globtrotters.

The fame of the Globetrotters became so great that in 1953 the team was invited to Hollywood to star in the film version of The Harlem Globetrotters along with famous actors Thomas Gomez and Dorothy Dandridge. Almost immediately, after the success of the first film about the Superstein team, the second film was shot with the participation of the Globetrotters - "Go Man Go!" The film stars Dane Clark and Sidney Poitier. The film was shown in more than 11,000 theaters across the country and was no less successful than the first picture. In the same year, the Globetrotters set another attendance record when 36,256 spectators attended their game at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum - at that time the largest audience in the history of a basketball game in the United States.
The popularity of the “ball magicians” is also evidenced by the fact that they were invited to perform in the Soviet Union during the Iron Curtain, and also became the basis for the creation of a children's television show.

In the 50s, the Harlem Travelers were one of the strongest teams in basketball.

However, the fairy tale was not destined to continue forever. Already in the early 50s, it became increasingly difficult for Abe Saperstein to keep talented players in his team. The reason for this was the removal of racial restrictions in the NBA (the so-called "whites only") at 1950 year. Professional association clubs have gained the right to draft black athletes, offering them luxury contracts. As you might guess, the scouts first turned their attention to the invincible Travelers. Shortly after the league allows black players to sign, the Boston Celtics strike an agreement with Daquin University star Chuck Cooper, and the New York Knicks buy Nathaniel "Sweetwater" Clifton's contract from the Harlem Gobtrotters for $25,000. And because the Knicks start the season a day before Boston, Clifton becomes the first black basketball player in NBA history. Sweetwater spent eight seasons with the Association, played 600 matches and was once selected for the All-Star Game.

Clifton was the first black basketball player in the NBA . ..