Meadowlark Lemon, the ''clown prince'' of
basketball's barnstorming Harlem Globetrotters, whose blend of hook
shots and humor brought joy to millions of fans around the world,
has died. He was 83.

Lemon's wife and daughter confirmed to the team that he died Sunday
in Scottsdale, Arizona, Globetrotters spokesman Brett Meister said
Monday. Meister did not know the cause of death.

Though skilled enough to play professionally, Lemon instead wanted
to entertain, his dream of playing for the Globetrotters hatched
after watching a newsreel of the all-black team at a cinema house
when he was 11.

Lemon ended up becoming arguably the team's most popular player, a
showman known as much for his confetti-in-the-water-bucket routine
and slapstick comedy as his half-court hook shots and no-look,
behind-the-back passes.

A sign of his crossover appeal, Lemon was inducted into both the
Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame and the International Clown Hall
of Fame.

''My destiny was to make people happy,'' Lemon said as he was
inducted into the basketball hall as a contributor to the game in
2003.

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. Traveling by car, bus, train or plane
nearly every night, Lemon covered nearly 4 million miles to play in
over 100 countries and in front of popes and presidents, kings and
queens. Known as the ''Clown Prince of Basketball,'' he averaged
325 games per year during his prime, that luminous smile never
dimming.

''Meadowlark was the most sensational, awesome, incredible
basketball player I've ever seen,'' NBA great and former
Globetrotter Wilt Chamberlain said shortly before his death in
1999. ''People would say it would be Dr. J or even (Michael)
Jordan. For me it would be Meadowlark Lemon.''

Lemon spent 24 years with the Globetrotters, doing tours through
the racially torn South in the 1950s until he left in 1979 to start
his own team.

He was one of the most popular athletes in the world during the
prime of his career, thanks to a unique blend of athleticism and
showmanship.

Playing against the team's nightly foil, the Washington Generals,
Lemon left fans in awe with an array of hook shots, no-look passes
and the nifty moves he put on display during the Globetrotters'
famous circle while ''Sweet Georgia Brown'' played over the
loudspeaker.

After leaving the Globetrotters, Lemon started his own team, The
Bucketeers, and played on a variety of teams before rejoining the
Globetrotters for a short tour in 1994.

Lemon spent the last years of his life trying to spread a message
of faith through basketball. He became an ordained minister in 1986
and was a motivational speaker, touring the country to meet with
children at basketball camps and youth prisons with his
Scottsdale-based Meadowlark Lemon Ministries.

''I feel if I can touch a kid in youth prison, he won't go to the
adult prison,'' Lemon said in 2003.

He never lost touch with his beloved sport. Lemon said he rose
every day at 4 a.m. and, after prayers, headed for the gym to run
sprints and practice shooting.

 

More From WBSM-AM/AM 1420