The Globetrotters (Part 1)
What do you get when you combine the sport of basketball with comedy? The Harlem Globetrotters! The Harlem Globetrotters have been bringing joy and entertainment in the form of basketball ever since 1925. They started out as a
bunch of people from Philips High School who got together and formed an amateur team. At that time, they were known as the “Savoy Big Five” after picking up sponsorship from the Savoy Ballroom and playing their home games over there. The members of the original
team included, Tommy Brookins, Randolph Ramsey, Hally Harding, and many others. The manager of this team was d**k Hudson (he also was the coach). This team was the beginning of something that would boom into the likes of nothing ever imagined by these people.
The result of their initiative was probably the greatest and funniest basketball teams that the world has seen.
During November 1928, Brookins separated from the “Savoy Big Five” to form his own team which went by the name of “Tommy Brookin’s Globetrotters”. They went on “barnstorming” tours of Wisconsin and Michigan. Barnstorming refers
to when a team goes around the country playing their basketball games (not part of official championships). While Brookins was in Michigan, he found out that his travel agent, Abe Saperstein, had his own team by the name of Globetrotters. Thus it is said that
the team was founded somewhere in January 1929. The original Globetrotters team consisted of Al “Runt” Pullins, Walter “Toot” Wright, Byron “Fat” Long, William “Kid” Oliver, and Andy Washington. All of these players were from the Phillips High School. The
Globetrotters had their first game against the Hinckley Merchants, in Illinois on January 21, 1929. During, somewhere around, February 1929, Brookins decided to go into show business and broke up the team, leaving the Globetrotters to be the only “trotters”
left in the game. They built up their reputation as a tough team to beat. Since they were only five members on the team, they started to “freeze” the ball so that they could rest their legs. Realizing that freezing the ball was not entertaining the crowd,
they started to do tricks with the ball. This kept the audience happy and entertained.
The team got really popular in 1934, when their founder, Saperstein changed their pay structure by splitting the money earned from the sales of the tickets, to pay them a fixed salary of 7.50 dollars per person. The Globetrotters
now made less money than before. This change was the reason Pullins and some other Globetrotters quit the team. In order to fill in the spaces left by those who quit, Saperstein recruited a new team by adding three new players to the Globetrotters. Then as
the 1934-1935 season started up, Saperstein added Opal Courtney and Par McPherson to the team. The Harlem Globetrotters were bringing in a whole lot of public to their games. When the Globetrotters had a big lead, they would start clowning around by pulling
off stunts, etc. But soon, their antics became the reason behind the crowd pouring in. By 1936, Saperstein had completely changed his team. He placed new rules, such as the extension of the 3-second rule in the lane to every player. This rule made the game
faster.
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