 Greetings from the National Archives. I'm David Ferriero, Archivist of the United States, and it's my pleasure to welcome you to Spinning in the Globe, the history and legacy of the Harlem Globe Trotters, with our special guests Fatima TNT Lister, Chris Handels Franklin, Sweet Lou Dunbar, and Ben Green. This program, part of our Black History Month presentations, is made possible in part by the National Archives Foundation through the generous support of Ford Motor Company Fund, and we thank them both. Before we begin, I'd like to tell you about two upcoming programs you can view on our YouTube channel. On Tuesday, March 2nd at 5 p.m., renowned legal scholar, Cass Sunstein, will discuss his latest book, Liars, Falsehoods, and Free Speech in an Age of Deception. In the book, Sunstein probes the fundamental question of how we can deter lies while also protecting freedom of speech. Then on a Friday, March 5th at noon, Janice Nomura will discuss her new book, The Doctor's Blackwell. In the mid-19th century, it was unheard of for a woman to study medicine, but sisters Elizabeth and Emily Blackwell became path-breaking doctors. Among the vast holdings in the National Archives are documents and artifacts that illustrate the intersection of sports in the United States government. The upcoming National Archives exhibit, All American, the Power of Sports, will examine the stories told in our documents, artifacts, films, and photographs, and reveal another side of the American experience. It will investigate the way sports have been played to unite Americans, promote American culture, and open doors to diplomacy. All American will celebrate individual athletes, both legendary and little known, who changed American society and furthered the cause of social justice. As a preview to the exhibit, we're pleased to welcome the legendary Harlem Globetrotters virtually to the National Archives. The Globetrotters appear in our records through written documents, films, and photographs related to visits they have made to U.S. presidents and other dignitaries, U.S. servicemen and women, and the many diplomatic tours the Globetrotters went on sponsored by the U.S. State Department. This should be a fun evening, so let's get to it. Our moderator for tonight's discussion has Ben Green. In addition to his book, Spinning the Globe, The Rise Fall and Return to Greatness of the Harlem Globetrotters, Ben is the acclaimed author of Before His Time, the subject of a PBS documentary, The Soldier of Fortune Murders, which was the basis for a CBS miniseries and the finest kind. Before we hear from Ben, it's my pleasure to pass the program to Fatima TNT Lister. Here you go. Hey, gang. I want to welcome all of you at the home we're watching. I am very excited to moderate this panel discussion tonight. I have a good friend in Tallahassee, Florida, where I live, who's a teacher, and he tells his students, you can either have fun or you can learn or you could have fun learning. And that's my goal tonight. I guarantee you're going to learn a whole lot about the Harlem Globetrotters, or rather, they're going to have a whole lot of fun because the two go together. You can't talk about the Globetrotters without fun. So let me introduce the panel. They always say age before beauty, but we're going to reverse that. We're going to go brains, beauty, and talent before age. And I'm going to introduce Fatima TNT Lister. She's a former star player at Temple University. She joined the Globetrotters in 2011 and is this longest tenured female player in team history. She's visited over 50 countries, including a historic trip to Uzbekistan in 2019, which was the team's 124th country visited. Another amazing feat in 2018 for Tima and her husband had their first child, and she returned to the basketball court three months later. Fatima, welcome to the show. Thank you. Thank you for having me. It's such an honor. Next in line as we're saving age for the end here is Chris Handels Franklin. He's a native of Harrisburg, PA. He grew up idolizing the Globetrotters and has been living on his dream for 14 seasons. He's visited over 80 countries. And as you can tell already, he follows in the great ball handling and dribbling tradition of Marcus Haynes and Curly Neal. He also owns the Guinness World Record for the hardest kneeling basketball shot made backwards. Chris, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me. Honored to be here. How long was that shot kneeling backwards? 63 feet in some mentions. So to put in perspective a little bit about the top of the opposite top of the key inside of that. Wow. Far shot. That was like it. So as you can tell, all Globetrotter players end up with a nickname, but this man came by his naturally. Sweet Lou Dunbar is just a sweetheart of a man. I think we met 17 years ago, maybe when I first started working on this book. He was a star basketball player at the University of Houston before joining the Globetrotters. And he never left. He's been there for 40 years. When his knees gave out, he became a coach. He's now one of the coaches of the team. And he is following in the legacy, the tradition of the great showman of the Globetrotters. Going back to Inman Jackson, Gustadum, Metal-like Lemon, Geese Osby. And he's also one of only eight Globetrotters in the history of the team to have his Jersey retired number 41. Sweet Lou, welcome to the show. Thank you, man. Did you mention the book I wrote? I forgot about that. All right. So in just a few minutes, we're going to delve back into their personal stories and really hear more about why they became a Globetrotter and why they wanted to become one. But I've been asked to try to set the stage of the sort of in the seven minutes, give you the history of this team. Anybody who knows me would say Ben Green, seven minutes, the 90 year history. One of these things doesn't belong here. I've been practicing and trying to boil it down. So let me say this. When I started working on this book, I probably knew about as much about the Globetrotters as those of you watching from home. I saw him one time as a kid. They came to my hometown. I saw him on TV, ABC Wide World of Sports, CBS Sports spectacular. I saw him on Gilligan's Island. I saw him on Scooby-Doo. Believe it or not, my high school basketball coach, Bob Albertson, played sweet Georgia Brown before every game for us to warm up. Thankfully, we didn't attempt the magic circle. You'll be glad to know, Lou. But that's how much a part of American culture the Globetrotters were. Well, I thought I knew about the Globetrotters. But when I started working on this book over and over, I would find something that I'd like to slap myself upside the head and say, man, I had no idea. I had no idea about this. I had no idea about that. So let me give you some of those I had no idea about. To start with, forget about Harlem. They're not from Harlem. They've never been from Harlem. They have nothing to do with Harlem. Well, talk about why are they called the Harlem Globetrotters. They're from Chicago. They started on the south side of Chicago. I had no idea how old this organization is. We're going to get sweet-looted. Tell us about that. The origin story. He lived it personally. But they started in the late 1920s. They're over 90 years old as an organization. So that was number two. While they started, now we do have to go to Harlem. Because really, the impotence came from Harlem. In 1921 in Harlem, they opened the Renaissance Ballroom, a fabulous dance hall, concert hall, every great musician in the country, Louis Armstrong, Bessie Smith, they'd all come to the Renaissance. And believe it or not, they had a basketball team. The Harlem wins. Great story. They became the big rival of the Globetrotters. So Chicago, Second City, they're always trying to catch up to New York. Chicago said, we can do this too. So in 1927 on the south side, they opened the Savoy Ballroom. And the owner of the Savoy said, we want a basketball team too. And they formed the Savoy Big Five. And we have a slide showing you that team. So they hired a coach named Hudson, Dick Hudson. And they said, go find a team. And it was obvious we're defining because these guys that you see on the screen had played together, they grew up together, they went to full when the Phillips High School together, they played on American Legion team together. And they became the Savoy Big Five. There's some important people to see in this picture. The big guy on the left, Inman Jackson, we'll talk about him, became the first great showman of the Globetrotters. Do other people, Randolph Ramsey and Tommy Brookins, I'm going to talk about them. Wait, Lou, is that you? Are you in the middle? Beer, is that COVID beer? It's got me all mixed up. So the boy played their first season and halfway through the season, Brookins, Ramsey, and let's write, I'll let the team dispute over money. It's not familiar to the sports teams today. And Tommy Brookins went out and started his own team called Wait for it. Tommy Brookins, Globetrotters, two words. And they decided we want to make some money playing basketball. To do that, we got to get out of Chicago. But put yourself in their shoes. It's 1928, 1929, our five black guys gonna book games in Michigan, in Wisconsin, in Illinois, in these small farming towns that were pretty much all white. So they needed a booking agent who was white. And they found the perfect guy, Abe Zaperstein. And let's show the next slide. Abe Zaperstein, we can get the next slide. He's the short guy on the left. He was a young guy was Jewish immigrant, moved to the US when he was five, he was five foot three, more high water pans than the vendors everywhere he went, love sports. And he had done some booking for Negro League All Star games. So Tommy Brookins hired him as a booking agent to book games for them in these small Midwestern towns. Very soon, Abe ended up taking over the team. And it became his team. You'll notice in this picture, it says New York. But if we can show the next picture, you'll see in Jackson, the first showman. And now it says Harlem Globetrotters. Why Harlem? Abe wanted to make sure that everybody, white people in these little towns in the Midwest understood who was coming to town to play. And Harlem was like a neon sign. This is a black team that's going to show up in your little town. They're going to play the local team from the break factory or the teachers college. And they're probably going to kick their butts. But we want you to know that. We want you to know what you're getting into before it ever starts. Well, they formed this team. And now go back in time. We're talking about five African American ball players and five foot three, Abe's upper steam, driving through the Midwest in Abe's ramshackle model T Ford, how they all even fit in the car. I don't know. In the dead of winter, minus 20 degrees, they played seven days a week. And twice on Sunday, they played 150 games a year. And they traveled to towns that basically nobody else would play these little one stop town whistle stop towns all over Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota. Early on, within the first two years, they started developing the ball handling that became now known as the show. Why did they do that? First of all, they were tired. They've been playing seven days a week twice on Sunday. So they would stop the game and start whipping the ball around and passing around. They got to take a blow. They got to take a break. Second reason, they wanted to get invited back. And they knew if they beat the local team by 30 points and humiliated, but nobody would invite them back. So what they started doing is they get 10 points ahead and they put on the show. The crowd would love it. The local team would get a chance to make a comeback. The Trotters would win by five points and get invited back over and over and over. They made the same circuit year after year after year. So that's how the show developed. For the first 10 12 years, they were really wondering in the wilderness all through the Midwest. They slowly worked their way into Minnesota, into the Dakotas, into Washington State. They've made it up to Canada to Vancouver, Oregon. Basically, the winds were dominant in the East, and the Globetrotters own the West, the Midwest and the Pacific Coast. Their first big break was in 1940. They won the World Pro Tournament in Chicago. They beat the Wrens, their big rival to win the title and became the World Championship World Champion professional team. One thing I did not know, I had no idea by the late 1940s, the Harlem Globetrotters were the best basketball team in the world are none. They regularly beat the best white teams, the most famous games in Globetrotter history, 1948, 1949. They beat the Minneapolis Lakers, the best team in the NBA, with their six foot 10 superstar, George Miken. The first year, they won by two points. People thought it was a fluke. The next year, they humiliated the Lakers, they put on the show. They didn't just beat them, they danced on the Lakers' graves. And the very next season, the NBA integrated. There's a direct connection. The first black bad player to sign an NBA contract was the star center of the Globetrotters, Sweetwater Clifton, who signed with the Knicks. The first year, that same year, 1950, they made their first overseas tour. We have a slide in Vienna, Austria, from 1950. They went to France, they went to Portugal, they went to England, they went to Italy. They were a phenomenon. They were mobbed everywhere they went. People, if we can show the next slide, 7,000 people set out in a rainstorm to watch Marcus Haynes dribbling, holding up an umbrella. They sold out Wimbley Stadium in London five nights in a row. Thousands of people would show up to watch and practice everywhere they went. They were treated like royalty, because no one had ever seen this combination of athleticism and showmanship. It was a brand new thing. By 1952, they were traveling around the world. The State Department had become their booking agent, and we're going to talk about that later. I would argue by the mid fifties, any of the most popular sports franchise in the world, not just basketball, across the board, they were played when they showed up in South America, there would be riots at soccer stadiums to watch them play. They played in front of kings, queens, hopes of even dictators. They played in front of Eva and Juan Perrone, who guess what adopted Sweet Georgia Brown as the theme song for their national team. But here is the great contradiction that runs throughout the Globetrotters history. They were treated like royalty in Paris and Rome and put up in the great best hotels. And when they got back home to America, they were just like any other African Americans in the 1950s. They couldn't order a burger. They couldn't stay in a hotel. They couldn't buy a house where they wanted to live. As soon as the horns sounded, and the lights were turned off in the arena, Jim Crow was waiting for him outside. And that same contradiction haunts us today in this country in terms of how athletes, black athletes are treated once the game is over and they're out on the street. So that's a sweeping overview of this 90 year history. And now we're going to delve into the personal histories of each of the players here with us tonight. But Dima, let's start with you. Tell us your story. Why'd you want to be a Globetrotter? What inspired you? And what was it like once you became one? Well, growing up, I always wanted to play professional basketball. You know, so after I graduated from Temple, as you mentioned, I played overseas for two years, and I got back to Philadelphia where I was living. And one of the one of the red for the Globetrotters asked me to try out. And at the time, I hadn't I had no idea a woman had ever played for the team, because there had been such a large gap. So you know, I get to the try out and things work out. And I, you know, Sweet Lou was there. You know, I did pretty well. He's like, you go sit over there and talk to you later. And it was like one of the best days, you know, it was one of the most encouraging things, because I had already been playing, you know, pro for for so long, but not where I wanted to play. I wanted to play, you know, in the highest league in the United States. So for me to, you know, get the eye of Sweet Lou Dunbar, and you know, he told me to go sit down. And I had an interview after that. And, you know, once I started to really research myself into the Globetrotters, I started to realize what a big deal it actually was that I was going to be able to be a part of the team, because there hadn't been a woman in so long. And for them to think I fit the bill, you know, to represent women from that moment forward, it meant so much to me. And then also what we do offer the board, we're ambassadors of goodwill. So it wasn't like, no, they I get to play basketball for a living, but I also get to go to community centers. And I got also get to go to children's hospitals and do all this different community service that I was already passionate about before becoming a Globetrotter. So I felt like it just encompassed everything that I was about, not only as a basketball player, but as a person. And to this day, Well, you were one of the pioneers, but the first female Globetrotter was Lynette Woodard, who I think we have a photograph of her as well. Was she an inspiration to you or a role model for you is one question. And then how do you think you're a role model and can inspire young women today? Absolutely. I mean, Lynette, she's she's the bar. You know how people say set the bar? That's her. And she said it really high. Not only on the court, but she was she was just a great person. She did really well in school. You know, so I'm really just trying to keep that torch lit that that Lynette lit for all of us, you know, years back, and you know, just make her proud. And every day I get to go on the court and represent women. I'm like, I'm the only female there. So there's always a spotlight on me. So, you know, I think it's a big responsibility, but it's a positive one that I, you know, I love. And at the end of games, I have little girls coming up to me and their parents coming up to me and thanking me for being a good role model, little boys coming up to me and they're like, Oh, I hope I'm as good as you when I, you know, when I grow up, you know, it makes me feel like they see me as not just a female player, but as a player, you know, that's the respect that women in sports, you know, that's where we want to get. By the way, you mentioned sweet Lou telling you to sit up. I really wish everybody out there could come one day to globetrotter training camp. An amazing experience because it looks like a regular training camp. In some respects, people are doing shooting drills and dribbling drills and pick and roll. And then sweet Lou blows a whistle and suddenly people are spinning the ball and go behind the back and practicing the magic circle. So again, it's that combination of regular basketball skills and showmanship that makes them so special. Cool. Chris, handles same question to you. What was it that you idolized and grown up? What was it about the globetrotters that you idolized and why did you, why was it part of your dream to become one? Well, ironically, I never want to do anything else in life. I saw the Harlem Globetrotters on the cartoon. I saw him on Scooby-Doo and I saw, I watched him on the cartoons. As a matter of fact, coach sweet Lou played a character named Gizmo when the character and the cartoons where he would pull these gadgets out of his afro and I was mesmerized. It was my introduction to basketball. I picked up a basketball and never put it back down. So I never had another goal or dream besides being a globetrotter. It was my lifelong dream. So I had a good college career, what have you, and I sent the Harlem Globetrotters a tape and they were interested. But at the last second, it didn't work out. So I worked the avenues and I was in this world's best dribbler contest with Nike. And I won the entire competition, got a perfect score, all tens, crowd, won the whole competition. And Nike said they wanted to do commercials. I did my very first commercial with Nike. It was called Freestyle. And the commercial became this phenomenon. As a matter of fact, it's featured in the Smithsonian African American Museum on the seventh floor. And the commercial won all of these awards. And I signed this contract and did all of these amazing commercials. LeBron James very first commercial. It made a name for myself as a dribbler. And eventually the Harlem Globetrotters came looking for me. I signed a contract and fulfilled my dream and been with him ever since. And that's why it's so important to tell kids that your dreams are attainable with hard work and doing the right things. And I'm such a living testimony to that. And to tell adults alike, you know, whatever your dreams are, it's never too late to be great. It's never too late to go after your goals and go after your dreams. And I'm just honored to be part of such an iconic organization. Talk about how you became a dribbler. And again, there is a long legacy of fantastic dribblers going back to Marcus Haines, actually going back to one Poland even before that. But how did that come about? Yeah, well, for me, I wanted to be a Harlem Globetrotter since I was a kid. So it was important for me to learn from the best or I would study the history. I would study the great dribblers, Runk Pullins. Of course, the great Marcus Haines, who I had an opportunity to meet with several times and talk to several times. And he gave me some amazing advice. I loved the picture of him dribbling and niece overseas with the umbrella. And just all of the great footage of the great Marcus Haines. So I wouldn't try to perfect their routines. And then, of course, the great Craig Neil, who ended up being one of my mentors, but just such a great friend and such an infectious person. So I studied all of these greats and even the ones that weren't on the Harlem Globetrotters, you know, I would study every video I could. And then I would try to have my own uniqueness. I love what Marcus did because, you know, there were no routines with Marcus. He would go down there and say, take the ball. And there was a chance, you know, that second game with the Lakers when both starting guards were trying to steal the ball and he went into that dribbling routine. It kind of transcends sports. So I studied the greatest and had a chance to learn from some of the greatest being Marcus Haines and Curly Neil. And I studied them all the way up to the Curly Blues and the dribblers, Arnold A. Tring, Bernard, who was a great friend of mine, I studied the dribblers throughout the Ares, Hollywood. All of these great dribblers, I just continue to watch them and follow them. Coach Jimmy Blacklaw, amazing dribbler. So to be great, you got to follow the greats, you got to learn from the greats and that's what I tried to do. So we're going to come back around in a few minutes to have you talk about how you think Globetrotters, Globetrotters have influenced basketball style and we can go back and talk about Marcus. Javier Marcus tell the story about dribbling out the fourth quarter in Mexico. They were playing it, they were playing it, altitude, half the guys were sick, three of them found, there were like four players left and he just said, Jimmy the ball and there was a 24 second play. He just dribbled out the whole fourth quarter while everybody else lay down on the ground because they were sick. Come and get it with his line. Yes. Reed Liu, tell us your story man, I mean you got this, you got an arc of almost half of the history of the Globetrotters but what made you seek that dream? Well, for me, I was drafted by Philadelphia, the 76ers and we never came to terms when I came out of the University of Houston. And so I opted to go to Europe. I went to Italy first and then they were looking for a center. I wasn't really a center. You know, I became a point guard at one point in my career. So I played guard and forward mostly. But so we transferred, they had a seven footer in Switzerland and Lugano, Switzerland. So we changed spots. So I played for this team called Federale and Lugano, Switzerland, where we won the Swiss championship and we got a chance to play in the European Cup. And after they finally paid me in June, I came back to Houston and I signed the free agent contract with the Houston Rockets. And actually I went to the summer pro league in Los Angeles with the Houston Rockets. And they played me sparingly. But I thought when they played my did pretty good. And doing that particular time, someone from the Globetrotter saw me playing and invited me to training camp. And I went to training camp. And the rest is pretty much history. How did you become a showman? Because I mean, we talk about, you know, Ann was talking about the tradition of dribblers, but you're carrying them the weight on your shoulders of the whole organization. How did you evolve into a showman? Well, you know, I was always pretty much jokes to I guess, you know, I would love to have fun. We always tell those jokes and so have. And you know, I had the opportunity to play with one of the greats. My first year I played with MeloLog Lemon. And it's funny that what I used to do, I had the young legs, so they would give me the first dunk of the game. Then they said, you have to go sit down. Now sit out for the rest of the game and watch. So I had the opportunity to watch this man at work every night. All the things he got was able to do. And he was a guy who perfected everything. The hook shot. Oh, my goodness. I thought I was pretty good. But this man, he was phenomenal. And so that's how I got to being a showman. Actually, we was in San Pablo, Brazil. And Mel Davis used to do the third quarter. And I was with Geese Osby at this particular time. This was my second year. And so what happened, Mel Davis got hurt. And Marcus Haines looked at me and said, Lou, get in there. And that was my start. Seriously, that's what he told me. He said, Lou, get in there. And so that's how I started down in Brazil. That was my first glimpse of being a showman in the third quarter. And I mean, eventually you became, you had a showman for your own team. And eventually I kind of combined my showmanship with Metal Lock and Geese, because Geese was something like Goose Tatum. You never knew what he was going to do. And I love that about Geese. You know, we used to be playing. Also, we may just disappear. He's gone somewhere and he come back with somebody's hand on with the latest pressure. Just never knew. And so, you know, the surprise element of being a showman is always great. But I think the biggest thing I learned from those guys is that you have to know what everybody's doing in that arena to make your show good. And I did learn that from Geese and Metal Lock. And I had the opportunity to play another guy. Twiggy, Sam was a pretty good showman as well. Right? He had an afro too. He could have been. He wasn't quite as big as me either. So I mentioned in my little run through about the contradiction in terms of race, where they would be treated like royalty overseas and treated. Jim Crow would hit him in the face when they came home. Lou, you when you came on board, a lot of that kind of era was still happening. We still got plenty of problems today. But talk some about the kind of racial barriers that the Globetrotters faced. Maybe that you personally face are the stories you heard about from that Harrison or some of the other old timers. And then also how you think the Globetrotters worked through some of those barriers. Well, as you said, as you see how things are today in this country. And and another thing that you said that we went over seeing they were treated as royalties like kings, you know, because not not because the color of their skin, but what they did and who they were. And come you come back home, we were unable. They were unable to go to restaurants and eat. And all they did was go and put smiles on people's faces every night as you say at seven days a week, eight days on twice on Sundays, you know, and they were unable to stand the hotels. They had to travel sometimes. As you mentioned in your book, a couple hundred miles to find a boarding house to sleep in, because they would not let them stay in the hotel, the black boarding house, excuse me, the black boarding house to sleep in. And then they had to stay with families, you know, and nobody would feed them. There was no restaurant would feed them. And when they would feed them, they had to go around to the back and get food out of the back. And you know, there was no modes of transportation for them. And it was so difficult. And in the south, you had to play two games, you know, they had to play a game for the white crowd first, and then you had to go across the tracks. Then you played for a black crowd, you know, and and this carried on for a long time. And also at one particular time, you know, Texas who tells this story about what they taught this chimpanzee how to bowl. Judy, the bowling chimp, Jacksonville one, got him out of bold, and they said that he had the largest suite in the hotel, and they would not let the globe trials in the hotel. So imagine that. Yeah, text Harrison used to tell that story. They showed up in Jacksonville, Florida. We're probably talking 1955. They go to the hotel, they won't let them in. They say we don't we don't serve, you know, we don't know blacks can stay here. The next morning, text picks up the newspaper and there's a story about Judy, the bowling chimp, stayed in that very hotel. And as he said, they gave Judy the best suite in the house and all the banana she could eat. Yeah, and they wouldn't even let us stay here. Yeah, that showed them. That's true. On the flip side of that, how do you feel like the globetrotters helped to break down racial barriers between blacks and whites? You know, it's amazing because, like I said, we displayed for the white artists and the black artists. And then once they integrate those audience and guys like Geese Osby, I was amazed by the things Geese would do, you know, with white people, you know, you say, oh, man, Geese doing that, you know, how you get the feeling he's doing that. And I think Geese is one of the guys who really helped break it down. And not Geese, Marcus, because when they used to go take a white lady's purse, come out to the floor, you know, you know, you could probably get hung for that. A lot of places taking a white lady's purse, you know, you just hate them was pulling that kind of thing in the 1940s where guys on the team were saying, we're going to all get killed, going up in the stand. And then you have a pair of panties in his back by pulling out like he taking it off this woman and sort of running around the court with them. They're going, not going to cover it. We're going to get out here if we get out of here alive. And what he does, I think what you're saying is there is a way that white audiences because of the club traders begin to see black athletes different and hopefully black people in general in a different way than maybe I mean, I've heard older, older players talk about they would show up and a little white kid would come up and rub their skin to see if the color came off because they they never seen black players before. Yeah, it's amazing, man, other things you can hear and you know, they had to you know, they had to hear and when you know, small gyms and you know, people doing the racial slurs that you know, small gym, you know, they had to hear them, you know, and just think what these guys did. They were away from their families the whole time and they were just going around making people happy and they was treated at the worst of all the people in the world. They treated the worst, you know, and I've come across this young lady that she has a website but it says because of them, we can. I don't know if you've seen it but go there and check it out and that's the same thing because of those guys we can now stand Sheridan's highest and these kind of places and we go to these top restaurants and eat because of them. We can. Mm hmm. All right. A long way from a Model T and eating Vienna sausage and sardines going down the road in the middle of the night. Exactly. We're going to shift back to a topic Chris started this on, which is, I mean, we started with Marcus Haynes. But clearly when the Globetrotters beat the Lakers, it wasn't just a black team against the white team. It was two different styles of basketball. I mean, it was black coops against, you know, the Lakers stand around show it throwing chess passes around the around the key and then somebody taking a two-in set shot. How do you feel like the Globetrotters maybe even starting with Marcus influence the style of basketball ultimately influence the way the NBA play ball? Well, I think they transcended the way they play basketball. I think showtime basketball is the way it is still to this day and it has its inception from all the Globetrotters. I mean, I think people don't understand what it meant in 1948. You know, the the the Globetrotters were on 103 game winning streak. But George Michen but not only George Michen Jim Pollard was a six five. He's a Hall of Famer also six five. George Michen was six 10. I mean, these guys were giants. Both of them Hall of Famers. George Michen was the most dominant player of the first half of the century. So they gave they didn't give the Globetrotters a chance. The tallest player on the team was Goose Tatum. He was only six three and a half. So they didn't have a chance in the eyes of these people. But I mean, almost I mean, it's almost merges the two because if you look what it meant for Joe Lewis to beat Max Schmeling, I think the same impact for the Globetrotters to beat the Lakers in 48 was just as relevant. And I remember Marcus Haines telling me that the whole south side of Chicago came out to the game. I mean, they had almost just under 18,000 people in this arena. So I mean, you see the draw, first of all, of what, you know, black players could do. But the bookies didn't give them a chance. They had a nine point. They were supposed to lose by nine points, you know, by every bookie. Every sports writer went against them. No one thought they had a chance. And Marcus tells me to stay. I mean, they're doing different accounts. But in the fourth quarter, Marcus says he dribbled. He found Erma Robinson. He shoots the shots in the air. The time goes out. Splash, the game is over. And the Globetrotters win. Now, you know, you hear the tales now. They say it was 50 feet away. Marcus told me it was about, like, you know, today's three-pointers. But, you know, he shot that one. A lot of them considered a fluke. People said that was a fluke. It'll never happen again. Absolutely. The Globetrotters won the next year and did the show. It was like, when the NBA's best team loses two years in a row to a team that's considered clowns, maybe it's time to integrate the league. Absolutely. Who played in that game? The very first one to sign, Nat Sweetwater-Clifton. And, you know, Nat Sweetwater-Clifton's the owner of the Knicks said, listen, if I can't have him, then I'm taking my team and leaving the league. So, I mean, even the first three, Chuck Cooper, Earl Lloyd, all of them were all in Globetrotters. So that's number one. That was the importance. But just what it means internationally, the Globetrotters left in 1950 and introduced basketball all over the world. If you look at the NBA today, it's such an iconic and worldly sport. Half of the NBA is populated from people all over the world. And the Globetrotters introduced basketball all over the globe when no one had. So not only did they transcend basketball, but they transcended sports when they crossed the Atlantic. David Stern, the late, great commissioner of the NBA had a fantastic quote. He said, I traveled the world for the NBA for 35 years. Every country I went to, when I said basketball, they say Harlem Globetrotters. But that's who introduced the game. And I firmly believe, Boost Hadam was Michael Jordan 40 years before Michael Jordan. He was the first true international superstar in basketball as a brand. I mean, he was known all over the world as the Clown Prince of basketball. And when you look at those times, then when you look at those times, the NBA games, they weren't populated. There weren't 20,000 people going to the garden to see the Knicks versus the Warriors. They were going to see the Globetrotters. Globetrotters would play in those games first to make all the people come to the NBA games. So they actually carried the NBA those first years. Yeah. Right. The Globetrotters, I think the Globetrotters, I don't think the NBA would have survived without the Globetrotters. Those double headers that the Globetrotters played kept them afloat. And the great Bob Coosie said, we used to have the Globetrotters play the first game and we play the second game, but everybody left. So they started having the Globetrotters play the high of the feature game so the crowd would stay around. All right, let's shift back to Fatima here to talk more about women's basketball. If Magic Johnson and Showtime came as a direct link back to Marcus Haynes and the Globetrotters, how do you think that Globetrotters have influenced the role of the Globetrotters and influenced women's basketball, the WNBA, and again, back to more of your role as inspiring young women? Right. Yeah, just to piggyback off of what Handels was saying, I think that for basketball in general, the Globetrotters bring something that people had never seen before. That level of creativity kind of sparks people to be a little bit more creative with the ball and put on a show. And I think even for women, being a Harlem Globetrotter kind of shows your level of skill because just anyone can be a Harlem Globetrotter. And I think with Lynette Wooder, it really put a spotlight on women and the fact that there are some really good women's players out there. And I think it kind of opened people's eyes. And then as time went on, the platform for women to play sports or play basketball at least got wider. So the WNBA came around, a lot more overseas jobs came around for women. And I think what it really did was just highlighted the fact that, hey, there are some really good women's players out there and we got to see them, you know. Well, let me ask you a question. One time I was talking to Tex Harrison and he said, there are a whole lot of great basketball players in the country who may not be able to stick in the NBA, but it takes a special kind of personality to be a Harlem Globetrotter. You got to have the basketball skills, but what kind of person does it take to be successful as a Globetrotter? Especially if a woman won a very few who's ever been on the team. Yeah, well, I'll tell you one thing, you got to have really nice thick skin. Because, you know, for me, it was always very important for me to not only be on the Globetrotters, but to make sure people know that I belonged on the Globetrotters. And I wasn't a gimmick or I wasn't, you know, just there to say that, oh, we have a female player, but I wanted people to know that I belong on the court, you know, with everyone who is here. So I think, like you said, you got to be a good basketball player. You have to have a great sense of humor. You have to have, I think, a kind, compassionate heart because we'll do a lot of things for other people. We'll do a lot of things for kids. We'll do a lot of things for families. So those are some of the things I think that you really have to be passionate about to make it with the Harlem Globetrotters. Man, let me tell you, you know, there have been some great basketball players come out for the Harlem Globetrotters, but they couldn't deal with people. And so, you know, there wasn't a perfect fit for the Harlem Globetrotters. You got to be able to deal with people every day. We're humans like everybody else. We get up on the wrong side of the bed, but you'll never know that, being a Harlem Globetrotter, you know, and a lot of people just couldn't do it. And, you know, after 20 years, hi, this young lady, this young lady here, she came and filled the role of what we needed as a female. And speaking back to the first female, couldn't have been nobody else but her. She filled out all the qualification. She's a Olympic gold medalist. She was the captain of the U.S. Olympic team. She was beautiful, and she could play the game. What else do you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I had a player tell me one time, I asked him, is it the kind of thing you can flip a switch? And he said, no, no, no, no. He said, if this is not your personality, if you don't truly love people, you will lose your mind out here because it never stops, you know? It's like you have to be, you have to love people. You have to love working with kids. You have to love going into those children's hospitals and those cancer wards, which I did it a couple of times and that was about all I could handle. But y'all are doing it everywhere you go, you know, every time you're out there. And that's also- We got a question from our audience saying, how do you think it's different playing for the Globetrotters compared to playing in the NBA or the WNBA? Particularly, I think, how is it knowing, for the Washington generals, knowing they're gonna lose? And I don't think they might admit that, but, so how do you think, what is the difference between the NBA and the WNBA and playing for the Globetrotters? Well, I mean, I think, of course, we're all basketball players, but I mean, I think we're playing for the crowd. We're playing to bring joy to the crowd. We're playing for the fans. We are playing to bring people together. Doesn't matter what age, race, ethnicity, we bring people together on the common cause. We bridge the gap through generations. And, you know, and to piggyback on what they said, you know, we're 24 hours of Harlem Globetrotter. Just because the game's over doesn't mean that you're not a Globetrotter. We are, we pride ourselves in not only being great basketball players, but great role models for kids and for people. We're someone that you can bring your kids to the game to look up to that person. And just to TNT's testament, you know, she's very modest. Like, not only is she amazing basketball player, but she was so great that when she wasn't at the game, people would say, well, where is she at? She was so great that she helped to open doors. Like Lynette Woodard opened doors. We hadn't had one for nearly 20 years. And TNT opened doors. And now we have three amazing and beautiful, great female basketball players that are awesome and TNT helped open those doors. So our next topic, I'm gonna switch it around. Our next topic was gonna be talking about overseas, but we're talking about young people. Let's do, let's focus on that. Talk about the role of the influence of the Globetrotters on young people. And this is one difference between the NBA. This is who you guys are. It's not just family entertainment, but going into the schools, bringing school groups in before the games, going into these children's hospitals, every town you go in. Talk about why that is so important and why it's such a part of what the organization is about. This actually kind of simple. This is what we do every day. We go out and we play the game of basketball and we do things to make people happen from eight to eight, blind, crippled and crazy. This is exactly what we do. And it's very important for us to show positivity every time we hit that particular floor. I mean, you know, playing the game of basketball is not always peaches and cream. You go get an elbow here and there, but you can't have that negative attitude being a Globetrotter. You gotta kind of suck it up a little bit, being when you get that elbow and suck it up, because we still wanna portray that positive energy, because, and we also, the only team in the world, after we play for two hours, stand out in that court for 30 minutes and sign autograph for the people. The only team to do that. I mean, there's so many stories about young kids chasing an NBA player out of the dressing room, trying to get an autograph instead of getting a bad word at him, but you guys rope off the court and stand out there and sign whatever people bring. Now, it's brilliant marketing, because they're also going to the merch table to buy something for you to sign, but I've been at those games with my own kids, where they are just starstruck, that they get to go from player to player, not just get some sign, but get a picture taken with them. Talk to them more about that. And then, I don't know if you're still gonna where you bring school groups in before the game and really talk to them about the importance of education and actually go into the schools yourself. Oh yeah, they still don't spend a lot of that because they do the anti-bullying thing. I mean, we do it all. How much you want to do on that? Yeah, I mean, we speak to hundreds of schools every year, but this is what we do. We have ABCs of bullying prevention program. We have a cheer up character for education program. We captivate those kids with our amazing tricks, but most importantly, we send them with a positive message. One, that they can retain the message because we're captivate them and they're learning, not even know they're learning because they're having fun the entire time. So it's really important, especially for me, I always tell kids the importance of education, but most importantly, the important of believing in themselves and that their dreams are attainable. I'm a living testament of it and I can speak from experience. So I mean, I think one of the most gratifying things we do is we speak to kids and some of the best trips I've ever had is visiting children's hospitals. You go there to Brighton, New Year's Day to Brighton. You're a better man than I am, man, that is tough. Yes, yes, and quite frankly, every time I leave, they end up brightening my day. And you see what those tough kids go through every day and it makes you understand and really appreciate yourself and your life and how blessed you truly are. But the uplifting of kids are what we're about. I did one trip like that with Curly Neal along with him. But the amazing thing was, I mean, these are kids with cancer, with IV tubes coming up of everywhere and the way they brightened up when the globetrotters came into that hospital room was just, it was something. But Dima, can you maybe share examples of that or memories of that kind of thing? Yeah, as far as working with kids, I too have gone to many, many of school and talked to the kids and tried to encourage them, talked to them about anti-bullying. For me personally, a lot of times before our show, we'll have the Girl Scouts come in and I'll have hundreds of Girl Scouts in there and I give them a chance to kind of ask me questions and I give them an encouraging word, get a couple of boxes of cookies for the guys so they don't be bothering me. But it's always a great time. I actually got an opportunity to go to a, well, it was sort of a school, but it was a program out here in California where they had kids who had disabilities and they would ride horses for their therapy. And that was like one of my first times riding a horse myself, but just to see their faces. And sometimes you might not think that they're really comprehending what's going on, but by the time I left out of there, I really felt like I made a change and I felt like they really understood and they appreciated it. So just little tidbits of time like that just throughout my career, they just stick out and they mean so much. They mean so much. Well, so we've got a couple more questions coming in from the audience here. One says, is there a movie on the Globetrotters? This is amazing history and such a powerful story. Take your pick, Google this, there were two Hollywood movies made in 1951 and 1954. The Harlem Globetrotters and Go Man Go. And then I got to be part of some, couple of amazing documentaries, go find the team that changed the world and Goose, that team that changed the world was on, PBS, Goose was for ESPN, but you'll see some original video, some of the original video playing in front of Juan and Eva Perron and the National Archives has a whole lot of video as well if you get a chance to tap into them. So we started talking a couple times about the overseas international tours. One of the Globetrotters most famous labels is ambassadors of goodwill. Well, that's in the hospitals, in the schools, but a lot of it is all over the world visiting troops, going into international hotspots, being sent in by the State Department, talk some or all of three of you about your experiences in countries all over the world from Alaska to behind the Iron Curtain. Somebody start us off on that, that world outside of the US and the Globetrotters world. For me, with the troops, especially with for the troops, I think when Manage Action started that when he's on the team, started us going to visit the troops, I thought that was the greatest thing we could ever do because those people sacrificed their lives day in and day out for us, just for us to be safe here in the United States. I think that's the greatest thing and hopefully when this pandemic is over, we'll go right back to doing that. And just for the overseas tours, man, you know what, Dorothy, you said there's no place like home, but when you go to those Latin American countries and they see the Harlem Globetrotters, oh my goodness, they go crazy. They love the Harlem Globetrotters. So for me, those were probably Spain, and those Latin American countries, but people come see the Harlem Globetrotters was some of the greatest times for me. No, Lou, you visited 90 countries, which I can't even wrap my mind. I mean, you know, the team in handles are only 50 or 80, but didn't you get to meet Mandela? Weren't you on that trip? I wasn't one of the guys that met Mandela, but I met Pope John Paul. Pope John Paul. I saw a picture of you meeting Pope John Paul. Yeah, I mean, 124 countries. It's hard to even comprehend that. But Gamer, our handles, any particular story stand out, maybe a small, out-of-the-way place that you weren't even aware of that you show up and people know the Harlem Globetrotters. Well, I got the opportunity to go with the State Department over to Uzbekistan. I had no idea this place existed, but when we got there, they treated us absolutely amazing. And one of the things that stuck out for me was the fact that I had such a big impact on the young ladies there. Because as you can imagine, they may not have all of the rights that we have here in the United States. And it was really mind-opening for them to see a female on such a large platform in a male-dominated sport doing my thing. So I got an opportunity to not only tell them that they can, they can do it, but I got to show them. And those are two different things. Once you get an opportunity to actually show someone, like, listen, I'm here, this is me in the flesh. And if I can do what you can do it. So that meant a lot to me. And that's something that's meant a lot to me even before becoming a Globetrotter. So being a Globetrotter has only amplified my reach in terms of getting that female empowerment message out. Well, Chris, one particular country that stands out in among the dozens that you've been to. Yeah. Well, I think that there's so many different stories that stand out to me. Of course, visiting the troops in Iraq during the war, it was such a gratifying experience and a scary experience. And you really truly get an appreciation of what our troops do for us every single day and the appreciation that you have for them. You kind of think you got a reality of it, but we have no idea what they go through on a daily basis so that we're safe here at home. So the ultimate respect for our troops. And then also, man, you're in so many different places and you see a level of poor in some of these countries that you can only imagine. So you realize how blessed we are, where we are. And some of the poorest people in America, someone in some of these places would kill to be this poor in America. So that's really eye-opening. Some places in China and some places in South America were really eye-opening to me. And then one story that sticks out is being in Puerto Rico, the game was over and we went to go, Coach Lou's laughing already. We had a little after event after the game and we're on our regular clothes and the after event is like on the top floor. And you go up to the top and it's a roof. And I see some of my teammates overlooking, looking at the ocean and I come and I got on some brand new jeans, a nice shirt and some shoes and I go up and I see somebody on the right. And I say, you know, I look at my teammate and I go to walk over to my teammate and the people on the right of me try to stop me. Like, hey, hold on, it was too late. I walked right into a pool. Totally cold. Felt to the bottom of a pool and just sat at the bottom of the pool. Like, I don't believe I just fell into this pool. But in pure globe, trying to fashion, I came up out of the water, soaking wet doing my signature handles dance. Everybody laughs. This is a perfect segue. We're sort of winding things up. But I said at the very beginning, you can't talk about the Globetrotters without fun. We've talked about some really serious stuff, some really important stuff, but let's just spend the last few minutes, just funny stories like that. Things where you pull the prank on teammates, something happened with fans in the stand, a gag that went wrong, just any other. And one of the things I realized, following the Globetrotters around, these are just funny people, you know? Like, they're great basketball players, but they're not making this stuff up. They're just funny, funny people all the time. Any particular memories that stand out? Well, for me, we were in Sydney, Australia, and Twiggy Sanders, myself and Twiggy Sanders was doing the show, and Twiggy had this ring where he would go, when the general would go to the fire line, he would pull his pants down. He would go to pull the kids' pants down. And so Twiggy would always put on an extra set of shorts up under his shirt, because he would turn around and start laughing. And so he did it just one particular day, and he pulled his kids' shorts down. He turned around, started laughing, he pulled his hand over his eyes, he got pulled his shorts down, and he didn't have that second pair of shorts on. And Tex was the coach. Tex got off the bitch, ran out in the building, he was laughing so hard. I know for no, let me interject. The most famous gag of Reem in the whole history of the good judges is Confetti in the Bucket, which, y'all guys tried to pull that on me one time, and I caught on to it. But any particular stories were that, where it just, I don't know, went haywire, went, got really crazy in terms as well. Well, at this particular time, it didn't go haywire, but we had traveled to us through a snow storm, and got to Chattanooga, Tennessee, we were playing Chattanooga, Tennessee. And that wasn't that many people in the building, they had an upper level, and I'm serious, might have been a hundred people in the building, may have been. And you could hear this guy upstairs, heckling me the whole night, hey, 41, hey, 41. So when we got that bucket time to give the bucket of water, we went up the stairs, and he was introduced to the water, not to Confetti. That was a great day for him. But Dima, Chris, did you have any funny stories to send? One of the cool and slash funny stories that I actually got an opportunity to go to the White House when Obama was in office, and I got to, we got to shoot, shoot free throws and stuff with them. And there was a lot of kids there, it was during Easter, it was their Easter egg roll. So we get up there and the rules are, if you make your free throw, the kids have to do a push up. But if you miss your free throw, then you have to do the push up. So we all get up there and we're shooting, thank God I made mine. So Obama gets up there and he goes to shoot his free throw when he misses it. And we're like, oh, and you don't really have to do a push up. But he's good sport, he knocked his push ups down. The kids got an absolute kick out of that. And I thought that was awesome, just for them to see him as a person, that. Yeah, it was cool. This funny story comes to mind. Well, there's so many. And every day on tour with these two, there's a funny story that happens every day. And Coach Lew is a walking jokester, 24 hours a day. But when I first started going into the showman role, like the rest of the legends, you know, Coach Sweet Lew always says, you don't know how to throw that water. I always practice trying to throw the water and the fatty buckets. And when I was brand new, I was trying to always coach Sweet Lew and show you how you throw the bucket. You got to come across. So you're not wetting one area, you're wetting all of these people. So I'm trying to, Oh, wow. Yeah, I'm trying to impress Coach Sweet Lew. And I go to throw the bucket and I hit the referee in the face with the bucket. And Coach Sweet Lew and Tex Harrison was on the bench. Tex always laughed. Tex was, oh! He's been up in the air laughing. So, you know, always something perfect. So we're going to try to wrap things up here and we covered a whole lot of ground. If you had to sort of put a capper on what you see, I mean, you guys have been shut down for the whole pandemic, you know, you're furloughed, no arenas. But we've got a lot of problems in this country. We got a pandemic, we got a very divided country. We've got a lot of racial issues that still need to be worked through. Once you get back out there, what would you say if you could sort of summarize it? What do you see as the role of the Harlem Globetrotters in trying to heal these divides that we have in this country or in the world altogether? And if every re-try to just take a brief turn and then we'll wrap it up here. I think for the Globetrotters, and we've always been about uniting people, you know, and I think going forward, we're going to continue that and try to stay consistent with that and just encouraging people to be united, get to know someone that maybe you didn't know. You know, once you see someone as a person, usually, you know, that kind of softens your outlook on them anyway. So I think that we're just going to stay on that and just try to get people united, you know, because that's what we need right now. Like you said, we're separated, and we need to come together. We need to find common ground, because we're all much more similar than we are different, you know? And so I think once we realize that, we'll be in a much better place. Chris? Well, I think our organization is needed now more than ever. It's a time to unite. I mean, we've been, we're more divided than we've ever been in my lifetime and a lot of our lifetimes. And it's a time for people to start to come together in unity and still to this day. I mean, it amazes me. We go to some, I've been to every single state in over 80 countries around the world. And I truly believe every night we change the world. We bring people together all over the world. And I never forget, we were in a remote part of the United States. And the line was long. And someone that came up to me and said, I don't think you know what you're doing. I said, excuse me? He said, well, half of these people never seen, and this is recently, by the way, half of these people never had interaction or seen black people before. And I'm watching them laugh the entire time and have such a great time and stand in line for hours for your autograph. And you're doing more than you even know. And I think it's important when people see, and that's why diversity is so important. Because you see that we are positive role models and positive people. And a lot of times, when you look at the negative images of black people in the media, and you've never had opportunity to meet someone black, you may get a perception or a stereotype of what black is. And when you finally get to these remote places and you see these people and you understand, wow, they're just like me. I think we break down so many barriers in so many different places. And right now, we're more important than we ever were. We really get the final word, brothers. You know, we had a rough 2020. And here in Texas, 2021 to stop too bad with the freezing weather, you know. And so it's been tough all around the world and the country with the pandemic. And what we do is we come into people's hometowns. We're like Santa Claus, we come around once a year and we put smiles on people faces. And I think that's what we got to do. I hope we want to make the end of 2021 a better time for everybody to, as those two said, we got to bring everybody back together. And you just got to remember, a smile is the same all over the world. We got to put smiles back on these people faces. I mean, I know it's been tough. I mean, it's been tough for a lot of people. But you know, as we always say, you come see the Harlem Globetrotters, we're gonna make you forget your everyday frustrations. We're gonna give you two hours of great fun and basketball for the whole world. So I look forward to coming back and putting smiles on people faces. Well said. So I want to thank all of you for being here on this audience that will be posted on the National Archives website. So tell your friends, tell your family, come watch it later. And I hope that very soon, the Globetrotters are back out on the road coming to a town near you. It's been great getting to know a little bit, getting to know Fatima and Chris and getting to see Malphren, sweet Lou again. So I want to appreciate everybody and that book that he wrote, I highly recommend it. He's a great writer. It's been a great evening. Thank you for coming and have a great weekend. All right, good talking. Good to see you. All right.