Florida A&M's Meadowlark Lemon Dies at Age 83

TAMPA BAY, Florida -- Every year starting in the 1960s all the way through today the Harlem Globetrotters have played an annual basketball game in the Tampa Bay area. In the early days they came to a sold out Curtis Hixon Hall in Tampa or the Bay Front Arena in St. Petersburg.

The team was led by Florida A&M star, George Meadowlark Lemon one of the greatest basketball players of all time. He passed away on Sunday at his home in Scottsdale, Arizona at the age of 83. He was the heart and soul of the most popular basketball team in the world, the Harlem Globetrotters.

Lemon was a gifted forward who had an amazing ability to pass the ball and a half court hook shot that he could hit almost on command. He was a master showman and a born entertainer. He was at his best setting other players up.

Today in the New York Times reported that Lemon and the Trotters played in Rome before the pope; they played in Moscow during the Cold War before the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev. In the United States, they played in small towns and big cities, in Madison Square Garden, in high school gyms, in cleared-out auditoriums even on the floor of a drained swimming pool. They performed their most entertaining ball-handling tricks, accompanied by their signature tune Sweet Georgia Brown, on The Ed Sullivan Show.

They played a total of over 16,000 games in over 100 countries. They remain the best known basketball team in the world and Lemon was a big reason why.



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