Who Are The Harlem Globetrotters? By Billy Bonds The Harlem Globetrotters are a basketball team that combines athleticism and comedy to create one of the best-known sports entertainment franchises in the world. Created by Abe Saperstein in 1927 in Chicago, Illinois, the team adopted the name Harlem because of its connotations as a leading African-American community. Over the years it has toured over 118 countries, playing more than 20,000 exhibition games, mostly against deliberately ineffective opposition like the Washington Generals (1953–1995) and the New York Nationals (1995–present).
There is no clear consensus as to the very beginnings of the Globetrotters. The official history contains several facts which are clearly untrue, such as the team being organized in 1926 in the Savoy Ballroom, which opened in 1927. What is clear is that the genesis of the Globetrotters takes place in the South Side of Chicago in the 1920s, where all the original players grew up. Most, if not all of the original players attended Wendell Phillips High School. When the Savoy Ballroom opened in November of 1927, one of the premier attractions was the Savoy Big Five, a basketball team that played exhibitions before dances.
In 1928, several players left the team in a dispute over bringing other players who had left the team back. That fall, several players led by Tommy Brookins formed a team called the "Globe Trotters" which would tour Southern Illinois that winter. A white man named Abe Saperstein became involved with the team, though to exactly what extent is unclear. In any event, by 1929 Saperstein was touring Illinois and Iowa with his basketball team, called the "New York Harlem Globe Trotters". Saperstein decided to pick Harlem as their home city since Harlem was considered the center of African-American culture at the time, and an out of town team name would give the team more of a mystique. After four decades of existence, the Globetrotters played their first "home" game in Harlem in 1968.
The first star player of those early Globe Trotters (the
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