LEMON, Meadow George ("Meadowlark")

(b. 25 April 1932 in Wilmington, North Carolina), professional basketball player for the Harlem Globetrotters, who also became an actor, musician, speaker, and minister.

Lemon was interested in athletics from a young age. At age eleven he viewed a newsreel about the Harlem Globetrotters. Inspired, Lemon dreamed of joining the squad and began foraging for materials to practice his craft. He found a coat hanger and bent it into a circle to create a homemade basketball rim. Cutting the bottom from an onion sack, he formed his net, and made a basketball out of a condensed milk can. Using rope and nails he made a goal and began practicing. Once introduced to regulation equipment, Lemon excelled in both basketball and football at Wilmington High School, earning All-State honors, and he attended Florida A&M University.

Lemon was invited to try out with the Globetrotters in 1952 after writing the front office to request an opportunity. "Goose" Tatum encouraged the young player and predicted he would become a great addition to the team. The Globetrotter "Clown Prince" of basketball directs comedy routines and manages the pace of the game, almost like a director on the floor. Lemon was ideal for the role, and his distinctive voice could be heard from almost any seat in a gym or arena. After a stint in the U.S. Army between 1952 and 1954, Lemon signed a contract and was assigned to the Globetrotters developmental team, the Kansas City Stars. He served as an understudy to "Rookie" Brown on a southern tour, and his name was changed to "Meadowlark."

When Tatum left the team in the mid-1950s, Lemon was given a tryout to fulfill the role of Clown Prince. He was assigned to the position permanently in 1958 and served the team in that capacity for twenty years. His on-court antics included half-court hook shots and no-look, wraparound passes leading to slam dunks. Lemon adroitly managed passes generated behind his back, off his head, and off the back of one leg. His ability to turn a referee into a foil for his wit was unsurpassed. Sometimes Lemon would hide basketballs under his jersey or douse referees with water. When he threatened spectators with water, he would instead shower them with buckets of confetti. Lemon also enjoyed maneuvering a basketball attached to the end of a long elastic band and shooting a ball that wobbled in the air.

Globetrotter travel expanded shortly after Lemon joined the team, and the squad became a symbol of U.S. patriotic entertainment. In 1957 the Globetrotters began annual performances at Air Force bases and on naval aircraft carriers, in addition to gymnasiums around the world. The players even performed on Christmas day. In 1960 the Globetrotters performed a series of shows in the Soviet Union during the Cold War. U.S. diplomats and government officials worked with team officials to plan these events. Lemon's children recall Henry Kissinger calling Meadowlark at home to discuss upcoming journeys.

Lemon's popularity merged with growing television coverage. He starred in most of the Globetrotter appearances on the American Broadcasting Companies' (ABC) Wide World of Sports during the 1970s. He was also portrayed in the Saturday morning animated show The Harlem Globetrotters in 1970 and 1971. In 1972 he starred in The Harlem Globetrotters Popcorn Machine, a one-hour musical-variety TV series. During the 1971 season he became the team's player-coach and began acting as a spokesman for the organization. Lemon and his teammates gathered at the White House on 6 December 1974, when President Gerald R. Ford gave the Globetrotters a special Presidential Citation for giving millions of people "the priceless gifts of love and laughter" in addition to basketball. In 1978 a nationwide poll named Lemon the fourth most popular personality in the United States (after John Wayne, Alan Alda, and Bob Hope). That same year Lemon left the Globe-trotters to pursue a career in Hollywood.

Lemon appeared in the television series Alice (1982–1983 season), Diff'rent Strokes (1979), and Hello, Larry (1979 and 1980), as well as the movies The Fish that Saved Pittsburgh (1979), and Modern Romance (1981). Shortly after these productions, Lemon formed his own basketball team, the Bucketeers, and continued to make television appearances. He also recorded an album titled My Kids in 1979 and began traveling around the United States, delivering inspirational talks and hosting camps. Lemon stressed the importance of drug awareness and the urgency of problems gripping at-risk youth. An ordained minister of a Christian nondenominational church, Lemon helped found Athletes International Ministries and started working with professional athletes seeking to provide social and economic assistance to their local communities. Music also became a passion for Lemon in the 1970s and 1980s. He recorded music on RMB and Casablanca records. Lemon was married to Willie Maultsby for several years (they later divorced), and he has five children.

In 1993 Lemon was coaxed from retirement and rejoined the Globetrotters on a domestic tour for fifty games. When added to his career with the team from 1954 to 1978 and his service with the Bucketeers, Lemon estimated he had played in nearly 8,000 games. More than 7,500 of these contests were consecutive games during the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. He entertained popes, kings, queens, and presidents, and played in more than 100 countries and more than 1,500 North American cities. Lemon's tour with the Globetrotters included participation with luminaries like Wilt "The Stilt" Chamberlain, "Curly" Neal, Bobby Joe Mason, "Geese" Ausbie, and "Sweet" Lou Dunbar.

Los Angeles Times sports writer Jim Murray described Meadowlark Lemon as "an American Institution whose uniform should hang alongside the Spirit of St. Louis and the Gemini Space Capsule in the halls of the Smithsonian Institute." Perhaps the highest compliment Lemon ever received was generated when longtime Philadelphia sports anchor Al Melzer interviewed Wilt Chamberlain in 2000, shortly before his death. Chamberlain, perhaps the most dominating player ever to play the game of basketball, called Lemon the greatest player of all time. "Meadowlark was the most sensational, awesome, incredible basketball player I've ever seen," Chamberlain said. On 13 October 2000 Lemon was awarded the John Bunn Award from the Basketball Hall of Fame in recognition of outstanding lifetime achievement.

Lemon's biography, Meadowlark Lemon (1987), describes his philosophy and includes anecdotes. Several other books describe elements of Lemon's career and events that occurred during his playing era, including George Vecsey, Harlem Globetrotters (1973), and Josh Wilker, The Harlem Globetrotters (1996). Nelson George, Elevating the Game: Black Men and Basketball (1992), outlines the impact of African-American participation in basketball in the United States, and serves as a good overview of the subject.

R. Jake Sudderth