04/26/24
March 26, 2020
Harlem Globetrotters' legend Curly Neal dies at age 77: After a 6,000 game (!) career. A great collection of his finest moments can be seen in videos tagged with his name at the Globetrotters youtube channel.
posted by rumple to basketball at 09:22 PM - 6 comments
Loved Curly and all the Trotters. The funniest Curly memory I have is when they were playing the usual team of stiffs on the deck of an aircraft carrier. Curly went into his routine and gusts of wind were blowing across the flight deck and raising hell with the basketball, even when he was dribbling way down low. Curly went into deep improv mode and managed to keep control of the ball, but he was laughing his ass off the whole time at how ridiculous it was. But those guys played in all sorts of places and knew how to quickly adjust to the situation at hand.
posted by beaverboard at 11:23 AM on March 27, 2020
Mike Greenberg's short, but nice commemoration of Curly Neal.
Also, I remember them coming to perform even in my tiny little Northern Michigan village back in the '70s. So much fun
posted by NoMich at 11:45 AM on March 27, 2020
*
posted by BornIcon at 12:02 PM on March 27, 2020
Meadowlark Lemon and Curly Neal were peak Globetrotter for me. I think they were probably the first professional basketball players I could identify.
posted by rcade at 10:44 AM on March 29, 2020
RIP. Saw the Globetrotters at the Hordern Pavilion in Sydney circa 1974. Great fun.
posted by owlhouse at 08:09 PM on March 29, 2020
Man, I remember watching Globetrotters' games at the old Hartford Civic Center growing up in the 70's. The things that Curly Neal could do with a basketball were flat-out astounding, not to mention his oversized personality and magnetism as a human being on the court and off. Perhaps his finest achievement was teaming up with a rag tag band of nomadic young adults who may or may not have been high on reefer to solve mysteries (link to documentary).
Rest in peace to one of the great ambassadors of the game of basketball.