For the first time in four years, the Harlem Globetrotters are back at Madison Square Garden. On Saturday, Feb. 24, the basketball dynamos will excite and mesmerize audiences with their dunks, tricks and four-point shots (yes, you read that right) for the one-day-only event.
“New Yorkers know their basketball,” said Harlem Globetrotter and point guard, Cherelle “Torch” George who has been with the organization since 2016 and lights up the court with her on-fire moves.
A former NCAA, division 1 player for Perdue University, George stands at barely 5’3”. She first picked up a basketball at four years old when her mother bought her a Fisher Price hoop set for Christmas and it was love at first sight.
“From the moment I dribbled that ball, I never stopped,” said George. She is one of five women currently on a roster of 42 players. The first woman, Lynette Woodard, didn’t appear on the team until almost 60 years after their founding in 1985.
“I feel female representation is so important to see,” said George as she mentions that not many people are aware there are female Globetrotters. “There are some games where I run out there for warm-ups and I’ll hear a little girl say like, ‘oh mommy, they got girls.”
Originating in Chicago in 1926, the Harlem Globetrotters aren’t from Harlem at all. They formed as the “Savoy Big Five,” named after the famous Chicago ballroom where they played their early games. A year later, the team was bought by Abe Saperstein, but he didn’t change the name until 1930. At the time, Harlem was synonymous with Black excellence as the “Harlem Renaissance” gave rise to Black literature, music, fashion, etc. Due to the predominantly Black players on the team, Saperstein called them the Harlem Globetrotters “to illustrate the teams traveling ambitions and recognize the significance of Harlem and the Black Renaissance culture of the time,” said a representative for the organization.
So, what does it take to become a Globetrotter?
“You have to love the game and you have to have some sort of skill,” said George. “You got to really love it,” she stressed as she recounted the several Christmases she had to spend on the road, away from her family and the many hours of travel on bus and by plane to get to venues. The Globetrotters play approximately 150 games a season across 20 different countries and countless cities.
“You want to make sure that you get your education,” said Kenny “Da Blenda” Rodriguez, former Globetrotter from 2007 to 2013. “You want to make sure that you’re always on time.”
Rodriguez fell in love with the game watching his older brother play. As a little leaguer, Rodriguez felt baseball “was too slow,” he said and quickly became enamored with the speed and agility basketball required.
But being a Globetrotter is not just about tricks and dunks, it takes real athleticism, commitment and tenacity.
“We’re real athletes,” said George. “Aside from just like the entertainment it’s important that people realize, yeah, we, really ball really like that.”
George played basketball since before she entered kindergarten, all throughout school and even started her own league in Florida after she was cut by the WNBA’s Indiana Fever. She battled thyroid disease and the loss of her mother, but never lost her love for the game. Rodriguez was just a Dominican kid from Washington Heights with a passion. He played the game his entire school career, then got a job at a basketball camp, then played for the Harlem Wizards before being recruited by the Harlem Globetrotters. Woodard, the first female player, played college ball and even won gold at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic games before being scouted by the nearly 100-year-old organization.
The takeaway being, no matter what you want to do or what dreams you have, live it, breathe it, do it to the max and never let adversity stand in your way.
If you can’t catch them at MSG, you can also catch their Emmy-nominated series, “Harlem Globetrotters: Play It Forward,” every Saturday morning on NBC and Telemundo and also streaming on Peacock.
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