Kobe Bryant, during a dark time for the Lakers, once said he wished that they could play the Washington Generals. A rugby story in the Daily Telegraph referenced “those daggy Washington Generals going on a spree against the Globetrotters.” Australian radio announcer Basil Zempilas, referring to a turnover after a brief run of brilliance during an Australian Football League match said, “That wasn’t so good, more like the Washington Generals.”
#SWEET J HARLEM GLOBETROTTERS MOVIE#
Sports Illustrated refers to the Carolina Hurricanes “playing the role of the Washington Generals in getting swept by the star-studded Penguins in the 2009 Eastern Conference Final.”Īt Movie Pilot, they talk about how last year DC Comics was viewed as “the Washington Generals to Marvel Studio’s Harlem Globetrotters, born to lose in a superhero movie competition.”Ī story previewing Ronda Rousey’s inevitable destruction of underdog Bethe Correia points out that, hey, the Generals did beat the Globetrotters once. But it was the Generals that stuck in the mind. Yes, occasionally Klotz would choose a different name in order to provide variety - the New Jersey Reds, the Boston Shamrocks, the Atlantic City Seagulls, the Baltimore Rockets, the Chicago Demons. But, as they say, do you ever see it coming?įor 62 years, the Globetrotters played basketball night after night against Red Klotz’s Washington Generals. John and Jody Ferrari had not seen it coming. There was no negotiation, no specifics, no explanations. It was brief, vague and final: The Harlem Globetrotters are moving on without the Washington Generals. “You are the last group of men who will ever wear the Washington Generals uniform.” “I’ll send you a photo of this,” Ferrari said.
+and+Flight+Time+with+girl.jpg "sweet j harlem globetrotters")
He pulled out a camera and took a picture. He arranged them into something like a semicircle. “Guys, gather around for a minute,” Ferrari said. In a way, we’re all Washington Generals aren’t we? They had no idea in the beginning about the grind of the road, the trials of monotony, the exhausting challenge of playing hard in a losing effort night after night after night. So many were just kids, right out of college. There were the players, his players, he’d signed hundreds of them. It was so familiar.Īt halftime, he walked into the Generals’ locker room. But he looked around, at the thousand or so fans in the crowd, and he saw their joy. The right emotion, certainly, was sadness. Now, he sat in the Wildwood convention center, and he tried to feel the sadness. He would try to take in their joy and hold on to it. He would look at the awed and delighted faces of those adults who had grown up with the Globetrotters.
Were they laughing? Were they having a good time? Ferrari would look at the way parents held up their children, so they could see. He never stopped trying.Īnyway for Klotz, for Ferrari, for the Generals, the real scoreboard was those fans. But, as Red always said, you never stop trying, right? Red Klotz died a year ago at the age of 93. Yes, beating the Globetrotters was a challenge. In the end, the Globetrotters would go into their famous “Sweet Georgia Brown” weave offense, which has no defense.
The referees consistently missed blatant Globetrotters rules violations. True, they faced a few disadvantages, such as the fact that the Globetrotters would sometimes hide the ball under their shirts, or attach a string to the ball, or pull down the Generals players’ pants, or soak a player with a bucket of water. Weird as it sounds, the Generals were always playing to win. Read that again: The team’s purpose was to PLAY the Globetrotters, the purpose was not to LOSE to the Globetrotters. The team’s purpose, as you no doubt know, was to play the World Famous Harlem Globetrotters. He dubbed the team the Washington Generals after the country’s new president, Dwight D. They were also the scoreboard for Ferrari’s father-in-law, Red Klotz, who founded the team in 1953. He continued to watch the people in the stands. It was the most wonderful life they could ever imagine, though they almost never won a game. He and his wife, Jody, ran the Washington Generals. Maybe 20 years ago, he became something more, a position without a real title. How many basketball games had he been to in the last 35 years? Eight thousand? Ten thousand? More? Yes, this felt like home. John Ferrari sat in the Wildwood, N.J., convention center, and he watched the people in the crowd, and the thing that struck him was how normal it all felt.
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