Curly Neal

The whistles and handclaps drummed through my living room in Ohio in 1970 & 71 on Saturday mornings with the Harlem Globetrotters cartoons on CBS and as I hopped along with the music, the animated Trotters dribbled onto the screen with an animated dog (for some reason, the 70s constantly had talking animals in many of their animated programs).

As I have noted in the past, I was already a sports fan and the Globetrotters cartoon combined the two things I loved most- sports and cartoons.
 My favorite Trotter on the cartoon was the child-friendly shaven-headed Curly Neal, the master dribbler of the team and one that often had the funny wise-crack on the cartoon.
I didn't realize at the time that the voice of Curly wasn't actually Curly's as it was comedian Stu Gilliam that was plugged into the role.
The show ran for two seasons on CBS and for two years following with the same episodes running again before shelving for years until NBC, in a severe cost-cutting mode at the time, began picking up shows that were a decade or so old and using them on Saturday mornings to a fresh audience.

Curly Neal wasn't always a basketball comedian as he was a pretty good player in his time in "legitimate" basketball averaging 23.1 points a game at Johnson C. Smith University from 1959-63.
At that time, almost all college basketball played in the South at the major colleges were still played by all-white teams and some of the best basketball in the nation was being played at the "black" college level with many players from those leagues moving on to NBA stardom such as Earl Monroe.
Averaging 23 points against that competition wasn't shabby, so Neal was far more than just a gimmick player before joining the Globetrotters.
I haven't found any notes about Neal signing with an NBA team or anything about attending a training camp with anyone and Neal's first game with the Globetrotters was in 1963 which syncs with Neal's final season with Johnson C.Smith.

As the 1970s moved forward, the human Globetrotters became a big deal to see as well as they made regular appearances against their perpetual foil, the Washington Generals, on ABC's Wide World of Sports as well as other appearances such as the "Classic" Harlem Globetrotters on Gilligan's Island television movie and a short-lived live-action Saturday morning program "The Harlem Globetrotters Popcorn Machine".
Those "games" were must-see television and even non-basketball fans got laughs from the Trotters performances.
Everyone associated the bouncy Trotters theme song "Sweet Georgia Brown" with basketball and hi-jinks.
My mom was a decided non-hoops fan and she always got a kick out of their antics, so I'm willing to wager that they had that type of effect on others as well.

Neal was the ballhandling master on for the Trotters replacing the great Marquis Haynes in that role, who was the featured co-star to Meadowlark Lemon through the 70s and was the most visible star after Lemon formed his own team in "Meadowlark Lemon's Bucketeers" until Neal's retirement in 1985.
The Globetrotters were never the same after the Lemon/Neal/Geese Tatum era teams retired or left the organization.
They would declare bankruptcy a time or two and today have multiple traveling teams around the country on various tours, but I'm not sure that I could name one player on any of those teams.
I do know that for a time, former Maryland Terrapins Exree Hipp and Johnny Rhodes played for the Trotters, but I'm unsure that either player still plays with the organization.

I'm not sure people under 45 could understand just how big the Harlem Globetrotters were in the 70s and the first part of the 80s.
After all, the entire experience when you boil it down is basketball crossed with pro wrestling with a few comedy bits added to the package, but they were a bigger deal during that time during the NBA to most people.
If you asked the average person about basketball, I would bet that the Globetrotters were the first team mentioned and a decent chunk would believe that if the Globetrotters played the Celtics, 76ers, or Lakers that it would be the Globetrotters coming out on top.
Imagine it this way, it would be the equivalent of believing in 1983 that Hulk Hogan would beat Larry Holmes in a real fight and that's how big the Harlem Globetrotters were- with Meadowlark Lemon and Curly Neal the biggest of all.

Curly Neal's passing at the age of 77 is another in a list that gets longer as I age as childhood heroes from sports, television, and music continue to pass away.
Aging is about more than learning to be dealing with your body breaking down, it is just as tough watching others walk away from the scene.
"Whistles the Globetrotters theme song", takes the hand of a three-year-old in Globetrotters pajamas, and walks away stage left.