Meadowlark Lemon, a skilled athlete and basketball court jester who delighted audiences around the world as a star attraction of the Harlem Globetrotters for some 25 years, has died at the age of 83.

Lemon died on Sunday in Scottsdale, Arizona, the New York Times reported, citing Lemon’s wife, Cynthia Lemon.

Lemon was the undisputed master of the long-range hook shot, rubber-band ball and other crowd-pleasing tricks during the years he wore the Globetrotters’ star-spangled red, white and blue uniform.

Meadowlark Lemon gestures during a Harlem Globetrotters show.Meadowlark Lemon gestures during a Harlem Globetrotters show.

The team’s website said he played in 7,500 consecutive games – the equivalent of more than 92 NBA seasons – in some 100 countries before audiences that included everyone from Britain’s Queen Elizabeth and Russian Premier Nikita Khrushchev to three popes.

He was born Meadow Lemon III in Wilmington, North Carolina, and was unfamiliar with not just the Globetrotters but the game of basketball until he saw a newsreel about the team at a movie theatre at the age of 11.

He was entranced by the sight of black men taking such a joyous approach to a game during a time of segregation.

“They seemed to make that ball talk,” Lemon said when inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2003.

“I said, ‘That’s mine... this is for me.’ I was receiving a vision, really I was receiving a dream in my heart.”

He rushed home from the theatre that day and started fulfilling the dream by fashioning a basketball ring from a clothes hanger and an onion sack and using a tin can for a basketball.

After briefly attending Florida University and serving in the US Army, Lemon’s dream would be fully realised when he joined the Globetrotters in 1954.

Lemon started three comedy basketball teams of his own over the years but none caught on like the Globetrotters

In 1958 he succeeded Goose Tatum as the team’s main clown, a position he held for 20 years.

The Harlem Globetrotters began in Chicago in the late 1920s, organised by a white businessman, Abe Saperstein, as a barnstorming team. It provided one of the few opportunities for black men who wanted to play professional basketball in the days of segregation, travelling the country and taking on community teams.

The forerunner of the National Basketball Association was established in 1946 but the league was all white until 1950, which gave the Globetrotters their pick of elite black players.

While the NBA style of play was basic, deliberate and staid, the Globetrotters were playing with the flair that characterises today’s professional game in the US – acrobatic dunks, behind-the-back passes, flashy dribbling and a showman’s sensibilities.

In addition to other independent teams, the Trotters played college all-star teams and defeated Minnesota Lakers, the top pro team, in 1948 and 1949.

Lemon had an array of stunts, including a hook shot from mid-court and a routine in which he would get upset with a team-mate and throw a bucket of confetti – the audience would be expecting water – at him.

Lemon left the Globetrotters in 1979 but returned for 50 games in 1994. He also started three comedy-basketball teams of his own over the years but none caught on like the Globetrotters.

In the 1979 movie “The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh,” Lemon played a basketball-playing minister and a few years later started his own ministry.

In 2003 he was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in Massachusetts, cited for making significant contributions to the game.

Lemon was married twice and had 10 children.

In 2015 his ex-wife, who he divorced in 1977, and 48-year-old son sued him for $250,000 in child support they said he did not pay.

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