Coach of Globetrotters’ Patsies Happy to Be Basketball’s Biggest Loser

It’s not easy being Red Klotz.

It’s bad enough that his New York Nationals basketball team is riding a 30-year losing streak. But Klotz has to hear it from fans--after every loss to the Harlem Globetrotters.

“Hey, Red,” a fan yells from the bleachers as Klotz gets up from the bench. “You didn’t cover the spread! It was 30 points!”

Tonight, it’s Pomona, N.J. Tomorrow, it’s Danbury, Conn. The cities and scores change. The result never does.

The Nationals always lose, making Klotz the losingest coach in basketball history. But he’s not complaining.

After nearly 50 years playing straight man to the sport’s most famous team, Louis Herman “Red” Klotz, 80, figures he’s the luckiest guy in the world. He has traveled to 110 countries as player and coach and owner of the Nationals and their luckless predecessors, the Washington Generals, the New Jersey Reds or the Atlantic City Seagulls.

He’s had too much fun to accept the loser label.

“It doesn’t mean a thing,” he says. “Doesn’t matter what sport you’re playing, there has to be a loser.”

How many times has he lost? By some accounts, more than 10,000 games. But Klotz doesn’t count. “It’s easier to count the wins,” he says, a wry smile creeping across his freckled face.

It wasn’t always thus: Klotz, a sharpshooting 5-foot-7-inch guard out of South Philadelphia, had a stellar career at Villanova University. He played pro basketball before there was a National Basketball Assn.--and afterward.

He was a member of the 1947-48 NBA champion Baltimore Bullets and a professional team called the South Philadelphia Sphas, which beat the Globetrotters two-out-of-three one weekend in 1949.

The winning ended in 1952, when Globetrotters owner Abe Saperstein invited Klotz to put together a team that would serve as the Globetrotters’ barnstorming opponents.

He called them the Washington Generals and took to the road.

Through the ‘50s, ‘60s and ‘70s, Klotz and his crew of NBA hopefuls, summer league greats and ex-collegians roamed the globe as the Generals, the Nationals, the Boston Shamrocks or the Atlantic City Seagulls.

The players were solid, well-trained pros, but they spent night after night as patsies for clown princes like Geese Ausbie, Meadowlark Lemon and Curly Neal, who would trick them, bounce balls off their heads, pull on their shorts and humiliate them--all part of the act.

Former Globetrotter Marques Haynes, 77, says he always expected Klotz to be snapped up by the NBA, as a coach.

“He has a great mind for the game and he’s a great teacher,” Haynes says. “He’s a great personality who’s done an awful lot for basketball.”

As full-time straight men, the Nationals dribble a fine line between actors and athletes. Defensively, they look the other way during the Globetrotters’ “show plays,” but they go all out on offense.

At halftime of a recent game at Richard Stockton College, Klotz crowded into a tiny 8-foot-by-10-foot locker room with the Nationals to give them pointers.

“The biggest problem you had was cross-court passes,” he said quietly. “You want to throw a deceptive pass? Fine. But cross-court passes against the Globetrotters are a waste of time. They’ll steal them every time.”

The cross-court passes ended in the second half, but the Nationals still lost.

The last time Klotz beat the Globetrotters--on Jan. 5, 1971, in Martin, Tenn.--he hit a 30-foot buzzer-beater to give the Reds a 100-99 overtime victory. But there were few cheers.

“They looked at us like we killed Santa Claus,” he remembers.

It hasn’t happened since. But Klotz keeps trying.

“It’s not really competitive basketball, but somebody has to do it,” says former NBA coach Jack Ramsay, who’s known Klotz since the 1940s. “It’s a real tribute that he’s been able to stay with it this long and retain his enthusiasm for the game and what the Globetrotters do. You never see him when he’s not full of fire.”

Klotz played with the team until he was 62.

Now, when he’s not on the road with the Nationals, he plays 3-on-3 a few times a week at the Jewish Community Center. And he can hit 3-point shots one after another, no problem.

He coaches only about 30 games a year for the Nationals, who, like the Globetrotters, maintain three separate rosters. But as owner, he oversees all aspects of the Nationals’ operation, including hiring.

What makes a good National?

“Number one, does he like to travel? Number two, does he have a sense of humor? Number three, does he love to play basketball? Because he’s going to play more basketball than he’s ever played in his life. And if you’re not a good sport, this isn’t the team for you.”

Sure, he has regrets. He had six children who were reared primarily by his wife of 59 years, Gloria. He winces remembering all the family milestones he missed.

“He was only here half the time,” she says. “But that’s the way to be married, as far as I’m concerned. He loved what he did, and that’s the most important thing.”

When they grew up, some of his children joined the business: John, 50, is general manager of the Nationals; Chuck, 52, was the Globetrotters’ announcer for nine years. His grandson, Morgan, 29, played for the Nationals for three years.

For all the places he has been, there’s only one destination he still dreams of: the Basketball Hall of Fame.

Klotz hopes his contributions to the Globetrotters legacy will someday earn him a place in Springfield, Mass.

“He’s an icon,” says Gene Hudgins, 60, a former Globetrotter. “He’s as important to the Globetrotters’ tradition as the Globetrotters are.”

But purists have their doubts.

“You lose a couple thousand games, what are you contributing?” says Arnold “Red” Auerbach, the legendary Boston Celtics coach.

“I’ll say this: He gave the opportunity to a lot of players who might not have had it otherwise. And he was good for the Globetrotters. He gave them a little stability because here he came with an organized team in pretty decent shape, rather than a ragtag group,” Auerbach says.

Doug Stark, archivist and librarian for the Hall of Fame, says Klotz has been nominated before. He wouldn’t comment on his chances at enshrinement.

Whatever happens, Klotz figures he’s earned a unique spot in the history books.

“I’m the last of the Mohicans. The very last. And I’m still kicking,” he says.