For Globetrotters, It Was About More Than the Fun

Globetrotting basketball is the focus of a fascinating documentary airing on Channel 28 this weekend, but be forewarned: It has nothing to do with Gary Payton.

You hear the familiar strains of “Sweet Georgia Brown,” you close your eyes and you can just picture Payton bouncing from Seattle to Milwaukee to Los Angeles to Boston to Atlanta and maybe back to Boston again, all in a span of less than three seasons.

Yet Payton is only a neophyte globetrotter. The originals, who invented showtime basketball decades before Magic Johnson was born, continue to shower the world with rainbow jump shots and water buckets filled with confetti, after nearly 80 years on the road.

“The Team That Changed The World,” which airs Sunday at 4 p.m., emphasizes a side of the Harlem Globetrotters usually obscured by the laughter and the antics.

The documentary effectively argues that the Globetrotters were as important to integrating the NBA as Jackie Robinson was to major league baseball.

The program focuses on the years 1948 to 1951, during which the Globetrotters shocked the nation by beating George Mikan and the mighty Minneapolis Lakers twice on neutral courts, broke the NBA’s color barrier by sending center Nat “Sweetwater” Clifton to the New York Knicks and accompanied Jesse Owens to Berlin on the 15th anniversary of Owens’ four-gold-medal performance at the 1936 Olympics.

The first victory over the Lakers, in 1948, happened only months after Robinson made his debut with the Brooklyn Dodgers, coming at a time when much of America believed blacks were inferior athletes to whites. Slapping the palm of his hand incredulously against his forehead, John Christgau, author of a book on the 1948 Globetrotter-Laker game, says during the film, “Can you imagine -- (people actually said,) ‘They can’t jump.’ ”

Additionally, the Globetrotters were viewed at the time as mere entertainers, a novelty act that couldn’t play “serious” basketball.

That changed in 1948, when the Globetrotters beat the Lakers in front of nearly 18,000 fans at Chicago Stadium on a last-second jump shot by Ermer Robinson. Bill Cosby recalled what the victory meant to him and millions of African Americans then: “When the Globetrotters came and beat the white people, that was wonderful.”

Proving that victory wasn’t a fluke, the Globetrotters defeated the Lakers again in 1949. With it, they also proved a point. In 1950, Clifton graduated from the Globetrotters to become the first black to play in the NBA.

An impressive array of interviewees, ranging from U.S. Senator Barack Obama to Samuel L. Jackson, concur with Phil Jackson’s assessment that the Globetrotters “changed basketball forever.” Yet, the Globetrotters’ contributions as race-relation pioneers are “not well-enough known,” according to NBA Commissioner David Stern. Bob Cousy marveled at how professional basketball, spurred on by the Globetrotters’ success, was able to integrate “without a ripple.”

“In my opinion, the NBA owes us a debt of gratitude,” former Globetrotter Frank Washington says without a hint of bitterness. “Because if it wasn’t for the Globetrotters, there probably wouldn’t be an NBA today. Not in the way we know it.”

Hyperbole? “The Team That Changed The World” makes a convincing case that Washington is simply speaking the truth.

Also available for viewing this weekend:

TODAY

* WGC Accenture Match Play Championship

(ESPN, 7:30 a.m.; Channel 7, noon)

Is it dry enough yet? Well, that’s one way to describe today’s quarterfinal field, devoid of any name bigger than Retief Goosen, the only No. 1-seeded golfer to survive three rounds at Carlsbad.

Because of the recent rains, the tournament started a day late -- and ended early for Tiger Woods and Vijay Singh, both second-round upset victims. Today, ESPN gets the morning quarterfinals, ABC the afternoon semifinals. And, well, you’ll have to get up awfully early to see if Ian Poulter can defeat Nick O’Hern.

SUNDAY

* NASCAR Nextel Cup Auto Club 500

(Channel 11, 11 a.m.)

“Daytona 500 on FOX Posts Highest Rating Ever, Surges In Key Markets,” read the headline on the Fox Sports news release. And, yes, the stats are impressive: a 32% jump in San Francisco, a 49% improvement in Cleveland, a 28% increase in Atlanta, a 17% gain in New York.

Conspicuously absent on Fox’s list of “key markets” is the rather massive key market known as Los Angeles. While Fox’s Daytona coverage drew a national rating of 10.9 with a 23 share, L.A.’s interest in the race was far more modest -- 5.3 with a 14 share, not much better than last Sunday’s second-most-viewed sporting event locally, a Mexican league soccer match involving UNAM Pumas and Tigres on Channel 34 (3.5 and 9).

With NASCAR running circles in Fontana this weekend, will the Auto Club 500 produce better numbers here? Tough to say. There’s also an Avenger game on NBC.

* Avengers at Colorado

(Channel 4, noon)

Los Angeles at Colorado in late February, eh? Remember when that meant a teeth-rattling renewal of the King-Avalanche NHL rivalry? Oh well. Now, it’s the Avengers at the Crush in an indoor football game that would attract more viewers if John Elway actually came down from his owner’s seat and played for the Crush.

* Lakers at Toronto

(Channel 9, 10 a.m.)

The Lakers stood pat at the trading deadline, much to the chagrin of Jack Haley and thousands of Laker fans who, unlike Laker management, are not satisfied with the No. 8 seeding in the Western Conference. Meanwhile, in ex-Laker news, Payton was traded by the Boston Celtics to the Atlanta Hawks, who become Payton’s fifth team in three seasons. Or, if you’re keeping score, that’s one team for each of The Glove’s fingers.