User:Citicat/Sandbox

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Reece "Goose" Tatum (May 31, 1921 – January 18, 1967) was an American multi-sport athlete.

Born in El Dorado, Arkansas, Reece Tatum played Negro League Baseball before becoming a star basketball player with the Harlem Globetrotters. He is considered to be the original "clown prince" of the Trotters. He wove numerous comic routines into his play, of which many would reach cult status. Some of these routines were based on his stature -- it is reported that he had an arm span of more than 80 inches and could touch his kneecaps without bending.

While loved by fans on the courts, he was less popular with teammates, known to be sullen and quiet. If another Globetrotter seemed to be paying too much attention to Goose's routines, he would tell them "Don't stand and watch me, you're getting paid!"^[1]

After leaving the Globetrotters, he played with Marques Haynes on Haynes' team the Harlem Magicians, and managed his own team, the Harlem Road Kings. In 1966 his son was killed in a car crash. [1]

He is credited to have invented the hook shot, aka skyhook, a shot for which later superstar Kareem Abdul-Jabbar would become famous.

Reece Tatum died in 1967 at the age of forty-five in El Paso, Texas. A veteran of the U.S. Army Air Corps during World War II, he was interred in the Fort Bliss National Cemetery.

[edit] Notes

1. ^ Tricksters in the Madhouse: Lakers Vs. Globetrotters, 1948 By John Christgau, page 156