On Monday night at the Stephen O’Connell Center, the Harlem Globetrotters stopped in Gainesville to perform as part of their “The 100 Year Tour.”
Gainesville Mayor Harvey Ward was in attendance to present the Harlem Globetrotters with a proclamation, recognizing Monday, Jan.12, 2026, as “Harlem Globetrotters Day.”
Since 1926, the Harlem Globetrotters have been providing family entertainment for generations. Originally established as an exhibition team in the South Side of Chicago by Abe Saperstein, the Globetrotters would grow to be the world’s most famous team, bridging gaps in the world of racial segregation, sports, and the belief that a team could.
Today, the Globetrotters are an organization that uses the principles established 100 years ago to push forward the sport of basketball.
The last time an opposing team beat the Globetrotters was in 1971. With over 28,000 total wins, the record the Globetrotters hold makes them the most “winningest team in history.”
You can’t mention the Harlem Globetrotters without mentioning their longtime rivals, the Washington Generals, who have been battling against the Globetrotters since 1952. The Harlem Globetrotters beat the then all-white NBA Champions, the Minneapolis Lakers, in 1948 on a last-second buzzer beater. To prove it was no fluke, they did it again in 1949, cementing their position as a real basketball squad.
The following year, the NBA drafted the first Black athlete into the league, Nat “Sweetwater” Clifton, a Harlem Globetrotter. The 1960s and 1970s truly saw the Globetrotters hit mainstream fame, with stars like Meadowlark Lemon and Fred “Curly” Neal, making appearances on “The Ed Sullivan Show,” “Gilligan’s Island” and “Scooby-Doo.”
In 1985, the team added its first female, and since then, fewer than 30 women have shared the same title as Globetrotter. The Globetrotters drafted the first woman before the WNBA even existed. Lynette Woodard pioneered women’s involvement in the sport of basketball after leading the United States women’s basketball team to a gold medal in the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games. The Olympian would later be drafted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame, along with the entire organization.
In 1951, the U.S. State Department named the Harlem Globetrotters “Ambassadors of Goodwill.”
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