Nate Branch: Playing My Way Through Life

Nate Branch with Barry Kienzle

Headline Books Terra Alta, WV

Nate Branch—Playing My Way Through Life

by Nate Branch with Barry Kienzle copyright ©2022 Nate Branch All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any other form or for any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any information storage system, without written permission from Headline Books.

To order additional copies of this book or for book publishing information, or to contact the author: Headline Books P.O. Box 52 Terra Alta, WV 26764 www.HeadlineBooks.com Tel: 304-789-3001 Email: mybook@headlinebooks.com ISBN 13: 9781951556853 Library of Congress Control Number: 2022934012

P R I N T E D I N T H E U N I T E D S TAT E S O F A M E R I C A

I would like to dedicate this book to my mother, Onedia Branch, who insisted that I be allowed to play basketball in high school. And to my high school coach, Tom Crane, who taught me by example, how to conduct myself with humility. I’d also like to thank the great Wilt Chamberlain, who not only was my idol, but my friend. I’ve always wanted to put some memories and thoughts down on paper and the following nudged me in the right direction: Burke Allen Adkins, with Allen Media Strategies, thank you for the initial suggestion, and for putting a great team together to make it happen. Barry Kienzle, thank you for the hours you spent with me, and somehow translated 50+ years of my thoughts into a form others may enjoy. Thank you to my agent, Cord Coslor with Celebrity Direct Entertainment, for your years of friendship and archiving so many photos and memories for all of us to look back on at www.NateBranch.com and throughout this book. Thank you to Cornhusker Nation, and to The Globetrotters for that first opportunity, so many years ago, to entertain millions of fans throughout the world. And, most of all, thank YOU – my friends, family, and fans – that have supported me for so many years, and continue to shower me with love.

Introduction

by Barry Kienzle

On February 9, 2021, my publisher, Cathy Teets of Headline Books, Inc., sent an email to a number of her authors, introducing them to an opportunity to assist a national figure in writing his autobiography. To apply, we had to sign a non-disclosure agreement before being interviewed. I was intrigued by the opportunity.

My usual writing genre is historical fiction, but I had coauthored and recently had published a sports-related memoir, Heart of a Lion – Our Journey of Faith and Courage. It’s the story of Willie Burton of Louisville, Kentucky, who suffered from cerebral palsy yet wrestled for Fairdale High School.

I spoke with some of my writing confidants, and they encouraged me to apply. I was interviewed via Zoom by Burke Allen of Allen Media Strategies and Cord Coslor of Celebrity Direct Entertainment and ultimately was awarded the project.

In the interview process, I learned the person I’d be working with was Nate Branch of the Harlem Globetrotters. He played for them for fifteen years, from 1967 to 1983 during the Globetrotters’ heydays with Meadowlark Lemon, Curly Geese Ausbie, Curly Neal, Neal, Marques Haynes, and Geese and Nate Ausbie, to name a few.

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I also learned Nate lived in Oakland, about 2,400 miles from where I do in Northern Kentucky. The combination of the distance and the Covid-19 pandemic dictated we work together via Zoom. We did, and after more than twenty interview sessions, we stitched together his life’s story. His story has so many moving parts it was a challenge for me to get many of the chronologies of the events of his life in the correct order. Together we prevailed, and we’re sure you will enjoy his story as much as we did writing it.

Nate is such a likable personality that along the way, we became friends. I’ll never forget the laughs we had about the events in his life and my anecdotes about mine. We never ended one of our sessions without his, “I’ll see you later, my brother.”

Music is such an overarching influence in his life that after I got into the details, it became apparent I wasn’t merely working on the story of a basketball hero; I was also working on one of a musician. Knitting the two together was a challenge, not wanting to minimize one for the sake of the other. We’ve broken down his story into three parts and named the sections “The Verse,” “The Chorus,” and “The Bridge,” paying tribute to three of the primary parts of any song. We’ve also included the lyrics of some of his favorite songs and some he wrote in the chapters.

We hope you enjoy traveling with him on his journey as much as we did mapping it.

Barry Kienzle is a multi award-winning author who has written three historical fiction novels, The Crossings, The Indian, and A Whisper in the Wind, and who also worked with Willie and Brenda Burton on their memoir, Heart of a Lion and a children’s book based on the stories Willie told him about the difficulties handicapped children have being accepted by other children. You can learn more about Barry and his writings by visiting www.barrykbooks.com.

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Foreword When I look back upon my half-century as a sportswriter, picking out critical junctures along the way, positioned at the beginning, is Nate Branch.

My starting point, as is customary for young sportswriters, is high school athletics. I was assigned Ravenswood High School’s home basketball games in East Palo Alto, California. I can still visualize those Trojans with their knee-high striped socks and high-flying, full-court theatrics burying most opponents. One of the Trojans to emerge from that talented bunch was Branch, a springy forward who became the stuff of legends when he was the hero in the five-overtime Peninsula Basketball Tournament championship game.

I followed Nate throughout his college career at Nebraska but lost track of him during his Globetrotter playing years. But we later met up in a new century at a sports banquet in Oakland.

Our chance meeting resulted in The Game Would Not End, a book I wrote and had published in 2019, about the five-overtime season-ending championship game in which he starred.

When Nate, the gentleman senior citizen, reflects on his ricochet life—pulpit to pulpit, keyboard to keyboard, continent to continent—even he must admit it has been one extraordinary journey.

Nate, the preacher’s son, began his association with God in his father’s church in East Palo Alto, California, where young Nate’s uncle introduced him to church music on the piano. Nate couldn’t have imagined that his life’s travels would bring him full 7

circle to that same church.

When Nate, the gifted athlete, first dribbled a basketball as a youth, he also couldn’t have conceived that his hoop skills would lead him to become a worldwide entertainer, bringing joy and laughter to hundreds of thousands of people in thirty-five countries through the Harlem Globetrotters.

Nonviolent by nature, he has both elbowed for position for a rebound on the court and rubbed elbows with countless celebrities in work and social settings. He became somewhat of a celebrity himself, beginning as a teenager by having his photograph appear in a national magazine after making the winning shot in the championship game.

But now, in his 70s, he looks back on his diversified existence curiously, recognizing that he has lived a fulfilling life, yet with some regret. “I haven’t led a perfect life,” he says, “but no one does...”

No life escapes struggle and sacrifice—even a high-flying Globetrotter’s, and Nate’s was no exception. He enjoyed athletic highs yet suffered through failed marriages. But as the late Howard Cosell, an announcer on many of the Globetrotters’ games on ABC’s Wide World of Sports, would say, “He’s telling it like it is.”

And he does so in a way that reveals his true personality—eventempered and caring.

As a career sportswriter and author of eighteen sports-related books, I know a good story and a good read when I see one. You will enjoy the writing and like Nate Branch, a man with many attributes: his relationship with God, his musical gifts, and his nonviolent nature. He sees the best in people and has become one.

Dave Newhouse, author, and retired award-winning sportswriter and columnist, Oakland Tribune

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Contents Part I – The Verse One – The Genesis....................................................................... 11 Two – My Shot of a Lifetime...........................................................

Three – The Road to Nebraska.......................................................

Part II – The Chorus Four – The Harlem Globetrotters – Basketball’s Magicians.......

Five – It’s Showtime!........................................................................

Six – Meadowlark, My Meadowlark..............................................

Seven – Life on the Road.................................................................

Eight – My Best Friends Forever....................................................

Nine – Turmoil and Changes in Cultures.....................................

Ten – You Miss 100% of the Shots You Don’t Take......................

Eleven – Mother Branch - Mother to All......................................

Twelve – It’s All About Family........................................................

Thirteen – Lights, Camera, Action!...............................................

Fourteen – Stars, Stars, and More Stars!.......................................

Part III – The Bridge Fifteen – Moving On........................................................................

Sixteen – My Tale Continues..........................................................

Seventeen – Life Itself......................................................................

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Part I - The Verse

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1

The Genesis Coach Crane jumped from the bench and signaled to Milky to immediately call a timeout. The Ravenswood Trojans were on the doorstep of winning the prestigious Peninsula Basketball Championship and were determined to end it with their next shot. It was hard to hear his instructions over the crowd noise.

The clock had few seconds remaining in the fifth overtime period, and our fans were whipped into a frenzy anticipating a victory in a game that couldn’t find an ending.

Coach Crane decided to run a play he felt was our best chance to win. It had the ball being inbounded to me on the sideline with a pick set by our other guard for Milky to get open for the final shot. “Look for Milky, but if he’s not open, shoot it,” was his last instruction to me after we broke our huddle to return to the floor.

We all lined up in our directed spots, anticipating a heroic ending. The referee blew his whistle; I caught the inbounds pass, moved to the corner, didn’t see Milky, and was wide open, so I shot the ball from the corner. It was good! My life changed forever in an instant. *** On January 23rd, 1945, I was born at nine o’clock in the morning in Smoke Bend, in Ascension Parish, Louisiana, located 11

Nate Branch—Playing My Way Through Life

on the western shore of the Mississippi River, about sixty miles north of New Orleans. I was the fifth child, all boys, of Israel and Onedia Dabney.

My parents packed up the family and moved from our backwater town to Chicago when I was only three months old.

Our father was an old-style Baptist preacher looking for a better opportunity to spread the Word of God. My oldest brother was Israel, named after our father. Erwin followed him, then Whitney, then Gerald, then me.

Chicago was a significant change from Smoke Bend, geographically, culturally, and climate-wise. I was too young to have remembered Smoke Bend, but I remember our homes in Chicago. Our first home was at 925 Hudson Street on the city’s north side. We lived there for three or four years; then, we moved down the block to 1109 Hudson Street. Both homes have been replaced with trendy new residences surrounded by greenspace, swallowed up in the city’s urban re-development plan.

Our home at 1109 Hudson Street was very modest. We lived in a two-bedroom basement apartment below street level in the back part of a multi-family building. You had to walk down steps to enter it. The buildings on our street were so close you could walk down the alleys between them and touch the walls of both buildings.

Eight of us lived there: my mother and father, my four brothers and me, and my mother’s father, plus our German shepherd dog—King. Our heat source was a coal-burning potbelly stove in the kitchen. We stored our coal in a shed in the front of the building. Even though I was a young boy, as soon as I was physically able, one of my chores was to go out and bring back a bucket of coal for the stove.

We were always short on beds in our home; I remember sleeping in an overstuffed reclining chair while my brothers slept on sofas. On Saturday nights, we would take our baths in the kitchen in a galvanized tub filled with water we boiled on the potbelly stove. We stretched curtains between what you would call the living room and the kitchen, providing some privacy to whoever was in the tub at the time. Because I was the youngest, 12

Nate Branch with Barry Kienzle

I was the last to use the water after my brothers, and it would always be gray from the dirt washed from them.

But we were happy to have a roof over our heads, clean clothes to wear, and food on the table. And somehow, if almost by magic, Santa Claus always managed to find us amongst all of our close-by neighbors.

My family had rigorous rules on appropriate behavior. It was often difficult for my brothers and me to comply with, but its lessons served us well later in life. Most of our family activities were very structured. We sat down at the table as a family and ate dinner at the same time each day. There was no coming in and grabbing a plate of food then hustling off somewhere. We even had to ask for permission to leave the table. We ate, and then we cleaned up the kitchen.

My father was a strict disciplinarian. He nailed plastic strips to a wooden handle and used it on our backsides when he felt it appropriate. With five boys, he thought it necessary quite often.

He was a tough man who forced us to walk a straight and narrow path.

While my father worked as an associate minister at our church, my mother worked as a nurse in the Cook County Hospital. I didn’t think about it much at the time, but she was working two jobs—caring not only for us but for others too.

Everybody did what they had to do to help support the family in any manner possible.

When I got older, I had a summer paper route delivering the morning edition of the Chicago Tribune. I had a small wagon to pull the papers along my route. I didn’t get to keep much of what I earned.

What I disliked most about delivering the papers was the layout of the buildings on my route. Most of them were tenements three stories tall with many apartments, which were called flats.

Some were in the front section of the building, and some were in the back on the same floor.

Sometimes I’d have to walk up a couple of flights of stairs to put the paper on a back porch, which was a customer’s front door. Navigating through the buildings was harder on Sundays 13

Nate Branch—Playing My Way Through Life

when the newspaper was so thick I couldn’t fold it over like the daily one, which I could usually throw to the subscriber’s door.

Instead, I had to walk the Sunday paper to the door and lay it down.

One of my other responsibilities was giving my grandfather his asthma shots. Being the youngest, I was home more than the others in my family, so the responsibility fell on my young shoulders, or perhaps my hands. You did what you had to do in those days, regardless of your age. It made you grow up fast.

Because I was the youngest and my brothers were off doing other things, I would often get lonely and need to entertain myself. The housing projects were across the street, so there was no place to play softball or other outdoor games. There just weren’t any public recreation spaces available. Hanging out on street corners wasn’t a good option for a young boy either, so I spent a lot of time alone. It was a practice I was able to use later in life.

From our early days in Chicago, our family sang quartetstyle gospel music. They told me as a baby I would run up and down the aisle with a Coca-Cola bottle with a nipple on its neck.

I didn’t have a regular milk bottle because my family most likely couldn’t afford one. They said I’d walk up and down the aisles shaking everybody’s hand. This experience was perhaps my first exposure to music and harmony, which has lasted my entire life.

I enjoyed Chicago even when I was a baby.

When a Chicago native talks about the winter climate there, they’re probably understating it. I’m sure my parents wondered more than once why they moved from the sunny south to the Windy City. It was so cold there once that when I took my cap guns I had gotten for Christmas outside to shoot and tried to fire them, they broke from the cold. Life on Lake Michigan can be fierce. *** When I was about ten years old, my mother and father divorced after almost twenty-five years of marriage. Divorces are 14

Nate Branch with Barry Kienzle

usually complicated for children to deal with, and I don’t recall what led to it, but I was too young to grasp its consequences completely. However, it became a significant life-changing event for me.

After the divorce, my mother re-married another minister, named James Branch, and they then moved to San Francisco. My mother later came back to Chicago to get me, the youngest of her children. I don’t know how we ended up in the Bay Area, but it’s been my home since 1955.

At ten years old, I was much younger than my brothers.

Gerald was six years older than I, Whitney, nine years, Erwin, eleven years, and Israel, also known as Duke, thirteen or fourteen years older. My brothers initially stayed in Chicago with our father, and despite our age differences and separation between my brothers and me, we always remained close. We shared a history of survival which bonded us together.

Eventually, all my brothers moved to California except Erwin, who remained in Chicago with our father. Whitney was the first to come out, and he lived with us. Then Gerald came, and then Israel. My only brother who is still living is Whitney, who lives in Modesto, California.

My mother’s husband, James Branch, adopted me as his son, and I took his Branch surname. He did not adopt my brothers, so they kept their Dabney surname.

After a year in San Francisco, we moved to nearby East Palo Alto. We had joined a church in San Francisco, and my stepfather was building a reputation there as a dynamic speaker and preacher. The pastor at our church thought it wise if James transferred to East Palo Alto to start a prayer group where there were many blacks and few churches to serve their needs.

They had to commute to San Francisco, over thirty miles away, to participate with other blacks in their worship services, an obstacle for many.

The prayer group became so popular the congregation decided to start their own church group. We began by holding worship services in people’s garages. It was a humble beginning, but everyone’s enthusiasm for our mission penetrated the 15

Nate Branch—Playing My Way Through Life

community, so we quickly needed to move to Union Hall to accommodate the growing congregation.

Eventually, some members pledged their homes as collateral to purchase Union Hall for a church. James now had his church, and we lived next door to it. Even at my tender age, I became the janitor, the gardener, and later, the church musician. You did what you had to do to serve.

James was a good man and a positive influence on me. He taught me how to conduct myself and treat other people—to respect them and their opinions. And he was kind to others too.

He had a laid-back demeanor, but he was a powerful preacher.

He was president of the National Baptist Convention in California, and at the same time, my mother was president of the Women’s Department of the National Baptist Convention in California. During the convention, the night before the final night was the women’s night. My mother would give an address, and she was such a dynamic speaker she would receive thunderous applause from the audience when she finished. She moved me whenever I’d hear her preach.

The following night James would address the convention. He was good too but not as dynamic as my mother. I sometimes wonder if this created a rivalry between them since they both frequently spoke at the conventions.

Unfortunately, they too divorced in 1976 after more than twenty years of marriage.

In 1978 James died dramatically in the pulpit of a heart attack doing God’s work—preaching. I was on the road at the time and didn’t get to attend his funeral. When I came home for the summer before he passed away, I had lunch with him and asked him how he was doing. He said he was okay, but he had lost weight and didn’t look well. Although he and my mother had divorced, I never had any ill feelings toward him. His divorcing my mother is just part of life. He was a good father to me. ***

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Nate Branch with Barry Kienzle

Music has always been a significant influence in my life. Part of it may be cultural, but much of it may be inherited talent. My parents had me take music lessons when I was ten or twelve years old. The keyboard was always my favorite. My teacher once said to me, “You’re not reading the notes, are you? It seems once you hear a song, you can play it.”

She was right. I am gifted with that talent. If I hear a song once or twice, I can play it from memory. It must be a gift from God. But even today, I don’t rehearse much, and I never practice on the piano. If there’s a song I want to play, I go ahead and play it. It just comes naturally to me.

My music lessons ended after my sixth lesson. I didn’t want to go anymore because they were on Saturday afternoons, and I wanted to be out playing with my buddies. Fortunately, because I quit taking the lessons, I got involved in the church. My uncle was the musical director at the time at our church. He found out I had some talent, so he started teaching me music. The first song I learned to play on the piano was, “Thank You, Jesus.” While the piano was my favorite, I also played guitar with a gospel quartet in church when I was a teenager.

I don’t remember the transition when I began to play, but it came over me suddenly. But music is my first love. It’s always been in my blood—my family’s blood.

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2

My Shot

of a

Lifetime

After I moved to San Francisco and then to East Palo Alto with my mother and adoptive father, my life changed dramatically for the better. We had a lovely peaceful home. While our lifestyle was modest and structured, being involved in the church as we were, we enjoyed our lives without the strict disciplinary code enforced by my father in Chicago. Peace and harmony prevailed to all of our satisfaction.

I had another paper route in San Francisco, much different from the one I had in Chicago, but challenging nonetheless. I delivered the San Francisco Chronicle for the year we lived there, beginning when I was ten years old. I had to deliver the newspapers on a bike on my route because I couldn’t cover enough territory pulling a wagon. With all the hills to climb in the city, it was a physical struggle—quite an experience. I’m sure my legs benefitted long-term from the exercise.

I didn’t start playing organized basketball until I was in the seventh grade. Since my first love was music, I honed my skills in church, playing in many of its services. I had a real passion for it.

I felt closer to God using the skills he gave me. I played basketball simply because I was good at it—a natural talent.

The first team I played for was my middle school, Green Oaks School. Our school colors were green and gold. My mother took one of my knee pads and dyed it green. It looked terrific. She was

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Nate Branch with Barry Kienzle

always thoughtful of others that way, looking after those most special to her—loved ones.

It made me feel special wearing a color-coordinated kneepad which I know is why she dyed it. I wore the knee pad on my left knee throughout the entire season, even though I didn’t need to.

I thought it was cool to wear a knee pad with my school colors— no other reason.

Playing for Green Oaks was my first experience with a coach in basketball. You can hone many of your skills like shooting, dribbling, and passing on the playground. But reining in your ego to utilize those skills to play with others as a team takes patience and dedication.

Coaches are the unsung heroes of youth sports. They teach you the technical aspects of the game you never knew or considered.

Practicing routine drills can be drudgery but rewarding when you hone them to a sharp edge to play as a team and win games.

Coaches then pass you on to the next level, where you may excel and move on, or your playing days end. And they take great pride in those they’ve coached who succeed. Coaches are always commenting on former players they’ve helped advance through the years. Statements like, “When I got him, he couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn until I taught him to square up his shoulders to the basket,” or “He stood there like a statue in the middle until I showed him the footwork he needed to play the low post. Now, look at him.”

It takes special people to be coaches, and I’m fortunate to have been coached by some good ones. I owe a lot of my success to them.

Surprisingly, my only brother who played basketball was Gerald. He played high school ball and was a good player. But he quit his team after his coach once took him out of a game.

I guess he let his ego override his good sense. Because he was six years older than me, I learned a lot from playing with him and his friends when we played at the local recreation center on Wednesday nights for pickup games. It was the place to be if you were a serious player.

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Nate Branch—Playing My Way Through Life

My mother was very supportive of my basketball career, but my father, James—not so much. He was so busy with the church’s ministry he rarely saw me play. I believe he came to only one of my games, probably at my mother’s insistence.

Not surprisingly, he didn’t want me to play basketball at all.

Because I was so involved in the church, he didn’t think I would have enough time to devote to both, and he naturally favored my church work.

When I wanted to play freshman basketball at Ravenswood High School in East Palo Alto, he and my mother argued about it.

She insisted I play, but he said no. My freshman coach wrote him a letter asking that I play and showing him its benefits. Father relented, and I was allowed to play, and I was on my way to a very successful high school career. *** The Ravenswood Trojans had a great team in 1962. We weren’t particularly tall, with me leading the way at six feet four, but I was a jumper. We had an experienced and hustling team which led us to the South Peninsula Athletic League season title with a 19-3 record and a spot in the newly formed Peninsula Basketball Tournament.

Eight area league champions participated in the tournament, with Ravenswood representing the South Peninsula Athletic League. At the time, California didn’t have a state championship, so seasons often ended with league titles and no post-season play. The tournament received a lot of publicity leading up to it because everyone was interested in seeing who would be king of the hill, of the area high schools, or at least the peninsula.

The tournament games were played at Stanford University’s Men’s Gym, which held 2,800 spectators. We had never played at Stanford, much less before so many fans. No one could have foretold how exciting the games’ results would be for Ravenswood.

Our first game was a thrilling 54-53 double-overtime victory over Los Altos High School, an established program. I grabbed a rebound from a wild shot and slammed it through the hoop as 20

Nate Branch with Barry Kienzle

time ran out. It was an exciting game’s end and a terrific start for us. A big win in an opening game of a tournament will boost the confidence of any team.

Our second game the following day was a 57-46 victory over Campbell. Our team was now firing on all cylinders, and our confidence was soaring. Our next challenge was to meet St. Elizabeth, the Catholic League representative from Oakland, in the championship game. Both teams were blazing a trail for their respective schools, neither having played in post-season championship games before.

It was exciting for our entire team, too, never having played in a championship game of this importance, which made it exciting and nerve-wracking for some. Games of this magnitude can bring out the best and worst in players, sometimes in the same game. I was confident we would come through, but I had no idea what a struggle it would be to raise the championship trophy at game’s end.

It was more than a little ironic that the two schools participating in the finals were from East Palo Alto and Oakland, the per-capita murder capitals in the United States at the time.

And to be playing in the influential city of Palo Alto at Stanford, one of the most elite ranked colleges in the U.S. And even though Ravenswood High was a predominantly black school and St. Elizabeth was an all-white school, competition in sports can be a great equalizer; the basketball and hoop didn’t care who was playing. We were there to represent our schools and compete on the basketball court. There were no racial overtones by either team.

The entire three-day tournament was electric, especially the championship night. When we were in our locker room before our games, we could hear the fans cheering for their teams. Our coach wouldn’t allow us to watch any of the other games because he wanted us to focus on ours.

Coach Crane was going over our schemes for the game because we didn’t have any scouting reports on the other teams, and we hadn’t played any of them that year. He matched us up by position, but we concentrated on our plays and didn’t worry much about our opponents.

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Nate Branch—Playing My Way Through Life

Typically, we would have our second team run the other team’s plays during practice if we had a game coming up during the regular season. That never sunk in with me because I couldn’t tell what the other team was doing regarding what play they’d be running from where I was on the floor. You don’t have time to think much about it. You had to pay attention to and react to the player you were guarding. You could recognize a play but lose your man, and then he’d be open and score.

When we arrived at the gym during the tournament games, you could hear the noise and screams of the fans, but I blocked it out of my mind. It could be both exciting and distracting. I was never concerned about that—I didn’t care.

On championship night, I focused on playing St. Elizabeth and what I had to do to help us win—all the other things didn’t matter. I wasn’t concerned about who’d they have guarding me.

In any game, you must take advantage of the opportunities to score when they come. I loved to rebound because players would shoot and miss, and I’d be right there to tip it back in or grab a key defensive rebound.

I always could jump high, though, and when I would go up to dunk, my elbows would be rim high. I was a leaper and would jump center on our tip-offs. I used my jumping ability to my advantage whenever possible.

Our game against St. Elizabeth played out as we expected.

We knew they played tough defense, but we were confident in our offensive abilities and pressing defense. The first quarter was intense, with St. Elizabeth owning a slight edge of three points.

We kept up our pressure defense in the second quarter, but St. Elizabeth stretched its lead to four points at 31-27 at halftime. I don’t recall what Coach Crane told us at the break, but we weren’t panicked, being down by only four points, and felt confident coming out of the locker room after the half. Whatever he said must have inspired us because we scored the first ten points of the third quarter to go up 37-31.

We maintained our good play and held a six-point lead at 43-37 midway through the quarter. But St. Elizabeth roared back as good teams often do and cut our lead to two at the end of the 22

Nate Branch with Barry Kienzle

third quarter, 45-43. We sensed the fourth quarter would be a doozy.

We were right as the fourth quarter played out with multiple lead changes, with neither team willing to hand the game to the other. The game’s pace slowed as time wore down, and the score was close. Fast-break miscues late in a game can turn a game around in a hurry.

St. Elizabeth tied the score with a little over a minute to go. A minute can feel like an eternity if you have possession of the ball and an instant if you don’t. But we had the ball and thought we were in control of our destiny, but after a couple of missed shots at the buzzer, the game ended at 57-57 in regulation.

In the first overtime, I controlled the opening tip, but we missed a shot that St. Elizabeth rebounded, and they sat on the ball for the entire period hoping for a last-second winning shot which they got but missed. On we went to another overtime period.

In the second overtime, we controlled the ball and sat on it for the period setting up a last-second shot. It didn’t work out for our team either, as our attempt missed as time expired. The knot was twisting tighter as we moved on to the third overtime period.

St. Elizabeth controlled the tip in this period and immediately went into stall mode again. However, this overtime had more action as our Milky Johnson fouled, giving St. Elizabeth two free throws. The first one missed, but they made the second one, giving them a 58-57 lead with three seconds remaining.

Milky fired a pass to me under the basket, but I was fouled hard and missed the shot. Being awarded two free throws, I had a chance to win the game by making both. I made the first one to tie the game at 58 but missed the second one. That miss has stuck with me forever, but it may have been my best miss ever, the way things turned out for Ravenswood and me.

By the fourth overtime, both teams were mentally, if not physically, exhausted. Playing stall ball can be physically draining for players conditioned to run the ball up and down the floor.

And mentally exhausting because you didn’t want to foul your 23

Nate Branch—Playing My Way Through Life

opponent and put them on the free-throw line for a chance to seal a victory, especially in what could be the final seconds of the game.

Fortunately, I had enough spring left in my legs, and I controlled the tip, and we took possession of the ball. Coach Crane again called for us to stall, which we did. He called for a timeout with sixteen seconds left in the period and drew up what we hoped would be the final and winning play of the game.

But St. Elizabeth played us tough defensively, and we had to let loose with a desperation shot. I got the rebound but couldn’t get it to go as time ran out. I wondered if this game would ever end.

As the fifth overtime began, I controlled the tip again, and we proceeded into our delay game. As time was running down in the period, Coach signaled for a timeout, and we gathered in a huddle to see what he wanted us to run for a final play.

He had designed the play to go to Milky, our best guard and player. He hadn’t done much in the second half, but he was our best shooter, so Coach liked our chances with the ball in his hands. Our other guard was supposed to screen for Milky on the inbound side of the court, where he was to take the last shot. If he wasn’t open or I couldn’t see him, Coach told me to shoot it because we only had a few seconds, maybe three, remaining on the clock. I wiped my face off in a towel and got ready for what I hoped would be the final play of the game.

The play was to inbound the ball to me because I was the right forward on that side of the court. I broke to the corner, took the pass, turned around, but I didn’t see Milky, so I just let it fly.

It flew through the rim like a guided missile, touching nothing but the net. The horn sounded, and the game was over. We won!

People were pouring onto the floor—it was crazy.

I still remember seeing the ball go through the basket. It took a few seconds afterward for me to realize the game was over. But when I turned around, I saw all our fans pouring onto the floor.

It was nuts, with people screaming and cheering and swarming around me.

The over-the-top celebration following our win was new to me. It was the first time people had surrounded me like that after 24

Nate Branch with Barry Kienzle

a game. I had won other games before with last-second shots, but this was different—this was a championship! A big one! When they picked me up on their shoulders, I didn’t care for all the attention, so I was crouching over because I wanted to get down.

I didn’t know what to think about all the hoopla—and it didn’t seem to want to end. I was happy we won, but I wasn’t as excited as everyone else. To me, it was like another game. Humility was a virtue my family preached to us from an early age. My parents didn’t promote any form of fanfare, so I didn’t feel I deserved all the attention I was receiving.

Somebody had to make the shot. It just happened to be me.

Sure, it wasn’t my typical near-the-rim shot, it was a twentytwo-footer from the corner, but it also wasn’t a mid-court heave either. Nonetheless, it was indeed a team victory.

After the game, Coach Crane announced to the student body to join us back at our school gym for a celebration. Because the team had taken a bus to the game, everybody rushed back to the school to greet us when we arrived.

When we did, he opened the gymnasium and located some record players to play records and have a party to celebrate our victory. But me being the preacher’s kid, I didn’t stay around but drove home. I wasn’t the party type. It was just another night for me.

The next day our win was all over the news and newspapers. I was surprised at all the attention we were receiving. I knew it was important to us, but I didn’t grasp its importance to the entire community until I saw its reaction to our accomplishment. I guess everyone likes a winner. I didn’t think much about, Wow, we’re the champs! I never had that feeling. We had a darn good team who worked hard all year and got what we deserved—a championship.

To me, Milky Johnson was the best player on our team who earned as much praise as I was receiving. His talent amazed me; he could do everything: shoot, pass, and dunk. He was so smooth on the floor, and he was a little guy around five feet nine or so. I watched and admired him in practice and the games.

I didn’t know him as well as some others because we didn’t hang around together. I didn’t hang out much with anybody 25

Nate Branch—Playing My Way Through Life

because I always had to go home and play piano or attend a church meeting or other church-related activity. I know he had a couple of buddies on the team. After school, I’d see him at practice, and we’d say “hi” to each other. We played on the same team, but it’s as far as it went between us.

I didn’t know much about his personal life, though. I know he had a girlfriend who he ended up marrying.

In our senior year, we both had scholarship offers from the University of Pacific in Stockton, California, about eighty miles from East Palo Alto. I asked Milky if he wanted to go there because we had played together for a long time. I was willing to go there with him. He didn’t want to play there because he didn’t want to leave his girlfriend. He wanted to stay closer to home.

That’s when I began looking at the other schools recruiting me on my own. Milky went to college at the University of California at Berkeley, much closer to home, and he was doing very well, but he didn’t like classwork, so he lasted only a year or two there.

Years later, when they inducted him into the Peninsula Hall of Fame, he had already passed away. The committee asked me to accept the award on his behalf. So I went and gave a speech, received the award on his behalf, and gave it to his daughter, who also attended the ceremony.

My winning shot did a lot for Ravenswood High School and East Palo Alto. Nobody had hardly ever heard of East Palo Alto, an unincorporated area in San Mateo County. The City of Palo Alto proper is where people with money lived. East Palo Alto was predominantly a ghetto area but now a famous one. Dave Newhouse, a long-time now-retired journalist for the Oakland Tribune, recently wrote a book about the game and the players and coaches. It’s titled The Game Would Not End. Even today, that game is still the longest championship game played at any level in California. After sixty years, one could also claim it’s the story that would not end.

26

3

The Road

to

Nebraska

The journey to the University of Nebraska began in East Palo Alto in the wake of the Peninsula Basketball Championship, which Ravenswood won in five overtime periods. In the next issue of Sports Illustrated following the game, my picture appeared in their “Faces in the Crowd” section.

I received a lot of publicity following the game, which resulted in my receiving about twenty-five different athletic scholarships from colleges around the country. I’m sure I would have received my fair share of offers had I not been the media’s proclaimed hero of the game, but it wouldn’t have been anywhere near twentyfive. I was a good solid player, but the attention I was receiving helped raise my value tremendously among college scouts.

An even more tremendous boost came later. Our team attended the Peninsula Basketball Championship dinner at a local restaurant to honor our achievement. Local sports celebrities attended, which raised the atmosphere immensely.

Willie Mays, the All-Star centerfielder for the San Francisco Giants, was there. R.C. Owens, the famous football player for the San Francisco 49ers, and a few other football players were in 27

Nate Branch—Playing My Way Through Life

attendance too. It wasn’t your typical end-of-year sports award banquet, for sure.

While I admired those athletes, the highlight of my night was sitting at my table with Wilt Chamberlain. Wilt was an outstanding NBA player for the San Francisco Warriors. He was my idol long before I ever met him. Wilt always wore a rubber band around his wrist when playing. They say he started it as a kid. If his socks didn’t stay up, he would have a way to hold them up. I was doing the same thing in high school, not to fix my socks but to emulate him.

We happened to both be reaching for the mashed potatoes on the buffet line, and he noticed the rubber band on my wrist.

He said, “Oh, you wear a rubber band.”

And I replied, “Yes, sir, I do.”

As a result, Wilt Chamberlain and I became friends when I was a senior.

After the dinner and award speeches, he signed autographs and wrote down his phone number for me. He told me to give him a call sometime. He lived in nearby San Francisco because he was playing for the Warriors at the time.

I got up enough nerve and called him one day. We talked, and he asked me for my address. I told him where we lived down in East Palo Alto. He said, “I’ll check you out soon.”

I was thrilled that I was speaking to an NBA legend, much less one who had recently scored a hundred points in a game, and he said he would check me out.

One day he called me unexpectedly. My mother answered and said, “Somebody on the phone named Wilt wants to talk to you.”

I picked up the phone but had no idea who it might be. Then a deep voice says, “Hey man, what are you doing? This is Wilt.

Do you want to come to the game tonight?”

Of course, I said yes. My girlfriend and I accepted his invitation and went to the game in San Francisco at the Cow Palace where the Warriors played. He left a couple of tickets for us at the will-call window. We had good seats, and it was exciting to know someone like Wilt had invited me, a high school player.

28

Nate Branch with Barry Kienzle

About a week later, my father’s brother passed away. After the funeral, we were at our house having our repast dinner. Family and friends gathered to console each other and reminisce about the dearly departed, and Wilt called again.

My mother answered the phone and said, “This guy Wilt is on the phone again for you.”

I went to the phone, and he asked, “How do I get to your house?”

He was in downtown Palo Alto at the time, not far from where we were in East Palo Alto. I told him where we lived, then I said, “I’ll meet you halfway.”

I excused myself from the dinner table and got in my car to drive to meet him. Before I had a chance to pull away, I saw someone driving up our street in a Bentley convertible with his head sticking up above the windshield. It was a sight to see, and it couldn’t have been anybody else but seven-foot-one Wilt Chamberlain.

I invited him into our house and introduced him to everyone.

Some of my relatives didn’t realize who he was, but he stayed and had dinner. My father said, “I’d have rather bought his clothes because he ate half a ham.”

Afterward, I spoke with Wilt about my college scholarship offers. I asked him which college I should attend. He said, “I’m not going to tell you which college to go to, but if I hadn’t gone to Kansas, I would have gone to Nebraska.”

So, I went to Nebraska for an official visit since I had already received an invitation letter from them, and their coach had also come up to check me out while I was in gym class in high school.

I wanted to see what they had to offer. I learned they hadn’t had a winning season since 1948-1949. I decided I could only go up from there, and if Wilt said he would have gone there, it was good enough for me.

I committed to playing ball for the University of Nebraska.

It was comfortable committing to a school that wanted me to play there as much as they did. When I was going through the decision process, they wanted me so badly they offered my niece an academic scholarship. But she didn’t want to go. I did, and I was off to Nebraska!

29

Nate Branch—Playing My Way Through Life

*** After the summer of my senior year, my parents and I headed off to the university in Lincoln. They were driving to Chicago, where we had lived, so they dropped me off at the school. I suppose they were delighted I had received a full scholarship. If I hadn’t received the scholarship offers I had, I might not have been able to attend a highly regarded institution like Nebraska. The single shot I made in one basketball game was paying dividends far greater than any of us could have ever imagined. I hoped I could live up to all of our expectations.

I remember sitting in the back seat of our car as we drove, wondering what life had in store for me in college. After we crossed the Rocky Mountains in Colorado and entered Nebraska, I was shocked at the miles and miles of cornfields we passed. It started to set in why the university’s nickname is Cornhuskers.

I had traveled through Nebraska while moving from Chicago to California but had not paid much attention to the geography since we wouldn’t be living there, or I had forgotten it. When I made my recruiting visit to campus, I flew in, and the corn wasn’t ripe on the stalk yet.

It was also hard to believe how much flat land there was in Nebraska. I could tell I was in the heartland of America. I’m sure my parents were happy that I had accepted a basketball scholarship there instead of one from a metropolitan college.

When I arrived on campus, the administration showed me around and helped me find my dorm room. I didn’t know what to expect and felt fortunate to have been assigned a corner room with windows on two sides—perhaps a perk for a scholarship athlete. The room was modest and furnished with two bunk beds. Now I needed to get adjusted to college life.

In the beginning, I didn’t know anyone on campus, which took some getting used to, starting over, and making new friends. I’m sure most of the student population had never been to California, so I wasn’t going to find anyone from the Bay Area there either.

30

Nate Branch with Barry Kienzle

Like the Peninsula Basketball Championship game, it seemed every minute was a new experience for me. I had never been away from home and on my own before. Now I was indeed responsible for myself.

The cultural differences between the Midwest and the West Coast are pronounced. They say Midwestern people are genuinely friendly, very agreeable, and conscientious about what they do.

On the West Coast, though, many who live there aren’t initially from there, so they don’t always have the same “hey, neighbor” attitude you frequently experience in the Midwest.

On the weekends, most of the students from the nearby cities and towns would go home. The campus would be dead with little to do for those who stayed. The student union was open to serve food, but there weren’t many people on campus. I remember my favorite dish on weekends was French fries with chicken gravy.

I especially enjoyed it, and it makes me hungry to think about it now.

The city wasn’t entirely dead on the weekends, and there were some things to do on or near campus. The university issued all its athletes a movie pass to go to the movies for free. Each time we went, they would punch a hole in our card because you could go only a specified number of times. I went to the movies so often my card started to look like Swiss cheese. It had so many punches it was hard to read my name.

My first roommate was Fred Hare, a black athlete from Omaha. He was an outstanding basketball player ranked as the No. 1 high school basketball recruit in Nebraska the previous year. He was a good guy, and we got along well, but he wasn’t much into studying or going to class.

I’d wake up in the morning to get ready to go, and he’d still be lying in his bunk. I’d ask him if he was going to class, and he’d roll over and say he’d get there tomorrow. Oddly, he was very fluent in Spanish, which I spoke very little. He was kind enough to take me to his home in Omaha once to meet his family.

We were roommates for only two years because he left school after our sophomore year due to a knee injury. He returned, though, and played a few years later.

31

Nate Branch—Playing My Way Through Life

During my first year at Nebraska, I could have been a better student myself. That’s not uncommon among first-year students who are adjusting to the challenges of college life. For me, going to class was okay. But it was quite an experience having to go to a different building, sometimes across campus for every class instead of just moving down the hall to another classroom like in high school.

In college, you must learn to be responsible for yourself.

It includes cleaning your clothes, picking up after yourself— everything Mom did for me back home. Fortunately, I didn’t have to worry too much about food since I was on an athletic team. There was always plenty of food on the training table.

Many of my instructors told us they didn’t care whether we came to class or not. They gave us the list of reading materials and the test dates and told us to be sure to show up for the test. I was naïve to think I could get by solely reading the materials, and I skipped too many classes.

Once I was reviewing my test schedule as mid-terms neared.

I forgot I had signed up for a geography class because I had never attended it, much less read the materials. Consequently, my grades suffered, so I had to take a correspondence course from home in California over the summer to get my grade average back up to stay on the team. It was a wake-up call for me, and I was much more conscientious about my studies after that.

When I got to Nebraska, I had dreams of being a doctor. I loved the sciences. But my coach told me they didn’t bring me there to study to be a doctor. I was there to play basketball. He told me I wouldn’t have time to take any classes to get into medical school. They rewrote my whole academic itinerary and put me into the elementary education major. I’m sure those courses were easier to get through than the pre-med ones, but I wasn’t excited about giving up my dream.

I enjoyed elementary education, though. I learned child psychology, and it taught me some things about people and how they react to certain situations, which helped me later in life.

I had an art class where my instructor was from San Francisco. Most of the students in the class were girls. He had 32

Nate Branch with Barry Kienzle

a tiny office with a glass window that overlooked the classroom.

He would call me into his office during class, and we would talk about San Francisco, Fisherman’s Wharf, and other places in the surrounding area. He may have been homesick. He gave me an A for the class, but I couldn’t draw worth two cents. I did enjoy the course, though. *** As you would expect from a basketball recruit, I felt most comfortable when I was on a basketball court and was happy when practice began. The varsity basketball coach was Joe Cipriano, and he was a good one. I liked him.

Before coming to Nebraska, he coached at Idaho, so the players called him “Slippery Joe from Idaho.” He was funny and kept things loose in practices. He would also get out on the floor to run the plays to show us what he wanted. That’s the kind of coach he was—hands-on. We respected his approach. Other coaches often have their assistants run their practices.

He invited me to his home once to have dinner with his family because he knew I was from California, and many of the students had gone home for the weekend.

When the practices began at the beginning of the season, he made us run up and down the football stadium steps to get our legs in shape. That training technique is common in many sports. It builds strength and endurance in your legs as well as cardiovascular capacity in your lungs. The following year though, he decided it was better to walk up the steps, which uses more muscles than getting momentum from running up them.

Once, it was raining when we were to walk the steps, so we went into the indoor track to run instead. Coach wanted us to run a mile at a quick pace, not a jog. Stu Lantz, another player, and I thought we would be coy and cut our run time.

The indoor track had seats in the middle, so when we circled it, there was a blind spot where we thought Coach couldn’t see us. On each lap, we stopped there as everyone else kept running.

We would then join them on the next lap. Coach caught on to 33

Nate Branch—Playing My Way Through Life

what we were doing, making the two of us rerun all the laps.

Fortunately, we had an excellent freshman team that year, which made our challenging practices worthwhile. Once, we were scrimmaging with the varsity squad, and Coach pulled both Fred Hare and me out of the game for fear our freshmen team would beat the varsity, which would have been humiliating for them.

My game had improved a lot since high school, which I expected it would. We got stronger and started filling out practicing against top-notch players every day. I felt confident going into the season.

I could always jump with the best of them, but I improved so much I could jump high enough to bump my head on the rim.

My well-deserved nickname was “Springs.” It was my job to pull down rebounds on both ends of the floor, and I didn’t disappoint. *** My sophomore year was my first one on the varsity. NCAA rules didn’t allow freshmen to play on the varsity, and instead, we played games against other freshman teams. Unfortunately, they aren’t played before the varsity games and are lightly attended, lacking the usual college game atmosphere.

In my first varsity game at Nebraska, the experience was much better, and I was a bit nervous. The fans started filing in for our game filling up our old gym. Our players called it “the barn” because it took forever to get it warm for practice.

My first varsity game was a pleasant experience, though, if for no other reason than we had nice new uniforms and warmup suits with jackets and pants. I always wanted a warm-up suit with pants. We didn’t have those in high school, where all we wore was a jacket. Our new suit was stylish with stripes on the sides of the legs. I thought I looked good running on the floor during warm-ups.

Unfortunately, we lost more games than we won that year, but when we started winning games the following year, the fieldhouse started selling out, and the atmosphere at the games 34

Nate Branch with Barry Kienzle

rose appreciably. Our fans felt as we did that we had something special brewing.

Even though we had a poor record my sophomore year, the highlight of our year was a home game in which we upset No. 1-ranked Michigan, which featured their star player, Cazzie Russell. Russell was a well-known player who led Michigan to the NCAA finals that year, where they lost to UCLA even though he scored twenty-eight points in the game.

Our Fred Hare scored the winning basket in our game. It was unbelievable how we beat them. We gave them all they could handle the entire game to our credit, which surprised many, especially the media. But back then, there was no shot clock, so you could stall the ball as we did near the end of the game.

We were one point behind, and the clock was running down. Coach called for a timeout with only four or five seconds remaining. He set up a play that called for Fred to shoot the last shot. After we inbounded the ball, I positioned myself for a potential rebound and a putback shot.

Fred got the shot off and missed. Fortunately, the ball rebounded to him at the top of the key, and he flipped it back over his head toward the basket. It rolled around the rim, eventually dropping in. It was a lucky shot indeed, but a 74-73 winning one.

The home crowd went crazy and stormed the floor in reaction to possibly the best-played game ever seen in our gym. I was proud to have played a role in it. With that game, the basketball program had taken a giant step forward.

After the game, I thought I would be a sportsman and go to the Michigan locker room to wish them well and tell them it was a good game. I saw Cazzie sitting there crying, and the other players told me to get lost.

Bill Buntin, a big guy who played center, was also on their team. He later played in the NBA. Cazzie Russell was the No. 1 overall pick of the New York Knicks in the 1966 NBA draft, was an NBA All-Star, and played twelve years in the league. He also played in the NBA with the Los Angeles Lakers and the Chicago Bulls.

35

Nate Branch—Playing My Way Through Life

The win may go down as the greatest in the University of Nebraska’s history. To have it be against a No. 1 ranked team with a player the likes of Cazzie Russell was a well-earned exclamation point for the efforts of a young team and coach with a losing record trying to pull itself onto the national stage.

Our style of basketball was a solid fast-paced game. The following year, we came into our own with a 20-5 record. Still, we didn’t qualify for the NCAA tournament because we finished second in the Big Eight Conference to Kansas, nor the National Invitational Tournament, most likely because we didn’t have a winning basketball legacy.

The backbone of our winning team was Tom Baack, Stu Lantz, Grant Simmons, and me, all of whom were drafted or played in the NBA or the American Basketball Association (ABA).

The following year we were invited to the National Invitation Tournament.

Coach Cipriano coached at Nebraska for seventeen seasons before dying of cancer at age forty-nine in 1980. I believe I was his last former player to call him before he passed. I could tell it meant a lot to him when I did, and it meant a lot to me too. I was glad I could talk to him before he was gone. I always admired him as a coach and a man. *** Stu Lantz, another team member, and I had some fun, if not misplaced, times together. He was my roommate when we went on the road to play. We also roomed together the night before home games at the Nebraska Center Hotel, which the school owned. Management felt It necessary for the team to be together before all games to keep us focused on the task at hand. The following day, we’d have our breakfast together as well as our pregame meal.

One night when the team was doing very well—we were ranked eleventh in the nation—and feeling pretty good about ourselves, we decided to go to the pizza parlor across the street from the hotel. We had a curfew and probably had to be in our rooms by 10 or so.

36

Nate Branch with Barry Kienzle

Stu and I thought we would sneak out and head across the street to get a pizza after the curfew. We did, went across the street, opened the door, and who was sitting there but Coach Cipriano with a recruit.

We jumped back outside, turned, and ran back across the street. However, on the adjoining sidewalk, there was a wire stretched to keep people off the grass. I didn’t see it in my haste and the darkness, so I tripped on it and cut myself. We made it back to our room, where I worked on patching up my leg.

The next day, Coach asked about my injured leg. I told him I had an accident and cut it. He replied that I probably did it running back to the hotel after running out of the pizza joint the night before. Busted!

As my mother would have said, we may have gotten too big for our britches that season because we had the tremendous season at 20-5 the year before, which aided us receiving a current invitation to the season-ending NIT. Many considered the NIT a more prestigious tournament because it had a smaller select field at fourteen teams than the NCAA tournament, which had twenty-two teams. It was also played in Madison Square Garden in New York, the mecca of media coverage.

Before we left for the NIT, we were in Denver, Colorado, to play Colorado University near Boulder. We were going to fly straight from there to New York. Stu and I thought we would make a grand entrance by taking our time going downstairs to get on the bus to go to the game.

However, Coach left without us, so we had to take a taxi to the game. As a result of our foolhardiness, he didn’t start us that night and made us sit on the bench for about three minutes of game time before putting us in. He taught us a lesson. We got the message. Sometimes all you can do is laugh at the stupid things you do in your youth.

At the NIT, we lost our first game to Marshall by a lopsided score. The tournament champion was Southern Illinois University, led by Walt Frazier, the tournament’s Most Valuable Player and the fifth pick in that year’s NBA draft. Even though we lost, it was fun playing under the bright lights in New York.

37

Nate Branch—Playing My Way Through Life

Stu Lantz was drafted into the NBA in 1968 and played for four teams in a nine-year career, including the Los Angeles Lakers. He’s now a TV commentator for the Lakers.

Nebraska University inducted me into their Hall of Fame in January 1994. The night of the ceremony, there was a giant cutout of me in the lobby that must have been ten feet tall. The induction was an honor, especially twenty-seven years after I played there. *** When it comes to adjusting to the Midwest, coming from the West Coast, I can’t say enough about the difference in the weather.

At times, it’s like being on another planet. In the Midwest, the weather can be both unpredictable and extreme. The summers can be scorching hot, with the winters extremely cold. And the weather there has a way of changing day by day or hour by hour.

Midwesterners’ ability to adapt to weather changes is due to the emphasis they place on preparedness. The weather took some getting used to, and I don’t know if I ever really did.

In California, the weather can be boringly perfect throughout the year. The only concern on any given day may be whether you need to take a jacket with you when you go out.

I remember my first winter in Nebraska. When I left home, my mother sent me off with more than enough flannel underwear, hats and gloves, and other things—probably enough for two people. Because we had lived in Chicago, she knew how cold it could get out on the plains.

Over time, memories of the cold must have faded in my mind. The first day it snowed, it must have been twelve degrees below zero. I went to class wearing what felt like all the clothes I had, including long johns. The instructor, however, had the heat turned up as high as it would go. I sat in class sweating like a dog. I learned a good lesson that day—adapt to changes in the weather.

If you wanted to fit in at Nebraska, you had to be a football fan. Nebraska was highly rated in football then as it is now. All 38

Nate Branch with Barry Kienzle

the school’s athletes were given free football tickets to all home football games, so you didn’t have a good excuse not to go. Well, except maybe me.

My first football game was on a Saturday. It was so cold, and I wasn’t used to that kind of weather, but I went to the game because I had a ticket that was hard to come by for the average fan. I walked to the stadium from my dorm room, and it was so cold, maybe fifteen degrees, I thought I would freeze to death.

Shortly after they played the national anthem, I slinked back to my dorm. I didn’t even see the first play of the game—I was numb.

It was so cold at times in Nebraska that I would go to the store and buy ice cream and Popsicles, open my window, and store them on the ledge outside where they stayed frozen. I didn’t need a freezer. Mother Nature provided a good one!

Regarding extreme changes in the weather, a regular occurrence on the plains, there was a tornado about six miles from campus during my junior year. At noon that day, the sky was sunny and bright. In less than a half-hour, it was as dark as 9 at night.

The wind was blowing so hard the traffic lights stood straight out. I had never seen anything like it in my entire life in California. They told us to go inside the dorms and down into the basement. It freaked me out worse than the earthquake tremors we experience in California. I wanted no part of a tornado— scary stuff.

Another time I remember the sun was shining brightly in late winter or early spring. The dorms were arranged in a quadrangle with a grassy area in the center, allowing many students to lie out to sunbathe. The very next day, there was a snowstorm.

The temperature dropped forty degrees overnight. I couldn’t believe it. It would have taken a considerable effort from me to permanently adjust to midwestern weather. ***

39

Nate Branch—Playing My Way Through Life

As I mentioned, Lincoln, Nebraska, is a football town, and on football day, they would shut down the entire city. The only thing open was the movie theater and the hamburger joints. You wouldn’t see anything like that on the West Coast.

I loved my time in Nebraska, though. The people there were some of the friendliest and most caring people I have ever met. They were always so kind to me—an out-of-towner. It’s a midwestern trait so different from either the East or West Coasts.

It’s as if they are nice to you, so you like them as well—so genuine.

It was an excellent environment for me, a naturally friendly person. The university’s enrollment was about eleven thousand students with fewer than one hundred black ones when I was there. And most of those were the athletes. We didn’t have many girls from which to choose.

My roommate in my junior year, Richard Olson, was white.

He was an architecture major from Denver, Colorado. He was a cool guy, and we had some good times together. One of his close friends went home for New Year’s, but I remained on campus while playing in a tournament we were hosting.

A lady friend invited me over for a New Year’s dinner, so I took Richard with me. She had cooked some chitlins for dinner.

Richard didn’t know what they were but liked them and dug in.

After a while, he commented, “Boy, these sure are good. What are they?”

My lady friend’s little son shouted out, “They’re hog guts.”

Richard suddenly became less thrilled about this classic Southern dish and wouldn’t take another bite. I never let him forget it. It was too funny!

I had a 1957 Chevy, which he would borrow on weekends when the basketball team played on the road. He loved my car as I did and took good care of it when he used it. He was a good guy. *** I adapted very well to the area’s culture in my junior and senior years. I formed a little band called The Nate Branch Trio—a combo. We entered a contest and won the best band award. I 40

Nate Branch with Barry Kienzle

was on the organ, and I had a guitar player and a drummer. We played all the popular songs of the day.

Because the basketball team was doing so well and its popularity was rising, my name got around. Our band was in demand for homecoming dances and proms at area junior colleges and high schools and frat and sorority parties. I believe I charged $125 for three-hour gigs.

As the band’s popularity rose, I began charging $250 if we had to go out of town. I offered my band members $50 a weekend guaranteed, whether we were working or not, or we could split everything we made three ways. They went for the $50 because it was a sure thing and good money in the 1960s for a college student.

We played every weekend after the basketball season.

Sometimes we’d play three gigs a weekend and get paid four or five hundred dollars. I made out very well since my band members took my flat fee offer. I was doing well. It’s why I could afford a car and was able to send money home from my profits every month to my mother. Life was good. I was doing what I loved most, playing music—and getting paid to do it too!

My music interests at Nebraska began more spiritually when I was a freshman. One day, I was thumbing through the phone book, looking for a church where I could attend services close to campus. I found one named Saint John Baptist Church. I thought this has got to be the church for me because its name was nearly the same as my church back home in California.

I went to the Sunday morning service and sat in the back of the church. Nobody knew me, and I didn’t know anyone else. A Sunday morning church service isn’t where you’ll run into many other college students.

The pastor announced it was the last Sunday their musician would be there because he was moving back to Chicago. He also said he wouldn’t worry about it because he knew the Lord would send them someone to replace him.

When it was time for me to request to join the church, I got up, walked down to the front, and joined the congregation. The pastor asked me where I would like to serve in the church, and I 41

Nate Branch—Playing My Way Through Life

told him I would like to sing in the choir. I didn’t tell him I played piano.

The following Tuesday night at 7, I went to choir rehearsal, and the other ten or twelve members were there. I sat in the back row in the choir stand, and we were singing acapella with no musical backup because the piano player was now gone.

All the new gospel songs made their way first through California before being distributed to church organizations in the Midwest. Since the choir was singing acapella, I got up and sat down at the piano and started playing the music because I already knew it.

The choir began applauding and shouting and carrying on praising the Lord after I started playing. They asked me if I would like to be the church’s musician. I replied I would while I was there in college but couldn’t do it during basketball season.

Being their church musician was a natural thing for me.

Growing up, I was such a church boy I wasn’t into rhythm and blues music, just gospel music. I played piano in my church since I was fourteen, so I knew I could do it. They paid me $15 a week, but I just put it back on the collection plate. The church got their choir director just as the pastor said they would. The Good Lord can work in mysterious ways.

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Part II - The Chorus

43

4

The Harlem Globetrotters Basketball's Magicians After the basketball season ended in my senior year at Nebraska, I thought about what I would do afterward. I was short on credit hours to earn my degree, and my playing eligibility and scholarship were coming to an end. If I stayed to finish my degree, it would be at my own expense, which wasn’t a preferred option. My fiancée, Marilyn, and I had made wedding plans, so I was anxious to start making money to support us. Since I hadn’t made any specific plans for making a living, I needed to figure out what I should do. I decided to head home first to assess my options.

Music was always my first love, and my confidence in my abilities grew while I was in college with the success my band had enjoyed. Between my education and my music, I was confident I’d be able to scratch out a living somehow utilizing one, if not both, skills. I hadn’t considered playing professional basketball.

Since I felt my basketball career ended at Nebraska, I was surprised and pleased when on April 2, 1967, I was drafted by an American Basketball Association expansion team, the Oakland Oaks. I was honored to be selected in the seventh round, especially by a team only thirty miles from my home. You can imagine my surprise when on May 4, 1967, I was also selected by another California team, a National Basketball Association 44

Nate Branch with Barry Kienzle

expansion team, the San Diego Rockets, especially when I wasn’t expecting to be playing professionally at all.

After being drafted by two teams, I got excited, but I had no idea what came next because I hadn’t pursued or investigated playing professionally. I spoke to my friend and idol, Wilt Chamberlain, for advice. I was excited to tell him I was drafted, and he urged me to play.

In those days, the two leagues competed for players, with the NBA usually winning out over the upstart ABA. Some famous players drafted that year were Earl “The Pearl” Monroe, Walt “Clyde” Frazier, Hall of Fame players, and Pat Riley and Phil Jackson, who later became Hall of Fame coaches. The two leagues competed against each other for players until 1976, when the ABA merged with the NBA. Also, the drafts were not the “Made for TV” events they are today nor did they receive any significant press coverage. Only after receiving letters from the two teams inviting me to join their squads did I become aware of the draft results. Now I needed to reassess my priorities.

Both teams offered me $10,000 annual contracts. I decided to sign with the Oakland Oaks because they were close to home. I was thrilled my family and others in the area would see me play professionally. It was a dream come true.

By today’s standards, $10,000 a year isn’t much, but I was a rookie, and in 1967, it was a handsome amount compared to other occupations. Professional sports also provide the opportunity to earn more if you perform well. I thought it was worth a shot. Off I went to the Oaks’ facilities when practice opened.

When I arrived at the first training camp in Oakland, it felt like my first year at Nebraska. Everything was new—I didn’t know what to expect. I was shocked at the number of players present at the camp. The Oaks had drafted only a dozen players, but over fifty were present and eager to begin showcasing their talents.

I realized they were conducting an open tryout. I suppose it was normal for expansion teams to look at undrafted decent players who may have a shot at making the team. I was happy I 45

Nate Branch—Playing My Way Through Life

had been drafted and offered a contract and didn’t have to endure the tryout process.

Unfortunately, on the first day of workouts, I sprained my ankle badly. They told me to go home for a couple of weeks, rehab it, and return to camp. Nowadays, teams have an orthopedic staff to take care of players and get them back on the floor, but not then.

My mother told me I had a big stack of letters from the Harlem Globetrotters when I got home. The following day I called them.

They told me one of the envelopes contained a plane ticket, and they expected me at their facility in Chicago in two days. The Globetrotters’ main office was also in Chicago at the time.

I felt I could work out with them to get my ankle back in shape and then return to the Oaks because the opportunity to turn pro and play in my home area was a godsend after playing for four years at Nebraska away from home.

Also, the coach of the Oaks at the time was Bruce Hale, Rick Barry’s father-in-law. Rick was an NCAA and NBA star. While forming the team, they tried to entice Rick to come over from the nearby San Francisco Warriors to play for them. Who wouldn’t want to play on a team with Rick Barry? I know I did.

When I got to Chicago, it was yet another new experience.

I was back on my own again. Since I grew up in Chicago to age ten, it did feel good to be back. I rode the bus from the airport to Chicago’s Sheraton Hotel to stay with the other Globetrotters, wondering what to expect once there.

When I checked in at the front desk, the clerk gave me a key and told me my roommate was already in the room. He was an openly friendly veteran who joined the team a couple of years before me. But I was the rookie, so I had to learn the ropes. I was a shy kid, having grown up in a church and wasn’t very streetwise, and this guy was from Harlem, a world of difference. His name was Robert “Bobby” Hunter, with a nickname of Zorro. We’re still friends today.

The following day, we went to a small gym, a community recreation center. I was expecting it would be like the Oaks

46

Nate Branch with Barry Kienzle

tryout with fifty or more guys hoping to make the team. But only six guys were trying out for two spots.

Instead, out walks the famous Meadowlark Lemon, Curly Neal, Leon Hillard, and the rest of the team. I didn’t feel intimidated by them, but I didn’t know much about them or their history, either. I just knew the Globetrotters were famous. I thought I was a good ballplayer at the time, and two professional teams had just drafted me, so I was confident I could hold my own on the floor with them, even on a bum ankle.

Also, I had rarely seen the Globetrotters play except for their games on TV on the Wide World of Sports which were only once a year. When Fred Hare and I were at Nebraska, we saw them play in Omaha, but we only stayed for a half. We weren’t all that impressed—youthful bold confidence in our skills, perhaps.

Leon Hillard was known as one of the top dribblers of all time. We were scrimmaging, and I twice stole the ball from him, quite an accomplishment, I thought. Each time I went down the court and dunked the ball. He pulled me aside as any veteran would and said, “Take it easy, Junior Flip. You’re making me look bad.” Junior Flip is a way of calling someone a young stud. He was also probably letting me know I still had a lot to learn, and showing up a veteran wasn’t the best way to go about it.

I had a good camp, and they offered me a contract for $10,000 like the Oaks had. I gave it a lot of thought and decided I could probably play longer with the Trotters than I would as a small forward in the ABA, so I took their offer. With that decision, I went from playing half my games close to home to playing all of them far from home. *** Like when I arrived at the University of Nebraska to play basketball, and my workout with the Oakland Oaks, and my practice with the Globetrotters, I didn’t know what to expect after I agreed to play for the Globetrotters, but I learned quickly.

In October, the Trotters camp broke, which only lasted ten days, and I knew we’d be hitting the road soon. I told management 47

Nate Branch—Playing My Way Through Life

I needed to go home to get some clothes, but they said no, we’re hitting the road tomorrow. When the Globetrotters say they’re hitting the road, they mean it!

I had just gotten married in July, so I had to call my new wife, Marilyn, and tell her I wouldn’t be home for a while. That was tough. Not the best way to start a new marriage, but it’s what I signed up for—a professional basketball career. I was gone for three months and didn’t get to see my wife until I was back home at Christmas that year. That was tougher.

My time home at Christmas was always short too.

Globetrotters’ games are very popular over the holidays. We’d always play on the East Coast during Christmas time, and we’d often play the day before Christmas Eve. I would play the game, rush to the airport to fly cross country to be home for Christmas for one or two days at the most. On Christmas morning, I had to leave on the first flight to Philadelphia because on December 26, we always played a game.

After I had a son, I woke him up at 4 AM to open his presents before I left. I remember him begging me not to go. Then at 5, my wife had to drive me to the airport to catch my plane.

Instead of being with my family on Christmas Day, I was en route to Philadelphia. One year, I had my uniform in my suitcase, rather than with the team. Naturally, the airline lost some of my luggage, and the only bag they lost was the one with my uniform.

I went to the game but sat on the bench in my street clothes, lamenting, as it turned out, that I could have spent the day at home with my family.

As glamorous as others often thought being a Globetrotter was, being away from home and the constant travel was a great sacrifice and took its toll on our families and us.

I Won’t Complain I’ve had some good days I’ve had hills to climb I’ve had some weary days And some sleepless nights But when I look around 48

Nate Branch with Barry Kienzle

And I think things over All my good days Outweigh my bad days So I won’t complain —song by Rev. Paul Jones *** I didn’t know much about the Globetrotters or their history when I agreed to play for them. My decision was based primarily on my interactions with them and my situation. I learned much of the team’s history from the veterans’ experiences or what they learned from those before them.

The Globetrotters originated in 1926 on the South Side of Chicago. Initially, they were called the “Savoy Big Five,” a team of black basketball players, all from Chicago, their hometown.

In 1928, those players formed a team called the “Globe Trotters.”

Abe Saperstein, the team’s manager, promoter, and the eventual owner, was a young, enterprising Jewish man from London, England, who immigrated with his parents and lived in Chicago. Saperstein changed the team’s name to the Harlem Globetrotters. He selected the Harlem name to emphasize that the team was comprised of black players. However, the team had no connection to Harlem, the trendy, predominately black New York City neighborhood.

In the late 1940s, the Globetrotters began introducing comedy routines into their games, in addition to their basketball prowess, for entertainment value. Reece “Goose” Tatum, a talented player, helped lead the conversion, which Meadow “Meadowlark” Lemon III and Hubert “Geese” Ausbie, continued in my time with the Trotters.

Through the years, despite the team’s success and financial gains, Saperstein’s frugal management of the team was legendary.

Many high-caliber players argued with and left the team over pay and treatment disputes.

One of the most well-known players to ever play for the Globetrotters, Marques Haynes, came and went because 49

Nate Branch—Playing My Way Through Life

Saperstein wouldn’t pay him the money he thought he deserved.

Haynes and Goose Tatum, a well-known former Globetrotter, then started a team called the “Harlem Magicians.” However, Marques later returned to the Globetrotters, and I was fortunate enough to play with him.

They say Abe worked tirelessly to promote and expand the Globetrotters into today’s international entertainment organization. However, the veterans told stories about him which were hard to believe.

One was that you couldn’t go into his hotel room when it was time to get paid. You’d have to knock on the door and state your name. You’d stick your hand in the door, and he would count out your money and put it in your hand.

Another was that he didn’t pay the team on one trip to Europe when he took them there to play. He just gave them meal money.

And then, for Christmas, they all got neckties with his image on them.

Saperstein died in 1966, a year before I joined the team. But he was always much talked about amongst the veterans. He was a successful man, but he considered it a privilege to play for the Trotters, not a very good approach for keeping talented players on the team.

A year after Saperstein died, Potter Palmer IV, George Gillett, Jr., and John O’Neil bought the team from the Saperstein estate, so they were my first bosses. In 1976, Metromedia, which owned radio stations, billboard advertising properties, and the Ice Capades, purchased the team. Herschend Family Entertainment, an operator of many amusement parks, currently owns the Globetrotters.

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5

It's Showtime!

The Trotters’ game routines are carefully measured and performed with precision. When I started with the team, when we initially went on the road, even though I was a Globetrotter, I played with the Washington Generals, their nightly opponent, for nearly a month. They wanted me to see firsthand what the game was like—learn it up close by observing and playing against it. It was a good idea, and I probably learned faster by playing against them.

Later, they gave me my Globetrotter uniform, the flashy, redand-white-striped shorts accompanied by a blue jersey with the number 32, which I wore with pride, and told me it was time for me to come over and play on their side. Then they put me in for a few minutes each game to learn the routines. Gradually, I worked my way up to being a starter, an accomplishment by moving up past some of the other players on the team.

As a rookie, my nickname was Mule. Not for how I played in the games but for my duties outside of it. The name was bestowed on me by Bobby Hunter, my veteran roommate who was looking after me—showing me the ropes. Nicknames are as commonplace on the Trotters as they are on many sports teams.

I did anything and everything asked of me. I was the team’s pack mule, carrying the uniform bags, the ball bags, and whatever else was needed. I understood the meaning of paying my dues. You

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aren’t a rookie forever. It would soon be someone else’s turn to be the mule. *** The design of our performances was to leave as little as possible to chance. While it was a basketball game, the audience came to see perfection, and too many flubs or mistakes diminishes the entertainment value. Therefore, every game was the same as far as routines went. It’s an entertainment production.

Each game, we would exit our locker room and be introduced on the court. The comedian on the team at the time, mostly Meadowlark Lemon when I played, would do funny antics.

When “Sweet Georgia Brown” started playing, the five starting players would perform the Magic Circle at center court, while the others would head to the bench.

The Magic Circle is the routine where we’d pass the ball to each other while performing tricks with it. The same five players performed it each night—nothing was left to chance. We couldn’t afford any mistakes in our top-of-the-game showcase.

Therefore, we performed the Magic Circle precisely the same way each night. As participants, we knew when the ball was coming our way, from whom, and in what direction. We knew what we were supposed to do when we got the ball and who to pass it to after performing our own fancy handling.

Our training camp was only ten days long, mostly to get our legs in shape because since we performed so often, our routines stayed sharp. Even though we looked like magicians while performing the Magic Circle, nothing is ever perfect. Balls could get dropped occasionally or hit a dead spot on a floor, but we strove for perfection.

We would individually practice our ball-handling for the Magic Circle in front of a mirror or by bouncing the ball against a wall. Sometimes before a game, while we waited in a hall for our introduction, we would practice it together for a few moments.

While the Magic Circle may have appeared to be highly skilled intuitive ball-handling, we constantly talked to each other 52

Nate Branch with Barry Kienzle

while performing it to ensure no mishaps. That communication evolved almost into a slang language for us.

When I was performing my part, I would say, “Here it comes, Bobby Joe,” or “Here it comes, Jackie.” Or I would simply say their name to ensure they knew the ball was coming their way next.

The audience couldn’t hear us because “Sweet Georgia Brown” was playing.. Or, if they could, they wouldn’t have been able to understand what we were saying to each other.

The playing of “Sweet Georgia Brown” was the start of everything in our performances: the game’s beginning, halftime, and end. The song is synonymous with the Globetrotters. It is a jazz favorite recorded by Brother Bones and His Shadows for Tempo in 1949. The tune is whistled to the clacking sound of Brother Bones’ handheld animal bones. It is considered the most famous anthem of any sports team.

We would hear “Sweet Georgia Brown” played night after night. Even though it’s a well-known jazz tune, after a while, you almost become oblivious to it—we heard it so much. It was like a trigger that you knew what to do when you heard it, like a factory whistle to start or end work for the day.

When I would go into a club or bar, and there was a band playing, they’d start playing “Sweet Georgia Brown.” I’d say, “No, it makes me tired just to hear it.”

All other aspects of our performances were synced to the game clock. After four minutes, a player sitting on the bench knew it was his time to enter the game. Everything was carefully choreographed and managed. Any confusion could lead to a mishap which was to be avoided at all costs.

Outside of the first quarter of the game, certain choreographed routines, the ones we called crowd-pleasers, were performed each game. We also talked to each other while on the floor to ensure everyone knew what was coming next. And some of the Washington Generals, the team we played against nearly every game, often knew our next routine.

They often had the opportunity to foil our routines, which we called reems, a vaudeville slang term for a comedy bit. All they would have to do was step in the way, or drop an arm, or 53

Nate Branch—Playing My Way Through Life

knock away a pass. They had seen our routines night after night, so they knew they were crowd-pleasers and let them come off as planned. When we correctly executed a play, the crowd cheered, especially the young kids. The entertainment aspect was crucial for all of us.

Our relationship with the Washington Generals, or any other name they played under through the years, was unique. The first half was mostly basketball—fancy passing, dribbling, and shooting. But when we went into our routines at set times during the game, the Generals didn’t interfere. They played hard against us most of the game because they didn’t want to look like patsies all the time. They were skilled players too, and some of them later became Trotters.

Their player who guarded Meadowlark from behind knew not to disrupt a pass made to Meadowlark, even by sticking out his hand, which could have forced a dropped ball. His cooperation was necessary. He might as well have been a Globetrotter because he was part of the show too.

The rest of our guys pretty much played straight basketball because Meadowlark was the one who initiated the comedy at any time of his choosing. When he felt like doing something comical, he could do it—no problem.

Midway through the third quarter, we called timeout and went into our water bucket routine where we’d fake throwing a bucket full of water on a fan. The bucket, filled with confetti, always fooled the audience and got laughs each time. I often performed the routine with Curly. Sometimes, management arranged with one of the referees or a fan to agree to have water thrown on them. It always got some big laughs. Then when we later did the confetti bucket, we had people diving for cover. It was a good crowd-pleaser.

Some of our routines even had names that we used during the games since we repeated them each game. Connie C was named after Connie Hawkins, once a Globetrotter who was a prolific dunker. That one was when Jackie Jackson would break away on the razzle-dazzle opening play of the game while we were passing the ball back and forth while running a figure-eight 54

Nate Branch with Barry Kienzle

pattern, and Meadowlark would pass the ball to him and he would drive the lane and dunk it. The fans would cheer, and the show would begin. It was always a crowd-pleaser.

Clean-up is at the end of the game. It means let’s make our moves sharp to end the game. The water gag was “Give me a little water.” When we heard the word water, it was time for the bucket to come out.

In the fourth quarter, we did our baseball and our football game routines. The baseball game is when Meadowlark runs around imaginary bases, and when he gets to home plate, Curly Neal, who was playing catcher, would have the ball. Then Meadowlark would point to the ceiling and yell, “look,” and Curly would turn his head as Meadowlark slid safely into home plate. The umpire, one of our players, would yell, “safe,” and the audience would laugh at the hijinks.

Curly would attempt to kick the ball into the hoop from halfcourt in the football routine, which he often did. We always had a player under the rim to tap in a close miss. Then we would finish the game.

The last routine, Raise ’em up, had Meadowlark jumping on the shoulders of our tallest player, usually a seven-footer, under the basket. We would throw the ball to Meadowlark, and he would dunk it in the basket. The buzzer would go off, and the game would end.

It was the same performance each time we played—the same routines. People never expected us to miss any shots, so we focused hard on each one we took. It was impressive to see Curly Neal hit a half-court set shot hitting nothing but net. He was an exceptional outside shooter. I’ve seen him make four or five in a row. Those were nights when we amazed ourselves. Other nights were more routine.

For us, it was all about entertaining the fans—our customers.

I played for fifteen years, and the program was pretty much the same as my first day, just different players in the parts. The primary show was always the same, with few new routines ever added to it. It’s what people came for and expected to see.

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Nate Branch—Playing My Way Through Life

The game’s referees were also part of our entourage and our game routines. The first referee I remember was Riley Pitcoff.

He was a character and a big part of the show too. He was entertaining and did a good job.

Our games also included halftime acts. The public deserved nonstop entertainment, not a mid-game lull in the festivities.

We’d have a variety of entertainers depending on where we were and the availability of talent. It wasn’t hard to get good halftime acts since we played nearly every game before sold-out crowds, no matter where we were.

We had trick bicycle riders, jugglers, a comedy ballet act from France, and others. We had every type of act you could imagine at one time or another. We even had the world-famous magician Doug Henning when he was making a name for himself. One year, in Chicago, “The Eagles,” who were working their way up to greatness, played at halftime at one of our games. I came out of our locker room early to hear them play. I could tell they were going places.

The enthusiasm for the team by the public was incredible.

People followed us for years and came to see us every time we came to their area, even though it was the same basic show.

One of the unique things about the Trotters is that the first time you saw them, you simply thought, Those guys are really good. Nobody could beat the Globetrotters. We did take pride in our play, but we never thought we could go up against the NBA regularly, especially with Meadowlark playing. He could play, he could shoot, he could do many things, but we were entertainers.

Ours was a finesse game. The NBA is too physical to play against day in, day out.

Although I remember once when we were in New York City, we had a doubleheader, and some of our guys were out shooting around between games. The Knicks came on the floor to practice, so we started scrimmaging them, and we were beating them. Our management made us stop playing because they feared some of us would get hurt, which they couldn’t afford to allow to happen.

The Knicks had Earl Monroe and Walt Frazier, two big stars, so it was fun to go up against them while it lasted.

56

Nate Branch with Barry Kienzle

One of the things I enjoyed most on the Trotters was sitting on the bench when I wasn’t in the game, watching the game. You could see the obvious talent at work. You’d watch the audience and see on specific gags their fun reaction was the same night after night. Meadowlark would make me laugh even though I saw his same routines every night too. When he would interact with the crowd, we’d laugh too. *** Some fans would find out where we were staying and come by our hotel to get autographs. I’d get a phone call in my room, and someone would say, “Hey, I came to the game last year, and I got my kids here with me this year. Do you mind if we get an autograph?” And me being me, I’d go down to the lobby and say hello to the kids and sign their programs.

One of my favorite fan stories is about a lady I met from Italy.

Her family lived in New York Springs, New York. She and her two kids were waiting in our hotel lobby one day when we got off our bus in New York. She was staying there, and they were going to go to the game. Upon arrival, our players were hustling up to their rooms to take showers after our long ride there.

I stopped in the lobby and signed autographs for her kids. She was so grateful and emotional about it. They waited in the hotel lobby as I took their programs up to get more players to sign them. She was happy her kids got the autographs they wanted.

She was so thankful because no one else on the team stopped to sign autographs, and her kids would have been disappointed after waiting in the lobby for so long. She was so nice I invited her for breakfast the following day.

After all these years, she still remembers my simple good deed and calls me occasionally, just to say hello, still sporting a hefty Italian accent. We’ll sometimes talk for forty-five minutes.

She even got to speak to my mother before she died. She once told me, “Nate, I’m so glad I got to talk to your mother. I love her.” She is a very passionate person.

The Globetrotter aura extends beyond the game itself, and young players need to learn to respect the fans who support us.

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6

Meadowlark, My Meadowlark He’s Alright Some friends come, and some friends go But my God is still there He’s trying to let me know Just how much He really cares Then He’s alright Alright with me —song by Nate Branch Meadow Lemon III— “Meadowlark” Lemon’s story is one I’m proud to tell. Throughout my career with the Globetrotters, he was my best friend—by far. I owe a lot of my success on the team to him.

He was born in 1932 in Wilmington, North Carolina. In 1945 he saw a short newsreel about the Globetrotters, which changed his life. He got his vision from the short clip, where his dream got started. From that point forward, being a Globetrotter was his destiny, and he wasn’t going to let anyone stop him. It’s no wonder he performed to the heights he did—it was his calling.

His career with the Globetrotters lasted for twenty-two years, to 1980. For most of it, he was known as the “Clown Prince” for his comical hijinks, all closely choreographed in the games, which were an integral part of the Globetrotters’ performance.

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Nate Branch with Barry Kienzle

During most of his time with the team, he was its face and relished the role. It must have been an exclamation point to his career to have not only fulfilled his goal to be a Globetrotter but to have led it for decades.

I first met Meadowlark when I went to Chicago in 1967 to work out with the team. After I signed with them, I was just another rookie in the initial stages of my career. He, Curly Neal, and Leon Hillard were the big names on the team at the time.

Since I hadn’t followed the team closely before, I didn’t know much about him or the others.

After I had spent some time with the team, he seemed to take a liking to me. I think he enjoyed my easygoing personality and the way I handled myself. I was flattered he had taken such an interest in me. It made me feel I had a bright future with the team.

I was just a rookie taking care of the balls and uniforms and whatever else someone told me to do. He would call me over; he called me Nathan, although it’s not my name, and say, “Are you okay? Are you all right?” It was most likely his equally easygoing way of reaching out to me.

He gave me advice too. He’d say, “Let me give you a hint.

When I say this, this is what you do.” He was taking me under his wing, and it was a big one. It was then I began to appreciate him and what he represented.

Our friendship evolved to where we became close friends.

We weren’t just buddies; we truly cared about each other. When he’d go out to buy some toiletries like soap and deodorant and other things, he’d always purchase two sets—one for him and one for me. And I would return the favor when I went out. We weren’t just close; we were like brothers, even though he was thirteen years older than I. He would tell me things about his personal life that I’m sure he didn’t tell others. I was also his confidant.

Meadowlark and I would have dinners together quite often.

We’d check into a hotel, and he’d knock on my door and say, “Let’s go have some lunch,” or whatever, and then I’d call him several days later and do the same. “You hungry man? Let’s go eat.” And we’d go out. Ours was often a spur-of-the-moment type of arrangement.

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We’d sit at a table and have lunch and talk about everything except that night’s game. He always spoke about his ambitions and what he wanted to get from his career. He was goal-oriented and was always planning his future.

One of his personal goals was to own a ranch with horses and cows. He was originally from a seaside community, so I don’t know what made him want to eat dust on a ranch. But he finally got one when the Globetrotters sold him land in Sierra Vista, Arizona, near their new team training camp. He had envisioned having a big ranch with a landing strip so he could fly in. He was never without big ideas.

We taped a Wide World of Sports segment in Sierra Vista at our training camp one year. It was fun. We stayed in a motel near Fort Huachuca, a U.S. Army post, nearby.

When we went to Meadowlark’s ranch, we thought he had a ranch house with all the western-style trappings. It was more like a double-wide mobile home. To get from the highway back to the house, you had to drive down a gravel road about a halfmile or so. He had generators running for electricity because it would have cost a fortune to run power back that far and a windmill to run his water pump. We thought his ranch setup was funny because he had such big ambitions, which influenced our expectations.

Meadowlark was willing to try almost anything if he thought he could make money doing it, and it promoted his name. He even opened a clothing store with his own line of clothes. He wouldn’t settle for a store in a more economical location. It had to be in the bright lights of New York City.

But Meadowlark and I were so close I knew one of his ambitions was to be a singer. He used to sing often, and I’d play the piano. He had a quality voice like Nat King Cole. We’d be in nightclubs in hotels, and if they had a discotheque and a live band, he’d want to sing. They’d call him up on stage, and I’d go up to accompany him on the piano.

His favorite song was Roger Miller’s “Little Green Apples.”

The one with the chorus, “God didn’t make little green apples, and it don’t rain in Indianapolis in the summertime.” But he 60

Nate Branch with Barry Kienzle

never would let me sing. I took a small keyboard with me on the road and practiced singing and playing in my room.

There were times when we’d be in our hotel rooms after a game, and if they had a ballroom with a piano, he’d call me at midnight or 1 a.m. saying, “Let’s go rehearse.”

Of course, I’d get up and go down to meet him. He was very motivated when it came to getting things done. He had a lot of energy for his interests.

He and I were making plans of becoming an act where he would sing, and I’d play the piano. We would go on a mini-tour when we were home for two weeks between our regular and European seasons. We were playing ball in West Berlin, Germany, in 1979 when Meadowlark received word he had gotten a record contract for an album he had demo recorded. It was called My Kids.

He came to my room and told me he would record the album, but the recording company said they didn’t need me because I was just a piano player. I told him to go ahead and do it. I wasn’t concerned because I was always frustrated that he never let me sing when we played together.

He went ahead and had the album produced. I was happy he did so because when we were playing together, I would get frustrated because often, his timing would be off when I was playing. It didn’t bother me because he was the larger-thanlife Meadowlark Lemon, so he was allowed to make mistakes, and it was okay. After some of our sessions, rather than being aggravated, I’d go back to my room and start tapping on my knees and writing more songs. It was more rewarding to me to be writing songs than playing piano for him.

At the time, Meadowlark was the biggest name in basketball and for the Globetrotters worldwide. The Globetrotters gave me a nice contract because they knew we were close. They wanted to appease him when he wanted to sing or entertain so he’d be happy and stay with the team. Meadowlark never learned the details of my contract, but I would never have refused to practice with him even if they weren’t paying me more to accompany him on piano. We were friends, and I loved music as much or maybe even more than he did.

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Sometimes when we were sitting around talking, he would talk about some of his private family matters. He and his wife had recently divorced, probably a casualty of our occupation. He had three children then, two boys and one girl. I knew his wife, Willie, and we all had become like family. His kids knew and loved me too. Willie knew how close Meadowlark and I were, and I was sad when they split up. *** Being as popular as he was, Meadowlark knew many people and was gracious enough to introduce me to many of them. In addition to those I met after he invited them to our locker room: Neil Diamond, Joe Frazier, Muhammad Ali, Oscar Robertson, Franco Harris, and James Brown’s saxophonist, Maceo Parker, to name a few, he made some memorable personal introductions I enjoyed very much.

Among those were Miles Davis, the famous jazz trumpeter, bandleader, and composer, and his wife, Cicely Tyson, the beautiful actress and model. Meadowlark took me with him to their apartment in Pittsburgh. I was so honored to have been introduced to such accomplished and notable entertainment people and especially enjoyed drinking tea with them prepared

by Ms. Tyson. Precious memories to hold forever. Meadowlark was always looking out for me, as true friends do.

He also introduced me to Ernie Banks, “Mr. Cub,” the legendary shortstop of the Chicago Cubs baseball team. I was proud to meet him and shake his hand. *** Meadowlark was such a perfectionist when it came to our games and would get upset and give me a stare when a play didn’t go off right. Because while the game was going on, we were chattering about what play was coming up next, so they didn’t happen by surprise.

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Nate Branch with Barry Kienzle

If a specific play we were running didn’t go as planned, he’d be upset, probably wondering why. But he didn’t say anything about it by the end of the game, although you could tell he was still thinking about it.

He would never repeat a bungled play in the same game, which was few. He wouldn’t take the chance we’d blow it again.

We all knew we would rerun it the following night and get it right. I think he was disappointed the audience didn’t get to see it done the right way that night. He always wanted things done perfectly. Like an orchestra conductor upset when his concert pianist drops a note, Meadowlark was our maestro on the floor, and we, his minstrels.

He got upset with me once over in Italy and let it show because, according to the Globetrotter show, we were supposed to end each quarter with a fancy play he usually controlled. In Milan, the game clock ran down to around two seconds at the end of a quarter. I had the ball but didn’t have time to pass it to him for one of his fancy hook shots, so I went ahead and shot it.

At halftime, he yelled and swore at me. He said, “Nate, you know, we don’t do that. We don’t end any quarter that way.”

I just stared at him, speechless, because he was the playercoach. I had never seen him so upset before and didn’t want to antagonize him any more than I already had. One time, though, I heard he tried to attack Wilt Chamberlain, who played for the Trotters when he thought Wilt did something to show him up.

Can you believe it? He was going to jump on Wilt Chamberlain, a mountain of a man—pretty ambitious. Wilt said, “You better sit down before you get hurt.” Enough said.

Meadowlark didn’t venture out in the towns we played in very often, but instead, he and I would go to the gym early where we were playing, sometimes four or five times a week. He’d practice the half-court hook shot he took all the time. Because every time he made one in a game, he’d get paid an extra $100.

I saw him make four in a row one night. At the time, I think I was only making $300 for an entire week’s salary, and he was making an extra $100 for each fancy shot he made. It paid to be Meadowlark.

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But Meadowlark was the most dedicated Harlem Globetrotter I had ever seen. He took his job very personally and didn’t miss a game in twenty-two years. One night he hurt his knee in a game, went to the hospital, returned before the game was over, and finished it with this knee wrapped in a bandage.

To him, it was almost like he was the Globetrotters. His passion was unbelievable. He had a “this is my team” attitude, and he ran it that way.

He wasn’t especially close with the other players on the team except me. He’d joke with some of the guys on the bus, but he didn’t associate with them much. At the time, there was a central core on the team. It was Meadowlark, Curly, and me. We were the three mainstays of the Globetrotters. A few other guys with longevity had been there four, five, six, or seven years at the time.

But we were the core everyone looked to and followed. *** Being as strong-minded as he was, Meadowlark often had run-ins or disagreements with the Globetrotters organization.

When he had conflicts with the management, he became very stand-offish with everyone, including us players.

The biggest clash came in 1979 when Magic Johnson of Michigan State came out of college and was selected No. 1 in the NBA draft by the Los Angeles Lakers. He signed a 25-year, $25,000,000 contract before playing a single game in the NBA. Meadowlark was making around $250,000 a year at the time, having played since the middle 1950s while being the face of the Globetrotters.

He was upset about his contract, and Meadowlark being Meadowlark, began pushing for more money. He argued that Johnson was getting all this guaranteed money and hadn’t played a single game in the NBA, whereas he played every night. But the Globetrotters wouldn’t do it.

I heard he had gone to management and asked for $1,000,000 a year, and they said no, and he made some regrettable comments which angered them. That’s when they decided to start reassessing his role as player-coach.

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Their response upset him, but he never let on about his differences with them. When he was playing in the games, you’d never know he was angry with management. He continued to conduct himself very professionally even as he struggled with his position.

The conflict between them opened an opportunity for me to become the player-coach. I was making around $50,000-$60,000 a year at the time. They discussed offering me the spot with a big raise. Meadowlark found out and one night came to my room and told me he didn’t want me to take the job because they were using me to get back at him. I told him I have a family to provide for, so I would do it if offered.

Then, when we were playing in Europe, the team sent him a telegram informing him they were removing him as the playercoach. They offered me the job. I took it and got a raise up to $120,000 a year. Things then got very awkward for everyone.

Meadowlark stopped riding the bus with the team and would take a taxi to our games. He stopped talking to everyone but me.

I told him, “Look, we’ve got only ten games left in the season. Just keep your cool until we get back to the States. Then you guys can work it out.”

He was immensely popular in Europe. His name and picture were plastered on billboards when we would go into cities— Meadowlark Lemon and the Harlem Globetrotters. He was, without doubt, the face of the Globetrotters.

But the sole issue for him was money, that he wasn’t being paid at a level he thought was fair, or at least that he wanted. I told him point-blank, “Meadowlark, we’re behind you. We can’t make more money until you do—you’ll help raise us all up.”

But Meadowlark grew up in the Globetrotters Abe Saperstein era, where Abe tried to make you believe it was a privilege to play for the Globetrotters. And I think it stuck in Meadowlark’s crawl, and unfortunately, he and the Globetrotters parted ways.

I feel he made a mistake in his negotiations by asking for such a large annual salary. His and the team’s differences probably would have been worked out in today’s world through contract incentive clauses which weren’t structured that way 65

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then. Two inexperienced Stanford law students represented him in his challenging negotiation, which proved equally fatal. The contract language didn’t matter if there was no agreement on the compensation amount. *** After leaving the Globetrotters, he formed Meadowlark Lemon’s Bucketeers, then the Shooting Stars, and eventually Meadowlark Lemon’s Harlem All-Stars. In 2015, the Globetrotters invited him back to the team to celebrate their 90th Anniversary tour. Unfortunately, he passed away at the age of eighty-three the night before the tour was to begin.

Meadowlark spent much of his time in later years ministering and mentoring veterans, youths in prison, children in hospitals, and even young athletes in the NBA and NFL. His positive attitude was infectious and, coupled with his shepherding skills, was an attribute I found stimulating and wished to perpetuate in my own life where possible.

By the time my Globetrotters career ended, Meadowlark was a preacher, in addition to all his other undertakings. He and I would call each other periodically, and I invited him to come up to our church to preach, and our pastor agreed.

He came to our church, where I was the music director, with a bag of autographed basketballs he wanted to sell for $25 each.

He also brought a big stack of his photographs which he was selling for $10 each. While he was preaching, he called me up from my seat at the piano.

We began passing a basketball back and forth in front of the pulpit. Meadowlark was doing his Globetrotter routine, and I was trying to keep up with passing him the ball. It seemed odd to be doing so in the church, but everybody was enjoying it—he was quite the showman. It was an honor to have him come up from Arizona to preach at our church.

Meadowlark loved to tease and joke and enjoyed a good laugh. Our funniest moment together may have been after being in Mexico City for ten days. The team had suffered through 66

Nate Branch with Barry Kienzle

Montezuma’s Revenge while we were there. We had just gotten back to the U.S., but some were still suffering its ill effects.

He and I were riding the elevator to our rooms in our Chicago hotel with some other people when I heard this unmentionable noise. I can still see his bulging eyes and the other people in the elevator looking around at each other. “Oh crap. I just crapped on myself,” he announced.

He had just soiled a new tailor-made suit he had bought in London. I never let him forget it either. He took it in stride because we always had fun and laughed together.

Meadowlark and I remained close friends right up until he died. I would describe my relationship with him as he was probably the greatest friend I ever had while being a Harlem Globetrotter.

At his funeral in Scottsdale, Arizona, I met Charles Barkley.

He and I were the first ones in the church. He was sitting on the side, so I went over and introduced myself. Charles told me if it weren’t for the inroads the Globetrotters made as black professional basketball players, the NBA would never have developed to where it was at the time. A true testimony to Meadowlark, who led the Globetrotters during the period when the NBA was on the rise.

Ferguson Jenkins was also there, the famous Chicago Cubs baseball pitcher who played in the offseason for the Trotters for two years in 1967 and ’68.

Meadowlark’s wife, Cynthia, wanted me to get up and say something at the funeral. She knew of Meadowlark’s and my close relationship. Mannie Jackson, a player at one time, who bought the Globetrotters after I was gone, got up to speak, but he was introducing players who were in the audience who never played with Meadowlark. He never mentioned me.

Cynthia kept turning around looking at me, but he didn’t call on me. Time was running out, and some of the players there kept asking me if I would get up and speak. I replied, “Well, I’m not on the program.”

I know Cynthia wanted me to say something. I’m not sure why, but Jackson didn’t ask me to say a word. I don’t think Mannie 67

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spoke very nicely about Meadowlark at the service either. He told the audience he wasn’t an outstanding basketball player, and they had played together on the team. I was very upset by what he said. When basketball legend Wilt Chamberlain was asked once who he thought the greatest player of all time was, he replied, “For me, it would be Meadowlark Lemon.” Michael Jordan has also sung his praises.

That night, Cynthia called me at my hotel. She said, “Nate, I wanted you to sing or say something at the funeral, but they didn’t let me say anything. I’m sorry.”

Meadowlark and I knew how we felt about each other without me saying it in front of a gathering at his funeral. Our long friendship superseded what anyone else said or thought of him. My final word on Meadowlark is that he was the greatest friend I ever had while being a Harlem Globetrotter. May you rest in peace, brother.

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7

Life

on the

Road

Possibly the most significant challenge in a Globetrotter’s career is our time away from home. No other sport plays more than three hundred games a year as we did. All other sports have a home field or arena, but we didn’t, so we played all our games on the road. In many of the towns we visited, we played afternoon and evening doubleheaders. It was a grind. Once, we played twenty-three games in sixteen days.

It was especially tough for those who played on both the national and international squads. The international team played mainly in Europe after the basketball season in the U.S. ended.

We had only a two to three-week gap between seasons. I played on both teams, so my time away from home was longer than most.

The time away took a toll on both our and our families’ personal lives. Being gone for such extended periods was hard on marriages and relationships with significant others. It caused some to stray, and I’m sure some of those at home as well. It is an obstacle to be dealt with that fame and fortune alone wouldn’t cure.

We lost out on a lot in our lives because of our schedule.

We weren’t home for our kids’ birthdays and activities and just seeing them grow up. There was no Facetime, Skype, or Zoom for us to interact regularly with our families in those days.

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Communication was mainly by long-distance phone calls, which we held to a minimum due to their prohibitive expense.

Even though we were with teammates, it could be lonely on the road, too, especially when you’d be in a city where you knew no one. Playing as many games as we did each year is a daunting task, but most of them are not in the big cities of America or Europe. We had to take our show to the fans, no matter where they were.

We’d be in places where the weather was terrible, and you couldn’t go out, or the restaurants were awful, more like diners.

Sometimes, the only good thing you had to look forward to was the game. Life isn’t fun when your only fun is when you go to work. It gets old. The Globetrotters are identified by many for playing before massive crowds in places like Madison Square Garden in New York. Those glamor dates were the exception, not the rule.

Perhaps the closest situation you could compare being on the road to would be being stationed far away in the military, where you don’t get home for long periods. You learn to adapt, or it eats you up.

You could call the team members a brotherhood because we shared many common traits: We were all highly skilled black athletes from modest backgrounds making a living doing what we did best—playing basketball. Everyone dealt with the separation caused by the travel schedule in a way that suited their personalities.

Everyone deals with challenges differently. There’s no one perfect way that works for everyone. If some are lonely, they seek out the company of others. But others look for more permanent solutions to occupy their time. You tried not to focus too much on being away from home. All you could do was look forward to the time when you would be home. And everyone was in the same boat. Fortunately for me, I had my music and other interests to occupy my time. Others didn’t, and it weighed heavily on them.

We were reasonably close as a team with a common goal; you have to be friends with everybody, but not necessarily best buddies. We didn’t spend much time with our teammates 70

Nate Branch with Barry Kienzle

discussing our personal lives because it would only serve as a reminder of what we missed most—being home.

As a group, we didn’t hang out much together, either. We had veterans and rookies with some sizeable age gaps. After the games, we didn’t sit around together talking. It just didn’t happen. Some went back to their rooms, others went to dinner, and some hit the clubs and bars, depending on where we were and how long we’d be there.

Some of the younger guys did have their cliques, and you’d see them walking around the street. But you never knew how long they were even going to be playing for the team. The long times on the road took a toll on some players, and they didn’t last. But the veterans learned to cope, and we did our own thing to occupy our time.

You can compare our situation to an assembly-line job—the same thing every night, day after day. You do your job, you clock out, but you don’t necessarily hang out with all the guys you worked with after your shift. Or it may be the same as a band on a concert tour. Every night, you play the same songs in identical sequences in the same sets. But when the concert’s over, the band doesn’t always hang out together. Everyone needs their space.

The only time you could consider us all together was when the announcer said, “And here’s the Harlem Globetrotters,” at game time. Even on the bus, you’d find your seat, and by the time we drove off, many had on their earphones, so there wasn’t much casual Conversation or chatter going on. *** Some of the guys learned to play backgammon. They had their little section of the bus. Some of us played the card game Bid Whist where you had a partner.

Later, probably for a change of pace, we started playing poker.

We used to play in the back of the bus on adjoining seats right across from the lavatory because there was a small fold-out table that was convenient to use.

Changing to poker may have been the biggest mistake we made because Meadowlark always wanted to start a game as the 71

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bus rolled out of the parking lot. The same guys played poker every day—everywhere! We played when we got back to the hotel after the games. We took an hour to go out to eat, and then we headed to somebody’s room to get the game going again.

It got so bad we even played it at halftime during our games.

We played it on the airplane if we had to fly, too. We told our road manager to get us the last four aisle seats in the back of the plane, and we played in the aisle. We didn’t play for much, maybe a two or three dollar limit, and we had a little paper bag where we put our ante.

Meadowlark always tried to bluff everybody out of the pot.

We all caught on to him. He’d say, “Let’s play table stakes and bet the pot.” Sometimes the pot would be $15 or $20. Meadowlark would be bluffing with a pair of lowly deuces or something to steal the pot. The winnings pretty much circulated through the group, though, so nobody got hurt too badly if they lost.

We changed it up a little when some of us went to play in Europe in the summer. It was Marques, Meadowlark, Dallas Thornton, J.C. Gipson, and me. Again, we played poker every night, but we handled the winnings differently. Whoever won the pot would take out whatever currency we were using and put it in a bag. So, on the weekends, say on Friday night after the game, the poker players would all go out and eat dinner on the winnings. By winning or losing, some contributed more to the dinner than others. We became poker freaks, but it wasn’t about the money as much as the competition.

If we weren’t playing poker, we were shooting dice. Marques was a dice shooter and would get a craps game going nearly every night. There often wasn’t much else to do whether we were in Europe or the U.S. *** Many of us cherished our alone or private time, though.

My alone time was very precious for me—to be in my room by myself. You can only do so many things in your room, though, but I was a master at it. You couldn’t rely on occupying your 72

Nate Branch with Barry Kienzle

time watching TV in Europe because it was usually difficult to understand the languages unless you were lucky enough to find an English-speaking program. And the TV stations would usually sign off early.

Even in some southern states in the U.S. back then, TV stations would sign off at midnight, especially in the Bible Belt.

It was one reason I bought a VCR to take on the road with me.

I bought the VCR, a Betamax when they first came out. I saw one in a store when I was home. They had an electronic device hooked up to a TV and were playing an Ali-Frazier fight. I asked the salesman, “That’s not on now, is it?”

He said, no, it was a tape. Surprised, I replied, “A tape?”

I had never heard of Betamax or a VCR, but I liked the idea of being able to tape my favorite shows. I asked him how much it cost, and he told me $1,200. I had just gotten off the road, so I had some bonus money, so I bought it. I took it on the road with me, and it was very cumbersome compared to today’s lightweight electronics, but it was worth every penny I paid for it.

At night when the TV stations signed off, I would plug in my VCR and watch some old Redd Foxx tapes or other favorite shows I had taped.

At the time, I had five Samsonite suitcases when I went on the road. One with my VCR and the tapes of my favorite shows, which I taped while home. Sanford and Son was my favorite.

I had another suitcase with my photography equipment because I had bought a 35-millimeter camera. I didn’t know how to develop colored photos, so I’d take pictures at our games in black and white. When there was nothing else to do at night, I’d get out my chemicals, replace the regular light bulb in my room lamp with a red one and develop all my photos. I bought an enlarger so I could enlarge the images because I had nothing else to do.

I’d sit in my room, close the drapes, turn off my lights, and develop my pictures every night. Then I’d make my eight-by-ten enlargements. The following day on the bus, I’d pass them out to my teammates. They loved seeing pictures of themselves in action and appreciated my efforts, and I enjoyed doing it.

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I also had a portable component boombox system called the Quintet because we did a commercial and some print advertising for JVC. So, I’d be playing my Barry White music because he was my favorite musician at the time and Isaac Hayes too.

I got creative and started carrying a one-burner camper stove that used Coleman fuel in another one of my suitcases. When we got to a city, I’d buy a gallon of it. I also took a wok on the road with me because I had seen one on a TV cooking show and liked its versatility.

We’d be in various hotels, and if there were a supermarket down the street, I’d buy a steak or a piece of fish and some vegetables. At the hotel, I’d fill my trash can with ice, put it in the bathtub, and put my raw food on it to keep it cold.

After the game, the guys would be all going out, getting pizzas and sandwiches or something else to eat. I’d be in my room with my wok and soy sauce, making myself a meal. The guys would be coming back from their dinner, and they’d smell my cooking out in the hall. They’d come knocking on my door, wanting to know what I was cooking. I’d tell them I had stir-fried steak and vegetables. “What did you guys have to eat?” I’d tease them. I can only imagine what the cleaning staff thought.

They say home is where you make it. My room was my home on the road.

I cherished my time alone so much I used to milk the clock when it came time to get on the bus to go to a game. If the bus were to leave at 6:30, I’d start getting dressed at 6:20. I wanted to spend every minute I could in my room.

When the arena wasn’t far from our hotel, we would leave on the bus at 6 for a 7:30 game. And if it were only a mile or two from there, I wouldn’t go on the bus. I’d stay back and take a taxi.

Then I’d have an extra hour in my room.

But then I got even more clever and would wear my uniform under my street clothes. After I arrived at the arena, all I had to do was go into the locker room, take them off, throw on my gym shoes, and I was ready to go. It gave me maybe another twenty minutes or a half-hour in my room.

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Nate Branch with Barry Kienzle

I wouldn’t call myself a hermit or even a loner because I love being with other people. There’s a time to be with others and a time to be alone, whether it’s a need for solitude or time to spawn creativity. *** Some of my best memories of being with the Globetrotters and playing with so many talented players were the funny things that happened along the way. Once, we played for five days in Mexico City. They told us not to drink the water because of the intestinal malaise, Montezuma’s Revenge. But unfortunately, we were eating the salads and the fresh fruits, not realizing they were rinsed with the local water before being served. Everybody on the team was affected, some more than others.

While our game was in progress, our guys ran off the floor at different times to the bathroom without requesting substitution or replacement. Once, I looked up, and we had only two players left on the floor. Fortunately, the audience must have thought playing with just two was part of the show.

Another one of my favorites happened while I was coaching the team. We played a doubleheader in a small venue every year in a town in Indiana on a Sunday. The town closes at midnight or 1 a.m.

Three of our young guys wanted to go to a discotheque down the interstate after our game. Some of our veterans told them not to go because they’d have only an hour or so once they got there.

But they insisted on going, so they went.

About 2 a.m. I heard a loud noise in the hall outside my door.

I opened it and peeked out. I saw our three guys, and there were three girls with them who all looked to be at least six feet tall.

When I looked down the hall to see what was going on, I saw our Geese Ausbie peeking out his door too.

About an hour later, I got a phone call from a player saying, “Coach.”

I said, “What’s up?”

The voice on the other end says, “He’s a man.”

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All three of them had unknowingly picked up transvestites.

And the word was spreading through the team because another player also told me about it.

The following day when everyone left the hotel to get on the bus, the three were the last to come down to board. I told the rest of the players not to laugh at them, which was a tall order under the circumstances.

Curly was sitting in front of me on the bus. The three of them climbed on at the same time, acting as if nothing had happened.

Everyone was trying to keep a straight face.

But Curly looks them over and blurts out, “Uh-huh. We told you not to go.” Those guys were doomed after that. Everyone broke up laughing. One of the guys even said, “You know, I didn’t mind dancing with him. But I kissed him.”

Another one added, “I should’ve known something was wrong when I saw how big his hands were, and I saw his beard coming out on his face.”

When you get a bunch of young men together, anything can happen. I have a lot of fun memories from my days with the Trotters. *** Privacy was important to all of us as well. When some of the guys’ wives came out on the road with us for a few days, as they sometimes did if we were playing in big cities like New York or Chicago or Los Angeles, when the team got back together to leave for another town, we didn’t inquire about their stay. We respected and gave them their privacy. It was a precious time when you got to spend it with your wife or significant other or with your kids if they came out too. We didn’t have many conversations with each other about our families. It would only remind us of our separation from our loved ones.

Our primary focus was our job. Since it was controlled, we were automatically focused. You knew when you had to go out to the gym or what time the bus was leaving. It was a routine like rote memorization of our daily schedules. You simply adhere to it.

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It had to be that way because we were on the move so much.

We would often stay in a city for a longer time than usual for multiple games, and you felt you could relax and settle in a little.

Otherwise, you were living out of your suitcase, so you developed ways to cope with the feeling.

Often on our schedule, if we had to drive seventy-five or a hundred miles to the next city the next day, we would all agree we would move on to the next town after that’s night game. Then we’d have two nights in the same hotel instead of getting up and leaving at 9 or 10 the following day and making the trip. You’d also have all day the next day to see the city’s sights as opposed to spending it getting there on the bus. It was like a bonus if even a small one.

You had to have daily routines which you’d follow religiously.

If you awoke each day and then tried to figure out your day, you’d be lost. You’d never get into a rhythm.

Such is the challenge of life on the road as a Globetrotter.

But it was life like no other. The excitement of playing before sold-out crowds each time you walked on the floor was thrilling, knowing you were making lifelong memories for everyone in the audience. Such is the life of an entertainer.

Some were born to do it and thrived. I managed through fifteen years, much longer than most. I paid the price for it, though, as most did in their own ways.

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8

My Best Friends Forever Life I’ve been everywhere And I’ve found some close friends I’ve searched all over Trying to find my own end —song by Nate Branch While I didn’t spend much private time with many of my teammates as they came and went over the years, I did get along with everyone, even if I didn’t get a chance to know each of them very well. I did enjoy some special relationships with some of my teammates, who are still my friends today.

I mentioned my best friend was Meadowlark Lemon. We were like brothers. During the games, with everything prearranged, we did our job. The time spent away from the court was special to him. Music was our common denominator.

We did the impromptu gigs at hotels where we stayed but performed only once as an act. It was in New York City at an electronics convention in Madison Square Garden, a big venue at the time. He sang, and we performed a few songs on stage. It was the only time we performed where we got paid, and we had a good time doing it.

Another guy I was very close with was Curly Neal, one of the Globetrotters’ dynamic dribblers. Ours was just a different 78

Nate Branch with Barry Kienzle

relationship than the one I shared with Meadowlark. But we were like brothers too. Curly was probably the most recognizable of the Globetrotters because of his bald head.

If we were in a hotel restaurant or the airport, where he would take his cap off so you could see his bald head, fans would rush over to get his autograph because they then recognized him, especially if we had the rookie seven-footer with us. Then they knew we were the Globetrotters. In Italy, the fans would yell, Pelato! Pelato! which means bald.

I’d get a kick out of how the two of us would be sitting in an airport next to each other talking or reading the paper or just killing time people-watching. Kids might recognize him and run over to get his autograph. I’d be sitting there, but no one was even looking at me because they didn’t recognize me. To them, I was just another player or maybe just another traveler who happened to be sitting next to Curly.

He’d sign his name, then hand whatever he was signing to me to sign. Meadowlark would always do the same. People didn’t recognize me as the face of the Globetrotters. To them, I was just another one of the players.

Curly always had an infectious smile, which endeared him to many. He also had a way of speaking his mind. It seemed whatever came to his mind came out of his mouth. Some just call it being opinionated. But he said whatever was on his mind in a way that never caused a problem. And he never held a grudge with anyone.

He also loved golf. Every chance he got, he’d go to the driving range, and he often tried to coax me to join him. I’d tell him, no way. Because once when we were filming a children’s show, there was a driving range near our studio. Marques Haynes took me there and bet me $10 I couldn’t hit a ball ten yards, and he’d give me three swings to do it. I swung three times and missed each time because I’d never swung a club or played golf before. I knew then golf would never be my preferred form of recreation.

Once, we were in San Francisco, and Curly and I had lunch together at No. 9 Fishermen’s Grotto at Fisherman’s Wharf. My favorite dish there was shrimp over rice.

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My favorite waiter, who often waited on me, wasn’t there that day. We learned he had left and gone to work in Dayton, Ohio. The next time we played Dayton, he called me at the hotel because he had met Curly before. He said Curly told him he played golf, and since the waiter was now working at a country club, he wanted to get ahold of him. I directed him to Curly’s room, and they spoke, and he and Curly went and played golf that day.

Curly and I had a relationship where a lot of our regular communication was nonverbal. It would often just be a look between us where we understood what the other was thinking.

For example, if our bus pulled up in the front of a motel that looked kind of shabby, he would turn to me and just give me the look. I would acknowledge his gesture with my own.

Or at other times when we’d be in public, if someone said something we considered stupid, we wouldn’t say anything; again, we’d give each other the look—like an eye roll. Words weren’t necessary. The look said it all.

When we weren’t in the game at the same time, we made sure we sat together on the bench. We’d be watching and enjoying the game because the young guys would be making mistakes, running the wrong way, things like that. If one of our players made a long jump shot, we would jump up and cheer. Then we might make a little bet like, “I bet he misses the next two.” But we were just having some fun. It was always fun to be with him.

There were times when we’d be walking down a street to a restaurant or somewhere else, but he wouldn’t walk in a straight line. He’d be moving from one side of the sidewalk to the other.

Before long, he’d be bumping into me. He couldn’t help it. He just couldn’t walk in a straight line. It was funny, but just the way he was. It’s curious the little things you remember about people.

Curly was always a sharp dresser no matter where he was going or what he was doing. None of us needed much in the way of dress clothes outside of some slacks, jeans, and shirts.

We rarely had time to go to church services because we usually played doubleheaders on Saturday and Sunday. Curly always dressed fashionably but rarely did we ever have to dress up. It didn’t matter to him, though; he was always a well-dressed man.

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Curly also had a sense of humor, especially when it came to having fun with the rookies. He was such an easygoing guy, and he used it to pull a prank on every unassuming rookie. He had a foam brick that looked like a real one. He would instigate a fake argument with one of our young guys, throw the brick at him, and laugh when he dove to avoid being struck.

Everyone watching would crack up laughing because we all knew what was coming. Curly did it time after time to every new guy, and it was hilarious watching how each one reacted.

Our friendship wasn’t always about fun and games, though.

At other times after a game, we would spend a little time together, sitting and talking, and he began to open up about his wife and kids. He missed them a lot. Since it was rare when our teammates spoke about their families, when they did, it was time to listen because they often needed a supportive friend.

Surprisingly, Curly and Meadowlark weren’t very close even though they played on the team together for years. I don’t know of any rivalry or animosity between them, though. Curly had many fans who admired him, but so did Meadowlark. They both were very dedicated and performed their jobs at the highest level, so they had to respect that about the other. They were cordial with each other, though. Curly would call Meadowlark “Lark,” but Meadowlark just called him “Curly.”

Curly was sometimes known as the Globetrotters’ best dribbler. But he was a disciple of Marques Haynes, the most fantastic Globetrotter dribbler I had ever seen. Curly’s fancy dribble routine every night was the same. Slide while dribbling on one corner of the court, then dribble-slide on the other corner. It looked good, but it was repetitive. But the fans loved it, and he gave them what they wanted—entertainment, which was the most important thing.

When Curly and Marques were on the team together, they performed a double dribbling routine. Curly would do his fancy dribbling first, followed by Marques. The Washington Generals, part of our show, asked how each wanted to be played defensibly in advance.

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Typically, a defensive player wouldn’t chase a fancy dribbler around the floor trying to steal the ball in a game. But they chased Curly around as he wished, acting like they were trying to steal the ball. It emphasized his dribbling prowess and enhanced his exhibition, and it was a crowd-pleaser.

Marques told them to try to steal the ball from him. He knew they couldn’t—he was that good. His keep-away dribbling was terrific.

Sadly, my friend Curly Neal passed away in 2020 at age seventy-seven but not before the Globetrotters retired his jersey number 22 in 2008. *** Marques Haynes and I became good friends and had the same nickname for each other—“Thumpy.” I have no idea how it originated, but I was okay with it. With his being around for so many years, for him to take a liking to me was flattering. I was always in awe of him, even to just be in his presence. I may sound like an impressionable rookie, but it was true throughout my entire career.

He initially played for the Trotters from 1947 to 1953. He returned in 1972 at age forty-six. Marques played with the team in so many decades and had experienced both good times and bad. He had so much knowledge from his years on the team.

Marques was a legend and still playing—you couldn’t help but like him. We were great friends even though he was nineteen years older than me.

He was so even-tempered he never complained about anything. Nothing ever seemed to upset him, and if it did, he didn’t show it. He may have been kind of numb to the day-to-day functions. But being laid-back as he was like many veterans are, he knew what to expect and how to cope with it. He wasn’t about changing the world. When he performed his routines in a game, you would never see anyone do it better—a real professional!

While we were very close, we didn’t hang out together in each other’s rooms. Marques didn’t go to the bars in the hotels or 82

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socialize that way. I don’t think I ever saw him take a drink. We would sometimes go out for lunch or dinner, but afterward, we would just return to our rooms. The only time we were around each other much was at the dice or poker games.

Marques was always very particular about his appearance, and he knew how to dress well. He usually wore a sports coat and slacks. In 1973, Marques formed his own clothing line, a testament to his love of fine clothes. He was always hustling and was always thinking. When we played in Europe, Marques would go out to the clothing factories and make deals. He probably couldn’t wait to get out of those garish uniforms we played in each night.

He was very polite and could talk to anyone on any level. You could see he was a seasoned veteran, a consummate professional.

He didn’t play practical jokes or goof around with others because he was above that. He always seemed comfortable in his own skin.

I was thrilled when he took the time to teach me some of his dribbling techniques. He was shorter and lighter than me at six feet tall while I was six feet four inches, so for me to go down dribbling on my knees like him while carrying extra weight was brutal for me.

I did some fancy dribbling first in our games if Curly wasn’t there, and Marques would follow. I never saw a guy who could handle the ball better than him dribbling-wise. I made him look good because I wasn’t nearly as skilled as him. I tried to do a show-off backflip somersault once while dribbling. It didn’t work out, and I never tried it again. I then knew my limitations.

Marques was also an astute businessman. When he left the Trotters the first time, he started the Harlem Magicians. Marques wouldn’t have attempted such a move without knowing the inner workings of a team like the Globetrotters.

Later, when he returned to play for us, I could see he was always thinking about the business side of things. During his times on the bench during games, I would see him scanning the audience. He would comment on our crowd sizes, noting we sold out every night. He knew we were doing well.

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He was also a very moral man. He loved his wife, Joan, and was crazy about her since they first met. I appreciated and respected him a lot. One time he asked to borrow $20 from me. I just handed it to him, no questions, and he handed it right back.

He said he was just testing me. He must have wanted to know how unconditional our friendship was. I told him he could have anything that was mine.

I only recall once when I saw him out of character, and I must admit I enjoyed it. Someone, probably a rookie, walked by him on the bus and thumped him on the head. Marques jumped up, grabbed the offender by his afro hairdo, and dragged him down the bus aisle. Everyone was cracking up watching the rookie scream and try to get away while the veteran showed him who was boss. The rookie got what he deserved.

Marques and I were almost as close as Meadowlark and I. I enjoyed him very much. After he retired, he was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. I was saddened when he passed away in 2015 at the age of eighty-nine. *** Another close friend of mine on the team was Jackie Jackson.

Jackie grew up with Connie Hawkins, the Globetrotter, an ABA\ and an NBA star, in the Bronx in New York. Jackie was known as “Jumpin’ Jackie Jackson.” His unique talent was he could jump so high he could grab quarters off the top of a backboard.

Jackie and I became close even though he was seven years older. He was a veteran and taught me the ropes when I was a rookie before I became close friends with Meadowlark. He taught me it was important to do my job and not worry about anything else. Just do what I was supposed to do.

Sometimes our guys would get distracted by someone, usually a female, in the stands at our games. They’d want to show off their basketball skills, and they’d get off track in the show, which could be disruptive. Jackie would warn them, “Just do your job. Don’t try to do too much, and you’ll make it.” I followed his seasoned advice. Some didn’t and didn’t stay around very long.

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Our relationship was also lighthearted and fun. We had nicknames for each other from Sesame Street characters. His was “Bert,” and mine was “Ernie.” When he’d come by my room, I’d put a “Sanford and Son” tape in my VCR. We’d have some good laughs before we headed out to our game.

We also watched the same movies again and again. Smokey and the Bandit with Jackie Gleason and Burt Reynolds was our favorite. We watched it many times a month.

After we became friends, we’d enjoy an occasional drink of Crown Royal together. So much we’d buy it by the gallon because it had a convenient pump on the top. We would debate who had to carry it into the room from the bus each day based on who brought it in the previous one.

Jackie, being a fun guy, helped break up the monotony of being on the road. I had a customized minivan that I let my brother Erwin in Chicago use. One year the team flew into Chicago and based on our upcoming schedule, I could take my van and drive to our games from city to city for two weeks instead of riding the bus. I bought that particular van because its paint job had dozens of different colors in it. It was unique and fun to drive. It had a little TV, a miniature refrigerator, a minibar, and a bed in the back.

Jackie rode with me. I would drive, and Jackie would read the newspaper, and we listened to the news on the radio, which we couldn’t do on the bus. I enjoyed the change of pace.

We enjoyed being on our own because if the team bus were to leave at 9 a.m., we’d leave later at 11 so we could sleep later. We would go down for breakfast, load the van, and stop somewhere on the road for lunch. The bus didn’t usually stop for lunch or anything else between cities—it just kept rolling to the next stop.

Jackie and I would stop at a hamburger stand or a buffet, going in to eat because nobody would recognize us. If the Globetrotter bus stopped anywhere, fans would come out of the woodwork and swarm the players.

We’d get to the next city in the afternoon, and our room keys would be waiting at the front desk. As long as we made it to the game on time, we were on our own. There weren’t any rules with the Globetrotters, except to be at the game on time.

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*** There also was a young guy who came to the team—Fast Eddie Fields. He was such a nice young man. You could tell he was a clean liver because he never swore and didn’t smoke or drink. He just smiled all the time and didn’t say much. He was being groomed to replace Curly Neal as the team dribbler when Curly retired. He looked up to me like a big brother, and I enjoyed looking after him.

He would often come by my room at night to check on me, to see how I was doing, while I knew he just wanted some company and reassurances. I’d tell him, “It’s all gonna be good, man. Keep doing what you’re doing.”

Management wanted him to play on the international unit, but I wanted him to stay on the national team. I could see he needed somebody looking over his shoulder, and I was the best person to do so. Throwing him in the deep end in Europe wouldn’t have been the right thing for him at the time. After his career with the Globetrotters, he became the women’s head basketball coach at Delgado Community College. Even to this day, we still stay in contact. *** My first, but I guess you wouldn’t say close, friend was Bobby Joe Mason when I was a rookie. He was another quiet guy and never bothered anybody, but he was an outstanding player when the game started. He played college ball for Bradley University and received several honors while there.

Bobby would often go straight to the bar when we’d get off the bus at the hotel. Sometimes he wouldn’t leave until it was time to go to the game. His favorite drink was shots of Kabar with water back. But he never drank the water, so there would be five or six glasses of water lined up on the bar when he left. He said that’s how he kept track of how many drinks he’d had.

You could describe Bobby as a character, but he was a great player and friend. Sadly, he passed away in 2006 at the age of seventy.

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*** Geese Ausbie was a close friend too. He stepped into Meadowlark’s shoes when Meadowlark left the team and became the next showman. He had performed the same role on the international unit, so it was an easy transition for him and us.

Everyone liked him.

He had his own style of performing in the show. Meadowlark’s slant was mostly ball handling and passing; Geese interacted more with the audience. He’d go up into the stands, steal someone’s popcorn, and bring kids out on the floor.

One of his gags was to bring an unsuspecting lady out on the floor and take her purse from her. He would pretend to go through it, take her wallet, and tuck it in his shorts as if he had stolen it. When she would try to retrieve it, he would grab her arm and start dancing with her as music began to play. It was a funny routine. Even though it was the same one each night, the reaction of the person he had picked was the focus of attention.

Some played along and were very funny themselves.

Geese was very good at improvisation when appropriate and didn’t interfere with our routines. For example, someone on our team would shoot the ball, miss, and our opponent would get it going down the court in the other direction; Geese would stay down on the other end of the floor and yell out, “Don’t worry, they’ll be back.”

Geese was also a deeply religious man. Currently, he’s a deacon in his church. We became very close because we had religion in common. He would come by my room on Sunday mornings, and we’d listen to my gospel music tapes because we didn’t have time to attend a church service. We’d always have a one o’clock game on the schedule on Sundays.

We also made time to sit and talk to each other, which was relatively uncommon on the team. Geese would come by my room at night and ask if I was using my VCR, and I would let him borrow it to watch my tapes. He never bothered anybody, and everybody loved him. Geese was one of a kind. A great friend then and now. The Globetrotters honored Geese by retiring his jersey number 35.

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I don’t know what it was, but I became close to all those guys even though they had different personalities and came and went from the team at various times. I must have an agreeable personality, or maybe it was just easy to be friends with me. That attribute must have come from my mother. She made friends easily and passed the quality on to me.

When you’re friends with someone, it needs to be easy for the friendship to thrive. You can’t be abrasive, and you don’t want to have to work hard at it. When you find nice, easygoing people is when you can enjoy a friendship.

I think my career was much more rewarding because I had engaged with all these well-known talented players. I took a few of the qualities from each and absorbed them into my own personality. My success then wasn’t solely because of my oncourt basketball ability. Sure, I did take pride in it. But much of my success was due to my relationships with others and how I handled and conducted myself. It was just me being easygoing and steady—cool and smooth.

I took under my wing other rookies besides Fast Eddie Fields.

One was 7-foot-one “Babyface” Paige. I showed him the ropes just like others showed me. “Just be cool,” I told him. And “take it easy” were my words of advice.

While most of our team members were good guys, there were a few, though, who I wouldn’t say I liked how they acted in public. They thought they were special because they were one of the Harlem Globetrotters. I hated to see that type of behavior.

I’d see them cursing at a waiter or being loud in a restaurant— talking down to the staff. I’d go and apologize to the staff member and give them a couple of tickets to the next game. I was a peacemaker—not a troublemaker.

Fortunately, the good guys far outweighed the other ones, who didn’t seem to last very long on the team. I enjoyed the camaraderie of my teammates throughout my career but especially my special friendships made there.

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9

Turmoil and Changes in Cultures One of the most eye-opening matters I observed or had an interest in was the 1971 team strike. Leon Hillard was one of the leaders. I had never witnessed a strike before. I didn’t know what to expect or how to react to it. My father and stepfather were both preachers, so they were never involved with labor issues.

And my mother worked mainly in the church and as a nurse for a while in Chicago.

I thought strikes were usually between union workers and management, not an entertainment group like the Globetrotters’ players and the team’s owners. But grievances are grievances, and often the only way for employees to get management’s attention is through a work-stoppage, which is what occurred.

The average person may think the Globetrotters lived a life of leisure, but the primary cause of the strike was poor working conditions. It may be hard to believe the working conditions for a celebrity entertainment group like the Globetrotters were substandard, but in many ways, they were. It was more spartan than glamorous.

We still had roommates at the time. Two big men sharing a room was challenging, not to mention you had no privacy. We knew it was a money-saving move. We received meal money, but it was only $15 per day, far below the cost of three meals, especially the way young athletes eat.

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The Globetrotters and the Washington Generals, our nightly opponent, rode on the same bus, so there were twenty big ballplayers on it and all the other members of the Globetrotters’ show. We had to sit two people to a seat, plus the halftime acts personnel, the jugglers, and anyone else involved with our production, including the referees and our road manager—no elbow room for sure. Being crowded was the norm, and we were usually traveling on the bus multiple days per week.

Management tried to coordinate the games with the bus schedule, so each bus ride wasn’t so long, maybe a hundred or a hundred and fifty to two hundred miles. We did have some three-hundred-mile rides too. It was necessary to leave early in the morning to get to our destination by late afternoon, often for a game that night. At the time, eighty-five to ninety percent of our travel was on the bus. We didn’t fly very often.

Surprisingly, the Globetrotters organization also didn’t provide a trainer. With the high number of games we played at such a fast-paced tempo, tired, aching muscles or sprained or twisted ankles were commonplace. You had to deal with any injury on your own in your motel room at your own expense. We relied a lot on Ace bandages and home remedies. I recognized the need, so I was the first volunteer trainer to wrap ankles and provide other services the Globetrotters ever needed.

One of the rookies, which once I had been, was in charge of the basketballs. When the bus arrived at our destination, I got the balls off the bus, and another player unloaded the suitcases with our uniforms. It was our job.

We weren’t staying in the finest hotels either. They were okay but were Holiday Inns, Downtowners, or a Howard Johnson’s, not the upscale accommodations you would expect.

Every man who’s ever played for the Globetrotters has a certain amount of pride, having played in the uniform bearing that name. The admiration you receive from the public is terrific, but you can’t take it to the bank.

The first game that year was in Port Huron, Michigan. I didn’t even know the guys were planning to strike until they did.

I was on the team for four years by then. Since Meadowlark and 90

Nate Branch with Barry Kienzle

I were such good friends, the players organizing the strike didn’t tell us what they were planning. If they told me, they feared I would tell Meadowlark, a company man who may have notified management. I later learned, though, he already knew about the intended strike. I didn’t know about it until the day it happened.

Meadowlark didn’t strike because he was already making way more money than the rest of us, I think $120,000 a year.

The striking players were picketing outside the game site with signs and appropriate paraphernalia. The game was at a small venue, though, which couldn’t have held more than two to three thousand people. The players wanted to know if I would join them on the picket line. I told them I didn’t know anything about it. Meadowlark also called and asked me what I was going to do. I told him I had a contract with the Globetrotters, and I would go in and put on my uniform and do my job.

I crossed the picket line to play or at least to show up to play, but the players didn’t say a word or give me a hard time about it.

It ended up being just Meadowlark and me in the locker room.

The game got called off, so I went back to my room. Meadowlark came by and said he was going back to Chicago, the Globetrotters headquarters, and asked what I was going to do. I told him I was going home to California because I agreed with the players’ cause. The traveling conditions we were playing under were not right.

I went to a players’ meeting where I learned they had hired a lawyer to represent them. I told them to let me know what was going on and that I wasn’t going to Chicago, I was going home to California.

The strike eventually ended, and we all came back to play. The following weekend we had games scheduled in Madison Square Garden. I asked the guys why they didn’t go on strike there. It was a much larger venue with more revenue and negative publicity at stake than Port Huron, a city of 27,000 people. The Globetrotters would settle much quicker and wouldn’t risk losing that kind of money or enduring the hounds of the press in New York. Port Huron may have been symbolic since it was the first game of the year, but a strike there was lucky to make the local papers much less make the splash that it would in New York.

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We did get some benefits from the strike. In addition to some modest pay increases, I think we started getting $30 a day meal money, and everyone got a private motel room and didn’t have to share one with a teammate. We also got a trainer who would tend to our physical ailments and care for our luggage and equipment.

From then on, all we had to do on game day was go in, put on our uniforms, and play—the way it should have been for a long time.

All strikes have after-effects. Before the Globetrotters’ management had negotiated the strike’s end, they had contracted with some ex-Globetrotters, older guys, to replace those on strike.

They wanted to fill the arenas with fans that the former players could help entertain while negotiating an end to the strike.

So while we usually carried ten players on the team, we ended up with fifteen or sixteen, of which five or six were strikebreakers.

The result was a bench full of players. We worked through it, but it produced some challenging times on the floor during our games designed for ten players.

One thing that didn’t change much after the strike was our bus travel. It remained our primary mode of transportation, and even though our manager strove to keep the bus trips as short as possible, we still felt like we spent half of our careers on the bus.

The bus itself was an old Greyhound-type with our name, “The Harlem Globetrotters,” painted on its sides. It was a basic bus, not fancy, with no customization inside. It was always crowded with our whole entourage riding in it. Our safe arrival to our game sites was dependent on it.

One time we were on our way to Scranton, Pennsylvania, and the roads were icy. Some of the entrance ramps in Pennsylvania are built leading downhill to the interstate. Our bus slid off the side of one ramp. It didn’t tip over but leaned heavily to one side, throwing us from our seats.

Curly scratched his head, I cut my knees, and Meadowlark hurt his knee too. We had to wait for a tow truck to come and right the bus so we could continue to Scranton. We arrived an hour late, but the fans were waiting. Curly had a big bandage on his head, I had bandages on my knees, and Meadowlark was limping, but the game went on anyway. They could have given us 92

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the night off and canceled the game, but no, we played. Such was life on the bus. *** Playing overseas for the Trotters was a unique experience for me, and I’m sure, the other team members. Most of us probably never ventured far from our homes except to play college basketball. Traveling to Europe to play on our international unit after our national season ended in the spring was somewhat a culture shock. We played all over Europe: in England, the Scandinavian countries, Germany, Italy, Greece, Spain, France, and smaller ones.

The languages were different, and we could encounter multiple languages in the same week. It was hard even watching TV since few shows were in English. The food was different, the weather was different, and the time zones differences between there and the U.S. were always significant. It took time to adjust to the changes, but after the first year, it got easier.

While the Globetrotters were popular in the U.S., we were even more popular in Europe as we competed with fewer sports on the collegiate and professional levels. Many who came to our games knew little about basketball. Their interest was focused more on the players and our performance than the sport. And there was no other entertainment like us—we were unique!

In many cities, large billboards often featuring Meadowlark’s image would announce our arrival. We also were seen on billboards endorsing various products. One of them was a Bony cake. It was a glorified Twinkie, a cream-filled sponge cake with a layer of strawberry jam on top, covered with cocoa. It was good.

I wish it were sold in the U.S. Life in Europe is very different from in the U.S. The U.S. culture is reasonably consistent across the entire country. In Europe, the cultures are different between countries and often within the same country. Coping makes it challenging but also interesting when you’re there for months.

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I played in about thirty-five countries with the international unit over time, but mainly in Europe during the summer. Once in Athens, Greece, we played before 90,000 people in a soccer stadium. In a Globetrotters game, much of the interaction between players and the audience is vocal, drawing the fans into the game. But with 90,000 fans, they couldn’t hear a word we said, so we had to rely on and emphasize our physical comedy and do it on the fly. It was a unique and unforgettable experience for me.

Once we played in Spain in a bullring of all places. It’s hard enough playing outside because of the elements. They lay a portable floor right over the dirt floor of the ring with no leveling, nothing, just big square panels of wood.

It looked okay if you were simply looking at it, but when you ran on it since it was just sitting on top of the dirt, it would shift and slide. Our guys were tripping and falling as they warmed up.

Then, as we came out for our introductions and lined up, it began to rain.

Dirt and dust had accumulated on the floor from our warmup. When the guys tried to run their plays, they slipped and fell because of the mud. It was raining so hard I was standing there with it running down my face. I thought to myself, I don’t have to take this, and I left the line and went back into the locker room.

I realized the team could fire me if they wished, but they weren’t paying me enough to bust my butt on that floor playing a game in the rain. I was sitting in the locker room by myself, but I could look out the door and see the game being played. I could see the guys slipping and sliding and falling. The fans had their umbrellas up and had sought shelter under the awnings. It wasn’t the time or place to be playing a basketball game.

At halftime, the guys entered the locker room soaking wet.

I’m sitting there, and Meadowlark comes over and says, “You may be the strongest man here by saying no.”

I replied, “I don’t care if they fire me, man. I’m not going to take it. That’s crazy.”

I felt strong after that incident, having stood my ground.

Nobody in the world should have to play under those conditions.

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Nate Branch with Barry Kienzle

Another unusual event surfaced one year when we were playing in Europe. I was player-coaching the team at the time, and we were playing in Spain. We were supposed to go up to the north to the Basque country to a city named Zaragoza.

Somewhere up there, there was sniping going on. We had only ten games to go in the season. I called our front office in Italy and told them about the circumstances. And I also called our ambassador to Zaragoza. Our safety was supposed to be guaranteed for us to go up there and play. He told me, “No. I can’t guarantee it because I don’t know if somebody’s going to come in there with a bomb or something.”

I thought, What better place for someone to make a political statement than in a crowded arena for a Globetrotter game, especially if the action is directed at the United States.

First, I called a meeting of the team in the lobby. I told our players I didn’t want us to go to Zaragoza, but we needed to act as a unit. I wrote out a statement stating we weren’t going because of concerns for our safety. I drew ten signature lines at the bottom of the page and signed it first. Everyone signed it except Curly, who said he wanted to talk to his agent first. I told him, “Okay, but we’re not going.”

I called our headquarters in Los Angeles and told my boss, Stan Greeson, that we shouldn’t go there to play. I told him if he wanted to look good to his team, he should be concerned for their safety, too. He said, “Okay, Nate. What you should do is get the plane tickets, make the arrangements and get the guys out of there.”

I went to our road manager’s room and told him Stan said we should leave. We needed to make reservations to go home because it wasn’t safe, and there were only ten games left in the season. He wouldn’t order the plane tickets. He was so intent on making himself look good to the company by playing the remaining games. He also told me there were no more seats on the plane.

I called TWA myself. They told me there were plenty of seats available on the plane—it was a huge 747. I went back and told our road manager what they said. I almost threatened him to get the plane tickets, and he did.

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I returned to the team and told them “Pack for home; we’re leaving at 6:30 tomorrow morning.” The bus came, we went to the airport, and I handed out the tickets. We boarded the plane, and everyone was happy. We were going home.

One time we had a bomb scare In Milan, Italy. The fans started getting up and leaving the game. But Meadowlark, being the company man he was, wanted to stay and keep playing. The way the Globetrotter deal was if we played half a game, we got to keep the revenue. We hurried up the game to play two quarters and then got out of there. The fans weren’t hanging around either.

When I became the player-coach when Meadowlark left the team, I told the players I was playing under the same conditions, doing the same things they were, so I knew the conditions we were working under every night. If I could make a change for the better, I was going to do it, and I did. I have no regrets about the things I did. One of the players told me we never had it so good.

They were pleased someone was looking out for them, and I was happy to be the one.

When their wives visited for a few days, instead of staying in a tiny hotel room, if the hotel had a suite, I’d let them stay there because Greeson told me we could do so. Two of the main guys on the team then were Geese and Curly, and he told me to do whatever was necessary to keep them happy. To be sure when the show went on that night, they were feeling good.

We had some good times in Europe too. One time in Italy, there were some soldiers at a game the previous night. They invited us to the nearby NATO base, so some of us got in a taxi and went to the base. At the main gate, I started chatting up the sentry to get us in.

I told him who we were and that we had an invitation to come to the base to visit. The sentry asked me who had invited us. I couldn’t say a couple of privates did, so I made up a name and said Colonel Scalison or a similar name. He said, “Okay, come on in,” and he took us to the Enlisted Men’s Club.

I went in and saw they were drinking Budweiser, an American beer which we couldn’t get in Italy or anywhere else in Europe. I asked the bartender what the price of a beer was. And he replied, “Thirty-five cents.”

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I said, “Thirty-five cents? I’m buying a round for everybody.”

They treated us nicely that day, and we signed a lot of autographs. For us, it seemed like we were back in the States for an afternoon. It probably made for a good story for the soldiers, too.

Once when we were in France, some of the guys and I went out to a discotheque. Our bus driver took us there. We got on the bus when it came time to leave; the driver was nowhere around.

We waited for a while, but he didn’t show up. I saw the keys in the ignition, and I said, “Fellas, we ain’t waiting no more.”

They replied, “Let’s go, let’s go!”

I drove the bus and the seven of us back to the hotel. I was coaching at the time, so I felt responsible. I would never have done it if I wasn’t in charge. In the end, the bus driver was grateful I had driven the team back to the hotel. He had fallen asleep on the beach with a girl.

Naples was always a big stop for us, and we would often play five or six games there. When there, I would go to this nice restaurant, a short walk from the hotel, and play the piano every night, and they didn’t charge me for my dinner.

One night, I was walking back to the hotel alone and came upon two short guys. We had been warned not to walk alone on the streets. As I approached, the pair waved and called out to me in Italian, “Hey, Joe, Giramondo (Globetrotter).” At first, I feared they were going to rob me.

“Come with us, Joe. Come with us,” they kept urging.

I was a bit apprehensive at first, but they didn’t seem threatening, so I followed them. If I hadn’t had a couple of glasses of wine for dinner, I might have exercised better judgment. We went around the corner and walked a block or so from the hotel.

They opened a door, and I saw a pool table with a Tiffany light hanging over it. But there was no one playing pool—the room was empty. Now I began to question my judgment on following them.

They then walked around the pool table to a sliding door and opened it. There I saw men playing the casino card game baccarat in a smoke-filled room. It was probably an illegal game 97

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going on. I didn’t say anything, wondering why they brought me there, and they closed the door behind me. I thought to myself if something happened to me here, no one would ever find me.

The two short guys motioned for me to sit down at the table with the men who all had money stacked in front of them. I was worried they wanted me to play. I didn’t know anything about playing baccarat. Instead, they pushed the card-turning shoe in my direction and simply wanted me to turn cards for the players.

Not knowing how to play the game, I turned cards up, which should be down, and vice versa. Some of the players got upset with me. They shouted, “Mama Mia, Mama Mia.” I thought, uhoh. I’m in trouble now.

The guys who brought me there were winning money, though, so they were happy. After a short time, I told them I needed to leave. I wanted to get out of there while I could. They agreed, and opened the door, and let me go. I hustled back to the safety of the hotel. On the way, I thought, man, that was a dangerous move on my part.

It turns out the two short guys had been to our basketball game and saw me as a good luck charm because the Globetrotters always won. It goes back to wherever we went; everybody loved the Globetrotters. I was more careful the next time we were in Milan. *** The first time I was in Germany, we stayed at Hotel Eden am Zoo in West Berlin. Meadowlark and I occasionally had dinner together, so we went to a restaurant near the hotel.

He ordered Eisbein. I didn’t know what it was, nor had I ever heard of it. It’s a big pig knuckle. You serve it with sauerkraut and all the fixings. He ordered it for me too, and I enjoyed it. That was the first time I started getting into German food, and it was good.

I would never have tried Eisbein on my own. Anybody who can eat chitlins, though, can surely eat pig knuckles.

Meadowlark could speak a little German because he had been stationed there in the Army for two years, and I learned the 98

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language some too. We mainly learned the German language we spoke in the restaurants. We didn’t get a chance to mingle with the people much during the day there.

Most days, we were traveling unless we were in a city for a few days doing multiple shows, as frequently happened in major cities like West Berlin, Copenhagen, London, and Rome. We might be in one of those cities for ten days at a time, so we would get a chance to get out because we often played on the outskirts of the city.

In London and Rome, we’d play five days in a row. We’d sell out every game, maybe 20,000 people each night. You’d become oblivious to the crowd size because you knew you were going to the game to do your regular routines. It was the same performance no matter how many people attended.

My favorite city in Europe was Rome. I enjoyed all the Italian cities because I was very interested in their cuisine more than their architecture. I had my cookbooks with me, and I’d read those in my room at night. I’d turn on the TV and try to find a show with somebody cooking.

Cooking shows weren’t as popular in those days, so I was happy when I would find one. I didn’t understand the Italian language very well, but I understood the language of cooking.

I remember watching Julia Child on TV in black and white. I was fascinated with cooking, and I loved the food of Italy. Their sauces and use of spices were excellent. Even today, I’d rather watch a cooking show than a football or basketball game. It relaxes me and seems more productive learning how to cook a dish than sitting there being entertained.

I enjoyed all the major cities of Europe. I wasn’t too crazy about the food in the Scandanavian cities, but they had pretty women. London was perfect. I enjoyed it because I could converse easily—unless I encountered a cab driver with a heavy Cockney accent!

Things could get expensive in Europe too. One day one of our rookie players called his mother from Rome on Mother’s Day. It was a transcontinental call in those days. We checked out of our hotel, and he saw they charged him $200 for his call. I found him 99

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sitting on the steps outside the hotel complaining. He learned the hard way it was expensive to call home from over here. It’s a different world now. You can pick up your cell phone and place a phone call from anywhere, maybe even FaceTime or Skype, or use some other app to make contact.

While playing in Europe held its challenges, I played the summer season there nearly every year I was with the Globetrotters. Experiencing its cultures and widening my perspective of the world was well worth it. I’m glad I took advantage of the opportunity.

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You Miss 100% of the Shots You Don't Take I’ve loved many people and things in my life, some have come and gone, but my music is one of my first loves and is still one of my primary focuses today. Music and its closely related cousin, entertainment, have always been in my blood since I was a tyke in Chicago. Music is a large part of religious worship, so I was exposed to and absorbed it long before I dribbled a basketball for the first time.

It’s interesting how a drive and passion triggered by natural talent, something in our DNA, provides us with opportunities and sometimes disappointments. Yet, we pursue them as if they popped up on a radar screen, and we dare not ignore them.

In the summer of 1973, I came home from the Trotters for a few weeks before we headed over to Europe to play their season.

I had some bonus money in my pocket, so my brother Gerald and I went out to enjoy a cocktail one night. We ended up in Los Altos, about eight miles from East Palo Alto.

We stopped at what seemed like a nice lounge which looked like it would seat a hundred to a hundred and fifty people. But there was hardly anyone there, maybe five or six people in this big cocktail lounge. So, I yelled out, “Hey, where is everybody?

Who owns this place?”

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The bartender sheepishly nodded toward a guy standing at the end of the bar with his foot on the rail. The man spoke up and said, “I do.”

I walked up to him and cockily asked, “Do you want to sell it?”

Surprisingly, he replied, “Yeah, I’ll sell it.”

I asked him how much he wanted for the place. He eagerly replied, “Just pay the back taxes, and you can take it over.”

I asked how much the taxes were, and he said, “$2,000.”

He added, “If you’re serious, come by and talk to me.” He was a lawyer and had an office across the street.

The next day, I went there, we signed some paperwork, and I took control of the bar. Talk about a whirlwind transaction. I didn’t know much about the nightclub business. I spent more of my time on the leisure side of a bar, not the working side. I was always out of town with the Trotters, so I’d have my brothers run it. What could go wrong? I thought.

I wanted to name the place Trotters Inn. I knew some people who worked at a company that designed logos, which created an exciting one. We painted the outside of the building white, added a lighted basketball on the front and an attractive sign.

My wife, Marilyn, and her sister worked at a carpet store, so we carpeted the entire lounge in red, white, and blue shag carpet, the Trotters colors. We had our logo on the glasses and ashtrays, the matchbooks and everything—the whole Trotters theme.

And we added a large dance floor. It was now the crown jewel of entertainment spots in the area.

I had a little four-piece band at the time, so I used it for entertainment. Meadowlark was the opening act on my grand opening night. We had sent out two thousand flyers promoting the grand opening of Nate Branch’s Trotters Inn featuring Meadowlark Lemon.

The place was packed. Meadowlark came in, and my band played and backed him up. He played for a week—every night.

People were crowding in like crazy. He was in his element because he wanted to be such an entertainer that he would change his outfit between sets and return in a different colored suit. He played three sets each night.

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People couldn’t believe that Meadowlark Lemon had played in my place. Many of them probably didn’t realize he was such a singer. They just thought of him as a basketball player. He was more than what met the eye.

The famous electric organ player Jimmy Smith stopped by one day because he was working at a nearby club a couple of miles away. He told me he wished he was playing at my lounge.

That’s how exciting the place was—the way I wanted it to be.

Things were going very well, and it was fun too. We started making money from the start because of the name recognition and our aggressive advertising. And we were only two blocks from where all the United Airlines stewardesses stayed on layovers, so they started coming in, and naturally, men followed.

I was also happy to see that all races frequented the club too.

There was enough racial divide in the country at the time, but none at my place.

I hired my brother, Duke, as our bartender. Gerald was the manager when I wasn’t there, and Whitney was the security guard. So I employed my whole family who lived in California. It was a great feeling. When our next Globetrotters season opened, and I had to go on the road, Gerald hired the Doobie Brothers to play when they were working their way up to stardom. It was a great move on his part. They were terrific.

We made all the right moves to keep our customers. Sunday afternoon drinks were half price, and we also piped in jazz on Sundays. I was able to go home on Saturday night and give my mother a couple of hundred dollars which was good money in 1973, just to make her happy. I was eager to spread my good fortune. I wanted the Trotters Inn to be a place where harmony ruled, where you could enjoy yourself and not be weighed down by what was going on in the outside world.

Next door was a Chinese restaurant called Mings. Its owner would come by during our happy hour, and he began sending hors d’oeuvres over to our place. When he came in, he looked like Vito Corleone from The Godfather with his overcoat draped over his shoulders, and we made sure he had his own stool at the bar. He didn’t charge us for the hors d’oeuvres, so I didn’t charge 103

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him for his liquor. When he was there, we’d just sit the bottle in front of him and make him look like a VIP. The place was doing well, not only financially, but it was such a fun place to work too, which was important to me. After we closed at night, I’d take all the waitresses and their boyfriends to Denny’s for breakfast if I was in town. That’s how tight-knit we all were.

Sadly, Trotters Inn lasted only a few years. We were doing okay, but I learned the attorney I bought the place from was stealing money from us when I was away. He stole $35,000 from our safe in the floor because we had never changed the combination from when he owned the place. He left his family and ran off to Mexico with his secretary. What a scumbag!

I sued him, but my attorney told me after some investigating that the guy had been stealing from his other clients, too. He had stolen $90,000 from one of them. We went to court, but the judge told us there were many people ahead of us, and we would be in line for a long time if we hoped to collect any of the money stolen from us.

I could have survived the theft, but after further investigation, we also learned the previous owner had never transferred his liquor license to me, among other things. I couldn’t operate without one, so we decided we needed to close the club. The previous owner was just a shyster and took advantage of me, a naïve, trusting soul. I learned my lesson the hard way. *** The music and entertainment business is often described as erratic because good fortune can simply fall upon those in the right place at the right time. One such occurrence happened for me most unusually.

One summer, I did not play on the international team in Europe, which worked out for me because I was trying to get my music career off the ground. When Meadowlark and I were playing music together, he came up with the title for a song called “Midnight Dreams.” He wrote the first and second lines, and I wrote the rest of the lyrics and the music.

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At the end of our national season, we went to Chicago to record the song with Curtis Mayfield’s cousin, Major Lance, a rhythm and blues singer. We went to his studio, and I played the song; he liked it, so we recorded a demo copy.

Afterward, Lance’s producers told Meadowlark he didn’t need me to play the song on the final recording because they could get any musician to play it. I told Meadowlark it didn’t bother me and to go ahead and get his musical career going. I had written the song for him, and I was happy to see it become a success.

I started driving home from Chicago to California in my minivan, which I drove to camp that year and left for my brother Erwin to use, who still lived in Chicago.

The drive was my little downtime to unwind from the season.

While driving through Reno, Nevada, I decided to stop at the Riverside Hotel, where we stayed when the Globetrotters played in Reno because I knew the people who ran the hotel.

We were exchanging pleasantries, and they asked me if Meadowlark and I would be there the following month. I wondered what they were referring to because I was getting ready to go to Europe to play the summer tour there. One of the owners said they had a contract with Meadowlark to perform there in two weeks, and she assumed I would be playing with him.

I didn’t know anything about it. Meadowlark never said anything to me, and I told her so. I explained I knew Meadowlark was playing in Europe that summer, so I asked her if he couldn’t play, and the date was still open if I could do it. She agreed and was grateful I would take the date.

I didn’t have a band or anything—no musicians, nothing, but I knew some good ones. I got home and called the Globetrotters because I was supposed to be heading to Europe to play. I asked if they would excuse me from going to stay home to work on my music career. I didn’t want to jeopardize my job by saying I couldn’t go after committing to going.

They agreed I could stay home and skip the season, so I quickly formed a band. I had previously met a girl in Europe who was a singer from New York. When I met her, she was performing 105

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in the musical Hair in London. She was dating one of the guys on our team at the time.

She sang so well I told her to call me if she got back to the states in California. She was in New York and happened to contact me. I had myself a singer! I sent her a plane ticket, and she came out, and we formed the band in about two weeks and took the job in Reno. What a whirlwind couple of weeks! It was thrilling but exhausting too.

I was pleased when the marquee outside the hotel read, Nate Branch - Harlem Globetrotter. I named my band HGT for Hot Good & Tasty because I couldn’t use the Globetrotters’ name.

So, Meadowlark standing them up, me happening to be passing through, and the Globetrotters letting me out of my commitment to play in Europe that summer ended with my forming a band on short notice and playing Reno. Who would have thought? It was fun, and we got paid, and I paid my musicians very well.

The Reno gig got us an audition for a gig at the Union Plaza Hotel in Las Vegas. We drove down from the Bay Area and performed there for a week in the same summer. Talk about good fortune.

All the events unfolding the way they did and my performance boosted my confidence in my music and performing abilities. It was Meadowlark’s loss and my gain. Perhaps a fair trade-off for how the events unfolded in Chicago. *** You have to work hard and develop your skills in the music profession, but many outside things must happen at the right time too. The ducks have to line up. One of my great opportunities in the music and entertainment world was with the Commodores, which came late in my Globetrotters career.

When Lionel Richie made plans to break off from the Commodores in 1981 and start a solo career, they looked for a replacement. I wrote the song “The Harlem Globetrotters,” which received national recognition when featured on Wide 106

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World of Sports. I also had become friends with William King, one of the Commodores’ founding members, who played various instruments and was the group’s choreographer.

They may have thought my fame and relationship with the Globetrotters would help them maintain their popularity in Richie’s absence. So, they wanted me to become the next lead singer, to take his place.

When the Trotters played in Los Angeles, the Commodores came to our game and afterward invited me to come up to one of their homes in the hills on Mulholland Drive. I never dreamt an offer would be forthcoming to replace a singer like Lionel, but I had confidence in my singing and knew I’d do all right if I focused all my time on it. I went there with an agent/manager they hired for me named Michael Winchester. In addition to our regular compensation, they would also provide both of us with a car. I liked what I was hearing.

A few band members were sitting around in the living room, which featured a baby grand piano, when we got there. They invited me to play, so I sat down and played some impromptu material. They had also written two songs for me to sing, which they recorded on a cassette player.

The Commodores liked what they heard and wanted me to join their band, but I was under contract with the Globetrotters.

A proposed compromise was one where I would stay with the Globetrotters and play with the Commodores too.

The Globetrotters began negotiating nitpicky points like who would pay for my transportation from New York, for example, to wherever the Commodores needed me. The Commodores agreed they would take care of it.

The big snag in negotiations came when the Globetrotters wanted to okay everything, all publicity about me. They wanted to approve it before it could be released if it contained the word “Globetrotters.” The Commodores had difficulty with those terms, arguing that if they were in England, for example, trying to get a record deal done, they’d have to consult with the Globetrotters first to get their approval on the marketing. It’s easy to forget that fax machines didn’t become commonplace in American 107

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businesses until the late 1980s, so quick communication of documents and images was much slower in 1981.

In the end, the Commodores backed away from their offer, so my opportunity went by the board. I remember later running into Richie in New York, and to my surprise, he knew who I was.

He told me he heard my work, and I was going to be okay. It was a nice touch.

At the time the deal went away, I was disappointed for sure.

But I don’t have any regrets about what happened. Entertaining in any form is hard work, and you’re constantly fighting to stay on top.

I was flattered they asked, but in the end, I don’t think I missed out on anything. After owning a nightclub and tinkering in the music business as I was, it’s challenging work and never ends. It’s not like playing for the Globetrotters, where if you make a mistake, you make a joke of it and move on. If you’re on stage playing or singing, you must be perfect every time. The audience demands it.

Had I known my playing days with the Trotters would end not long after this opportunity, I most likely would have taken the shot to play with the Commodores. It would have given me incredible exposure in the music world, even if it didn’t work out in the long run.

I took my shots. They weren’t all game-winners, but I had fun while they lasted.

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Mother Branch Mother to All My mother, Onedia, was the most incredible woman I’ve ever met, and I always had a special relationship with her. Perhaps it was because I was the youngest, and when we moved to California, I was her only child living with her until my brothers joined us years later. So, I was the focus of and absorbed her love. She was my rock, my beacon, always attentive to guide me through life’s obstacles to bring me home. She loved and protected me as mothers do.

Many say the same thing of their mothers, which is terrific.

But she was my whole world. We never missed a meal, and we always had clean clothes. I think her children were the dearest thing to her heart.

If you Google her name, you’ll see she was known as Mother Branch. She was quite the dynamic woman in the community.

She started the first food bank in East Palo Alto, a non-profit organization called the East Palo Alto Community Service Center. She would solicit from the local churches and individuals 109

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to donate clothing, canned goods, furniture, and other household items—anything a family in a tough spot would need. She was a glue that helped keep the community together.

She began by giving away her own personal things, but then others began donating to her cause. As a result, our house quickly became overwhelmed with donated items. Luckily, a local shopping center later donated space as a storefront, becoming the donation location rather than our house. She recruited her friends to work there, hanging up clothes, shoes, and whatever else she needed to be done. Her favorite saying was, “You’re not really living until you live for others.”

At Thanksgiving, she would give away maybe two hundred turkeys donated by food suppliers or grocery stores. At Christmas, there were donated toys given away from the family giving trees. She made sure every family who was in need would have something for Thanksgiving and Christmas.

If a family came from out of state and were in need, people would send them to Mother Branch. She would find them a place to stay with another family or provide whatever they needed until they were settled. Sometimes they would stay with us in our house for a few days until they could find their own place.

She also made sure they had food and sometimes gave them money. It had to be exhausting for her to keep administering to the needy as she did.

She also helped whoever was in need regardless of whether they were white, black, Asian, or Hispanic. It didn’t matter, she didn’t see color, and neither do I. My brothers and I were raised that way. We’re all God’s children. I got involved in her charity work after I left the Trotters.

She was such a great person that her kindness reached beyond her civic endeavors. I used to drive her to different churches on Sunday afternoons. She would be the guest speaker. I say speaker, but she should have been a preacher. She was gifted to be able to deliver her message in such a powerful way with the cadence and inflections in her voice.

In the old days, blacks would shout out their feelings in church. They were very involved emotionally in the service.

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They don’t do that as much anymore. I always admired how she would go to a church, speak to a congregation, and control the audience. Sometimes when she would finish speaking, the whole church would be standing up shouting. You’d think there was a riot going on; she was so moving. But she was speaking the Word of God, and you could feel His direction in her words and actions. It was always very moving for the entire congregation.

She had an extraordinary story which she often told at the end of her speeches. It was called “Little Johnny.” It was about a family so poor the mother prayed each night for help. She would pray, “Please help us, Lord, we don’t have any lights and no food in the house,” and so on.

Little Johnny wrote a letter and addressed it to God in Heaven. He told his mother, “I’m writing a letter to God because, in Sunday School, they said God loves little children.” He didn’t have a stamp, but he went to the mailbox to mail his letter anyway.

Fortunately, the postmaster was a man of the church and God. He saw the letter when one of the postal workers was throwing it away because it had no postage. The postmaster opened and read it. He saw that little Johnny was asking for help from the Lord because they didn’t have any food, their electricity was being turned off, and they’d have to move.

The postmaster went to a local store and told the shopkeeper to go to Johnny’s house and fill their pantry with food at his expense. Then he went to the electric company and told them not to turn off the power, that he’d pay the bill. The moral of the story is God loves little children. And the way she delivered the message by the time she had finished had the entire congregation in tears.

I remember one time when she spoke, and Reverend Branch had to follow her to the podium. He got up and said, “Well, if you haven’t gotten the message by now, there’s nothing more I can say.” He had nothing in his repertoire as dynamic as anything she had said. He simply said, “Let’s dismiss and go home.” She was quite a woman.

My mother was my whole world in many ways. She always had my back no matter the situation. I didn’t get in trouble 111

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much as a youngster, but if I did some questionable things, she showed patience and understanding and wouldn’t chastise me too severely for whatever I had done.

She did have a way of looking at me, though, which always got my attention. One well-focused stare from her was worth a thousand words—nonverbal communication in its highest form.

If you said the wrong thing, you knew right away you had messed up and needed to make amends.

Her community record spoke volumes on how much she cared for other people, but they never came before her own family. I know she cared about me because she constantly called me on the phone when I was away, even when I was in college at Nebraska.

In those days, we didn’t have private phones in our rooms.

The phone in my dorm was at the other end of the hall. The operator would buzz me on the intercom and tell me I had a phone call, and I’d run down the hall to the phone. I was always delighted when she called. She was always concerned about me.

Sometimes at home, I would see her cry, and I’d ask her what was wrong, and she’d reply, “I’m just thinking.” I would see tears in her eyes for other people.

She and I also had an understanding there was nothing we couldn’t talk about with each other. She would even speak with me about her marriage. Of course, there was little I could do about it, but she confided in me anyway. And I confided in her as well. I remember the first time my wife and I argued. My mother listened, but then she just laughed. She told me that’s just the first one. Just wait; there’s going to be plenty more.

My mother prayed every night. I could hear, “Lord, bless my child.” I knew she was referring to me.

In 1953 when the movie War of the Worlds came out about the Martians invading Earth, she gathered us all together to pray nothing like that would ever happen to us. Prayer was paramount to her. In her mind, it could fix everything.

She also had an excellent voice, and she sang quite a bit, not only in church but around the house. While she was cooking and cleaning, she was singing. Her favorite song was “The Old Ship 112

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of Zion,” a song of hope and relief, reflecting her deep religious values. I knew she was contented when I heard her singing. I miss hearing her voice—feeling her spirit.

My relationship with my mother wasn’t like she was a friend or a sister. She was my mother, and she demanded respect. My brothers and I were raised to respect her. If any of us got out of line, we not only had to deal with her, but we also had to deal with our other brothers.

She was the most significant influencer in my life, without a doubt. I didn’t have as strong a relationship with my fathers, possibly because they were always so involved in their church ministries which consumed their time.

One of my fun recollections of my mother is that I taught her how to drive. Every Saturday, we would go to the local Goodwill store. She never bought new clothes for herself. She was thrifty and always looking for bargains on dresses. But she was the First Lady of the Church, so she was always trying to dress nicely. And as a preacher’s wife, she had to do so on a limited budget.

I was around eighteen years old and had my driver’s license, so I would drive her to the store. At the time, she was learning how to drive a car herself. The Goodwill store had a gravel parking lot, and once I was trying to teach her how to parallel park.

I stood between her car and the car next to hers, giving her instructions when she stepped on the gas. My leg got pinned between the fenders of both vehicles as the gravel was peeling out behind the car. I yelled, “Mom, Mom, back up!”

She panicked and was screaming, “Oh my baby. My baby!”

I yelled to her to turn the key off. She did, and I managed to survive the incident without serious injury.

I was also with her when she got her first speeding ticket.

Again, we were going to the Goodwill store, and she was speeding as she drove past the police station of all places. A cop pulled her over and gave her a ticket. It was fun to witness the look on her face as he wrote her up. I was happy it wasn’t me who had to explain it to the Reverend. *** 113

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No doubt, one of the most tragic things to happen to my mother was when her house burned down. I was living with her at the time after recently becoming divorced from my second wife. It was just she and I there.

On the day of the fire, I had come home with some fresh fish and was frying it on the electric stove. Mother was at an exercise class at the time. I remember turning off the stove and going to the bathroom. The next thing I heard was the smoke alarm going off. I rushed out of the bathroom into the kitchen and saw the flames racing up the walls.

I ran to get a blanket to smother the flames, but they had already reached the ceiling by the time I got back. The entire house burned to the ground, and we lost everything. I believe because she cooked so much that grease had stuck to the walls over time, fueling the flames.

It was lucky no one was home except me and my dog, a miniature French poodle. When Mother returned, I was standing outside. From where we stood across the street, you could feel the heat from the flames. We stood there holding on to each other.

She cried, “Oh my house, my house, my house.” I felt helpless standing there comforting her. It was such a shock to see our house on fire—a sight you never hoped or expected ever to see.

The fire department confirmed that the center eye on the burner of electric stoves is still hot even after being turned off.

They determined the grease under the burner reignited, causing the blaze.

Our insurance agent with Allstate was a good friend who came over immediately and took care of things. The insurance company was very good to us. They gave Mother $2,000 to help with immediate expenses and temporarily set us up in a Marriott Hotel suite. She enjoyed her time there because they were bringing her breakfast every morning, not like at home.

When we moved into a temporary house while a new one was being built, the insurance company supplied the furniture, dishes—everything. She didn’t have to do anything.

The fire hurt her, but the new house was built within a year. With her so well respected in the community, I think the 114

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insurance company paid to rebuild it from the ground up with a new design rather than the old one. She enjoyed the house because we helped design it. It was a modern plan with high ceilings and open and airy spaces. When you opened the front door, you could see through the entire house into the backyard.

The house had so many extras too. It was beautiful.

When we moved into it, the community held a ribboncutting ceremony for her. Afterward, I told her God often works in mysterious ways. I think the house burning down could have been the best thing that ever happened to us.

The old house had maintenance issues, including a roof that leaked so badly that every time it rained, we had to put pots everywhere around the house to catch the water. We couldn’t afford to get the roof replaced. In the end, she got a brand-new home which she always wanted by me accidentally burning down the old one.

She came back as strong as ever from the tragedy. She had witnessed firsthand how others helped her when she needed it most. She had a new resolve to continue providing for others in their times of need.

Unfortunately, when the house burned down, I lost all my basketball trophies lining the mantle, and my Globetrotters memorabilia, including my uniforms and favorite photos— nothing survived. When I look back at it, those are just material things—memories mean more than the hardware. All you can do with the trophy is admire it. You don’t even notice them after a while. I don’t miss any of those things anymore.

Mother Branch passed away in 2011 at the age of ninety-two and is still missed today by those she served.

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It's All About Family I was married for the first time in 1967 to Marilyn, on July 29, right after my senior year in college. Her father was a deacon in our church. Ironically, her last name was Branch, too. We were married for twelve years and had one child, a son named Darion, born in September of 1969. Marilyn and I were high school sweethearts. When I was in high school, but she was still in grammar school, I would sneak over to her school to look at her. I was smitten.

As my story shows, Marilyn and I have had good times together and share some great memories. Unfortunately, our marriage ending was my undoing. Right after we were married, I signed with the Globetrotters. It seemed like an excellent longterm career opportunity for me and us, but eventually, it cost us our marriage.

Playing for the Globetrotters is challenging for most marriages and families. You’re on the road for months on end and rarely get to spend time with your wife or children. For me, in the beginning, it was a whole new world. Having been raised by church people, I led a relatively modest lifestyle. Suddenly I was thrust into the fast lane—a new world for me.

The attention we received was exhilarating and gratifying, but there were hordes of women followers everywhere we traveled.

All women are beautiful in their way, and I was especially fond of cute faces. It was hard to ignore, and I succumbed to the 116

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temptation. Eventually, Marilyn found out, and our marriage ended.

It wasn’t all “love ’em and leave ’em” with the women, either.

I’m not saying it was justification for my stepping out, but some I met, I still remember. They were special to me because our relationship wasn’t just about me being a Trotter. They were true friends.

About three years after Marilyn and I divorced, I remarried.

Her name was Debra. Ours was a chance meeting in Atlanta, Georgia, where the team was filming a Wide World of Sports episode. We were there for about four or five days. There was a lot of buzz and excitement there because Muhammad Ali was staying in the same hotel because he had a fight scheduled at the nearby Omni.

Debra was a waitress in the hotel restaurant. When I first saw her, I thought, Wow, she’s beautiful. Debra gave me her number, and I started calling her. She also came out on the road to visit with me a few times. One summer, I went home to California after our regular season ended on my break before the European season started, and she came out to visit. She later moved out to live with me. We then decided to get married.

We were married for only three years and then divorced.

My being away from home for so long presented some financial challenges, which caused our breakup. We didn’t have any children together. *** While I’ve been married twice, I have four children, two boys and two girls. Marilyn and I had broken up for a while in my senior year in high school, and I was going with Pauline. She had gotten pregnant, but I didn’t learn of it until she called me one night when I was already in college at Nebraska. It was quite a shock for me, as you would expect—I was a father! She’s my oldest child, Pamela. Fortunately, she and I are close today.

While I was at Nebraska, I got another girl pregnant. I think it was my junior year. She was a student there, an attractive white 117

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girl from Iowa named Lana. When she got pregnant, she left school and had a girl—Stephanie.

I didn’t get a chance to see Stephanie when she was born. All I had was a picture of the baby Lana sent me later while I was still in school. I didn’t have any more contact with her because Lana had given her up for adoption by a black family in Iowa.

Years later, I received a letter at my home in California. It read in part, “I don’t know if you are my father or not, but I learned that my father played with the Globetrotters and went to the University of Nebraska.”

Based on that information, I knew she most likely was my daughter I had been hoping to find. She was living in Los Angeles and had included her phone number in her letter. I called her and said, “I’m Nate, your dad.”

And she replied, “I’ve been looking for you all my life.” It was an emotional moment for both of us.

I sent her a plane ticket to come to the Bay Area to see me, and she did. I met her at the Oakland airport. I didn’t go to the gate; I waited downstairs by the airport entrance. I nervously watched the people coming down the escalator from baggage claim, but I didn’t know what she looked like. I didn’t have a current picture of her. I was wondering Which one of them is her?

One person I thought may have been her wasn’t. Then I saw a young woman coming down the escalator with long braids, wearing a pair of overalls and a shirt. I felt sure it was her when I saw her. I thought That’s my daughter right there. She looks just like me.

When she arrived at the bottom of the escalator, I said, “Stephanie?”

She replied, “Yeah. Pops?”

We hugged and kissed. We were finally together after decades of wonderment on both sides as to the whereabouts of the other.

I wasn’t going to let my daughter get away from me this time.

I had to drive us the thirty-five miles to where I was living In East Palo Alto, which gave us a chance to talk and catch up. But she could stay for only the day because she had to get home to her three kids in L.A. I learned the same day I was a grandpa too!

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Her husband was a cinematographer, so he was traveling all over the country. We could spend only about eight hours together before she had to leave. She got to meet a sister, and a cousin, who were both waiting at Mom’s house to meet her.

I was so happy I finally found my daughter. I knew she was out there somewhere. When I received the letter from her, it opened my heart. It was probably one of the most joyous moments of my life—getting to know her! And Stephanie’s daughter now has a son, so now I’m a great-grandfather! *** My fourth child is a boy, Patrick. His mother, Becky, and I dated, and she got pregnant. She lived across the street from us when I lived with my mother. Patrick now lives in Modesto, California.

When I look back on my life, I realize I could have been a better person for the women in my life. I was always a loving man, but I could have been a better family man. The women I became associated with were all good women. It was always me who screwed up the relationships.

I feel fortunate, and it’s important to me to have a good relationship with all of my children. Many in my position don’t.

And I’m doubly lucky I have six grandchildren and a greatgrandchild too, who I get to see occasionally, except for the ones in Iowa but who I did get to see when they were younger. I’m able to see the three who live here in California.

I send my grandchildren and great-grandchild birthday cards with money and a gift at Christmas. My children and I talk often, but I’m waiting for the day when I can get them all together. I’ve never had them all in the same room at the same time. It will be an exciting day for me when it happens!

Regarding my children out of wedlock, I knew better.

Contraception wasn’t on my mind then. I didn’t know much about it. Today it’s not a hush-hush thing like it was then. Now it’s openly promoted to young people. Growing up in a preacher’s home, we didn’t discuss the birds and the bees, much less birth 119

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control. Even if I had been told to use protection, I don’t know if it would have made a difference or not at the time. In hindsight, I would have used it every time. But I am thankful for my children now.

My mother’s reactions to my announcements that a baby was on the way were important to me. The first time I told her she wasn’t angry, she said, “My God. Well, we’ve got to take care of that baby.”

My mother always used to preach about appropriate behavior. I sometimes think the more you’re preached at, the more you rebel. When I became a so-called man, the transition from California to Nebraska made me look at things differently.

Suddenly, I had to take care of myself. I had to get my food and wash my clothes. I had to do everything others had done for me to that point in my life. It was quite a transition for me. But I just didn’t think ahead. I was living in the moment instead of acting responsibly.

I must look on the bright side, though—I’m thankful for my children. They’re here for a reason, even if most haven’t been in the traditional family setting. I’m thrilled about my relationship with them.

Some young men resent their fathers because they dominate their lives. But one of my biggest regrets is that my Globetrotters career kept me from being with my kids while they grew up. I only saw them grow in increments. I’d come home for a little bit, take them out, and buy them something to make up for my time away. Then I’d return months later, and they had grown so much.

But that’s not being a dad. It was a sacrifice being a Globetrotter—a big one. You don’t realize it, or you ignore it at the time because you’re making decent money and sending it home to take care of your family. But money and career aren’t everything.

The most important thing is if you have children you have to spend every moment you can with them. It also puts an enormous burden on their mothers to raise them alone. We didn’t have the technology before to interact with our children when we are away like we have today.

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*** The current lady in my life is Diane Hall. We’re engaged and have been living together since 2013. I met her in 1974 when we had the Trotters Inn. She knew and worked with my brother Whitney, a security guard at Kaiser Hospital in San Francisco.

I owe her my life. When I say that, it’s because I learned I had prostate cancer after we were together. By working at Kaiser Hospital for forty-six years, she could get me covered by her insurance. I got the radiation treatments I needed, and they cured it. It’s why I owe her my life. Otherwise, I never would have been able to afford the necessary treatments I received.

For my seventieth birthday, she threw a party and invited people from churches where I’ve played music for services.

Around two hundred guests attended, costing her about $10,000 for the blowout. She always has my back, and I love her dearly.

In no way could my family life be described as normal or ordinary, nor will it ever be. My path led me to where I am today, and I look forward to the rest of my days with my loved ones.

God has been Good to Me God, He has smiled on me He has set me free Yeah, God, He has smiled on me Sure been good to me I know that God has smiled on me He has set me free Yes, God has, He has smiled on me He’s been good to me —song by Nate Branch

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Lights, Camera, Action!

When the Palmer, Gillett, and O’Neil group purchased the Globetrotters from the Saperstein estate, changes were in store for the organization. It changed from Abe Saperstein’s traditional, old-line methods to a new business model, as businesses often do when they change hands. It was the beginning of a new era for the team, which continued when Metromedia, a mega-media giant, purchased it in 1976.

The Globetrotters were no longer just an athletic phenomenon—the players became media personalities.

Management knew the Globetrotters deserved more extensive exposure than posters or newspaper ads promoting their games, and Metromedia provided the platform to extend the process.

The Saturday morning Scooby-Doo animated cartoon TV show was one of the first significant media exposures to feature the Globetrotters as personalities. It began running in 1970.

It featured the Globetrotters crossing Europe on their bus solving crimes as they went. Hanna-Barbera, Inc. produced it in conjunction with CBS Productions. It brought the Globetrotters into homes every week, a significant accomplishment for ongoing recognition.

In 1972, the full-length made-for-TV cartoon movie ScoobyDoo Meets the Harlem Globetrotters was produced. In it, the Globetrotters helped the Scooby-Doo team solve two mysteries.

The animated cartoon series and movie were followed in 1974 122

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by the Saturday morning TV kids show The Harlem Globetrotters Popcorn Machine. It featured a young Rodney Allen Rippy, Globetrotters Meadowlark Lemon, Curly Neal, Geese Ausbie, Marques Haynes, Tex Harrison, Bobby Joe Mason, Johnny Kline, and me. Avery Schreiber also starred as “Mister Evil.” The program’s announcer was the famous John Aylesworth.

While the Popcorn Machine was a variety show with periodic guests, each show began with a moral of love and brotherhood for all that crossed racial lines with its message. It also featured segments on preventing pollution and its harm to our planet.

Both are important messages for all kids to learn at young ages.

The half-hour show was taped before a live studio audience and included comedy skits featuring the Globetrotters team members. One of my favorite episodes featured the beautiful Teresa Graves, who played Christie Love on the TV detective show, Get Christie Love. There were sixteen of us on stage with her, singing and dancing The Globetrotter Walk, a song I wrote. I was thrilled when I was able to accompany them on stage playing the organ. While playing, I was thinking, Wow, I’m not just up here dancing with the rest of the guys, I’m playing and hearing my music, a song I composed, playing on TV sets across the entire country.

The gratification I felt from seeing the results of my work and knowing how many people watched and enjoyed it was a fantastic feeling and a great honor. We all need to savor our successes. It’s the fuel that keeps us moving forward.

The funny Ruth Buzzi, Marty Feldman, Jo Anne Worley, Tom Bosley, and Ted Knight were other guests. While at the studio, I also ran into Bob Barker in the hall and Redd Foxx, one of my favorite comedians. It was enjoyable working with and being around all these established entertainers.

We got paid for doing the Popcorn Series too. I believe it was around $11,000 for each season. We taped an entire season in two weeks after our regular basketball season ended—one show each day. The two weeks were a grind, but the series gave us a lot of personal exposure, which helped our careers in the long run.

When Stan Greeson joined the Trotters organization as 123

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general manager, he brought a successful Hollywood background.

He had managed Soupy Sales and Peter Nero, two established stars. Even greater media exposure for the team followed his arrival.

A few years later, in 1979, Hanna-Barbera continued its Saturday morning success by producing another cartoon series, The Super Globetrotters, featuring five of us as undercover superheroes. We ran into magic lockers and changed our forms into various crime-solving characters.

Famous actors and comedians voiced our parts. My character was Fluid Man, and Scatman Crothers spoke my parts. Curly Neal was Super Sphere voiced by Stu Gilliam, Twiggy Sanders was Spaghetti Man, voiced by Buster James, Sweet Lou Dunbar was Gizmo, voiced by Adam Wade, and Geese Ausbie was MultiMan, voiced by Johnny Williams.

I was pleased that Scatman spoke my parts. I was a fan of his and enjoyed seeing him on the TV shows Sanford and Son and Chico and the Man, which I taped on my VCR and constantly watched when we were on the road.

It was easy money for us to get paid solely for the use of our images. There was little time commitment on our part. All we had to do was go to the studio once to have them sketch our faces.

In 1979 and ’80, we were in two episodes of The White Shadow, a drama series on CBS starring Ken Howard. He played a white coach at an impoverished urban high school with a racially mixed basketball team. It was the first television drama primarily featuring an African American cast. It felt good to be a part of a socially progressive show.

Ken Howard, the show’s main star, was a very nice man, and he seemed to like being around us. He would laugh and talk with us because he had played basketball too. He was 6’6” and the team captain at Amherst College, so we had something in common.

We got to talk to him only when we were on the set, though, so we didn’t have an opportunity to sit down and have much of a conversation. When they said, “Let’s break for lunch,” everybody 124

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went their separate ways. After we finished shooting for the day, we went straight back to the hotel.

It only took about two days to film an episode because they gave us our script in advance, so we knew our lines going in. It was also decent summer pay for us.

Then in 1981, we were in the made-for-TV movie, The Harlem Globetrotters on Gilligan’s Island. Who would have ever thought that? But Greeson must have worked his contacts, and there we were, on the set with Gilligan, the Skipper, the Professor, and more importantly, Ginger and Mary Ann. Eleven of us were there: Geese Ausbie, Curly Neal, Twiggy Sanders, Lou Dunbar, Clyde Hunter, Jimmy Blacklock, Tex Harrison, Theodis Lee, Bobby Joe Mason, Robert Paige, and me.

It was fun and exciting meeting celebrities like Bob Denver, Alan Hale, Tina Louise, Dawn Wells, and the other cast members.

They were all friendly people. Nearly every star I’ve ever met is cordial and pleasant when you speak with them. I don’t know if it comes from their public persona.

Overall, I enjoyed the movie-making experience. The first time you do it, though, you don’t know what to do or expect. You get told what to do, where to stand—everything.

Your biggest challenge is acting naturally. You get a script a couple of days in advance with your lines. You’re nervous enough about not screwing them up. You soon learn good acting is all about timing. It’s why they do the takes four or five times. It’s a learning experience.

After a while, you relax and act natural when reciting your lines. We Globetrotters got away with more than our fair share of mistakes because the movie’s directors and producers knew we weren’t actors and thought of us as clowns because of our basketball shows. They didn’t realize we had a serious side too, and in our games, we strove for perfection. Our pride pushed us to do the best job we could.

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Someone I got to know on the set was Scatman Crothers, who had a part in the movie. We hadn’t met before, but he had done my speaking parts in the “Scooby-Doo” cartoons, The Super Globetrotters. Once we were shooting a scene, and I was standing next to him. In between takes, he says, “When are we going to break for lunch?”

I asked, “What are you going to do for lunch, Scatman?”

He replied, “I’m going to go to my trailer and smoke a joint.”

So, I asked, “Is it any good?”

And he replied most assuredly, “Yes,” and invited me to his trailer each day at lunchtime to enjoy a smoke.

It took about two weeks for us to shoot our parts in the movie. So, I got to spend a little time with the rest of the cast, but it was generally casual conversation, as you would expect.

They were all very complimentary of us, and I enjoyed the entire experience. When I signed with the Globetrotters, I could never have imagined I’d be on TV shows and in a movie. Life has its pleasant surprises.

With the change in the Globetrotters’ philosophy about media exposure, the shows and the movie allowed us to show our personalities—our individuality. We were no longer just showmen with extraordinary basketball skills. It gave us a new dimension and an appeal to our audiences. *** With the team doing TV shows and a movie, I would have thought it would have been a thrill for my kids to see me on TV all the time as a cartoon character or in person, or both. But they never reacted like it was anything special and rarely mentioned it to me.

I knew they had seen them because when I’d call home, they’d sometimes say, “Hey Dad, I saw you on TV Saturday morning,” but that would be the end of it. I didn’t honestly know what they thought of any of it. They never told me if they felt special about having a Globetrotter dad on TV and in the movies. I never heard they bragged about me with their friends, either. I’m sure 126

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it came up in conversation at times, though. After a time, maybe it was just old hat to them.

On the heels of our rise in popularity due mainly to the efforts of Stan Greeson, the Bally Corporation produced 14,550 of the Harlem Globetrotters on Tour pinball machines. It was a highquality machine that received heavy play in bars and anywhere else pinball machines are featured. The back panel glass featured my likeness, Geese, Curly, Twiggy Sanders, and Robert “Baby Face” Paige. The machines are still being restored and sold today online on various websites. *** Another significant opportunity the Globetrotters had to be on TV in people’s homes was ABC’s “Wide World of Sports.” This preeminent sports program dominated sports programming for decades on Saturday afternoon. Most remember the program’s opening with the famous announcer Jim McKay announcing, “Spanning the globe to bring you the constant variety of sport— the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat,” as the ski jumper crashes over the side of the ramp.

For many years, the Globetrotters were featured with the showing of games that we taped for ABC. For many, it was the only time they got to see the Trotters in action without going to an actual game. My first exposure to the Globetrotters was seeing them on Wide World of Sports.

The announcer for our games was Howard Cosell, the famous sports journalist known for his confident and blustery personality and commentary while praising athletes and their accomplishments. He was also known for his support of black athletes and their causes. His famous line was “I’m just telling it like it is,” which played like absolution for whatever he had said before invoking the line. He was probably more famously known as the anchor broadcaster for thirteen years on Monday Night Football, beginning in 1970.

We interacted directly with him before taping our games, and I enjoyed it. He was very knowledgeable. You could tell he did his 127

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homework and took the game preparation seriously, although his game commentary was lighthearted.

His first interview with me was in Atlanta, where we usually taped the games in area high school gyms. He took the time to interview the whole team individually. When I walked into the room with him, he looked at me and said, “Nate Branch, University of Nebraska, 1967.” He knew all about me before we sat down to talk.

He was a funny guy, too, and liked to joke a little. And he always had a cigar in his hand. He was very personable, and I enjoyed talking to him. I didn’t spend much time with him, but I was impressed with his knowledge. I wouldn’t go so far as to say he was aloof, but he walked around like he was “the man,” which he was.

On one show, my recently composed song, “The Harlem Globetrotters,” was featured. They were playing a montage of Globetrotter scenes while Cosell was narrating. My music was playing in the background. He mentioned it was me playing and singing. It was a big stage for the song. I’d call the song an ode to our fans. The Harlem Globetrotters Song: Traveling around in our world Going from place to place, never ceasing to twirl After, it’s smiles on our face Oh, when we see you smile You know it makes our work seem worthwhile The Harlem Globetrotters Always happy we seem to be When something’s wrong, we say that don’t bother me Oh, we know we have a job to do That job is always pleasing you Yeah, when we see you smile.

You know it makes our work seem worthwhile The Harlem Globetrotters.

Oh, when we see you smile you know It makes our work seem worthwhile The Harlem Globetrotters 128

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The Harlem Globetrotters Pass the ball Pass the basketball There’s only one Harlem Globetrotters —song by Nate Branch Once when I went to Reno, Nevada, Bill Cosby was doing a show there. He had me stand up midway through his performance and said, “This is the guy who did the Globetrotters song on Wide World of Sports.” I was honored and humbled to be recognized that way. I think I swished it. Sometimes the smallest things get the most recognition.

In the year I wrote the song, I was allowed to be the halftime act overseas and play ball too. They paid me $600 a week extra to do it, which lasted ten minutes a night. I had a portable keyboard and had brought one of my buddies with me from home. He was a guitar player, so we played every night at halftime.

When the team ran into the locker room at halftime, he jumped into action, set up the keyboard, and ran extension cords to midcourt. I’d come back out, and we’d play “The Globetrotter Song.” The audience loved it.

I also wrote a song called “The Geese,” about Geese Ausbie.

He’d come out of the locker room and join us, and we’d perform it as my finale. We’d have some of the players come out and sing the background for it too. It was fun for us all.

Taking my buddy with me overseas was fun, too, because he had never been there. I paid him out of the $600 they paid me. It worked out for us both. *** We once taped a TV show in West Berlin, Germany, when we were in the city for a game. It was an unusual combination with Liza Minnelli, Ben Vereen, the Muppets, and Wayne Newton. An odd combination, but it was a variety show. We Globetrotters didn’t do any speaking or interviews. We performed the Magic Circle to demonstrate our ball-handling skills.

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I didn’t get a chance to interact much with Liza, but she was very cordial when we did. I told her I had been a big fan of hers for a long time and enjoyed her work. She told me she appreciated what we did and attended Globetrotters games when she was a kid.

For me, the greatest enjoyment was not on stage or backstage but in a local Hofbräu pub after shooting. Many of us went there one night to unwind. It was a large establishment. The guys were out on the floor dancing with the girls.

I was sitting in the same booth with Wayne Newton. I was more interested in music than dancing, so we had a long talk about music and show business in general. I asked if he enjoyed being an entertainer, and he replied he did. He said it was his whole life. He asked me the same question, and I told him I enjoyed doing what I did. He told me we were fantastic.

We just sat there talking and enjoying each other’s company.

Wayne was a big star at the time. It was a great atmosphere to kick back and enjoy his company and to listen to his words of advice on show business. *** We were on The Mike Douglas Show, The John Davidson Show, and The Tonight Show when Bill Cosby was the guest host.

But I didn’t get to play any music on them. When we did the talk shows, we usually only performed the Magic Circle. It was our trademark of sorts. Meadowlark was usually our spokesperson for any interviews. We would stand there as a group. When invited to do a show, you do what they want you to do.

We did get to sit on the sofas on The Tonight Show when we finished our routine for Bill to speak with us. Cosby was smoking a big cigar. When we came back live from a commercial break, I teased Bill with, “Good nickel cigar, Bill.” He broke up laughing on the set since he was most likely smoking a five-dollar cigar.

We also did a “Short People” skit with Goldie Hawn on one of her TV specials. It was fun to work with her. We also appeared on Donnie and Marie Osmond’s TV show, where we performed the Magic Circle while Donnie chased around trying to steal the 130

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ball from us. He and Marie had a top-rated show.

With our increased exposure and good press as America’s darlings of family entertainment, the Globetrotters made dozens of commercials in the 1970s and ’80s and continue to do so today. We hawked everything from Coca-Cola to a JVC boombox, Vitalis hair tonic, and a Boeing 747 jumbo jet. You name it; we endorsed it.

We were a distinguished performance group promoting highlevel products, and it played well Nate with the Globetrotters on the Goldie Hawn Show (1978) in all markets. Companies were anxious to be identified with us.

It was an excellent time to be a Trotter. *** My latest work in film and music came in 2008 on Liberation Saturday. It’s a documentary film on the life of Joe Prince of East Palo Alto, diagnosed at an early age with Asperger syndrome, a condition on the autism spectrum. Joe became an AllAmerican track star while suffering from cancer. His is a story of perseverance, determination, and hope.

I have known Joe since he was a kid. My father’s original church in East Palo Alto started in his grandfather’s garage.

I worked with Joe and the producers on the film’s music, and they used some of my songs. The story has an East Palo Alto setting, and working on the project felt like a gift to the city. The city suffered from a bad reputation for crime for many years, and Joe Prince dedicated himself to reaching out to help younger kids. None of us ever knows where our talents will lead us until we’ve arrived there.

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14

Stars, Stars, and More Stars!

As a result of the team’s wholesome family image, we were in constant demand with advertisers for photo shoots, especially in L.A. It broke up our everyday monotonous routines and allowed us to see places and meet celebrities we normally wouldn’t. And all we had to do was show up and smile for the camera.

Of two photoshoots that stand out, one was with Bob Hope.

We went to one of his estates and had photos taken with him because he donated land to a boys club or other group. He hammed it up pretty well, and one shot had him sitting on the shoulders of one of our guys. I’m not sure what the connection was to us but hanging out with Bob Hope was fun.

Another time we had a photoshoot with the cast of M*A*S*H on the set where they were filming. We met Alan Alda, Loretta Swit, Harry Morgan, and the rest of the cast. Even though we were in the background for these shoots, they were a fun break in our days.

We played a game in Memphis one year and beforehand went to Graceland for a photoshoot. Elvis had passed away by then, but I got to sit in his pink Cadillac. There were always side benefits to being around celebrities, or in this case, their property.

Our popularity led to other opportunities as well. One year we performed the Magic Circle to “Sweet Georgia Brown,” as 132

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always, as the opening act at the A Night of a Thousand Stars gala at Radio City Music Hall in New York. Since I was interested in music and entertainment, the best part for me was getting to hobnob with celebrities—all giants in their fields.

We were mingling in the crowd in our warmup suits, so we were easily recognizable against all the tuxedos, and everybody loved the Trotters. Amongst others, I met Jimmy Stewart, Anthony Perkins, who seemed just like the creepy main character in Psycho, James Caan, the entire cast of The Jeffersons, Brooke Shields, Elizabeth Taylor, who I got to kiss on the cheek, and Elliott Gould. It was the Who’s Who of celebrities and was tremendous. Even if you didn’t get to speak to many of them, you still got to see the stars up close. After the show, I joined many of them on the roof for a smoke. It was a good night and one I’ll never forget.

It was always fun being in front of the camera, no matter the venue. I’m the type of person who doesn’t always want to be front and center. When we were doing many of the shows and movies, I was the team’s player-coach, so I wanted to be sure the rest of the team got their share of the publicity, and I usually stood in the back. I might have put myself in front like Meadowlark always did if I had to do it again. I may have been too humble and more concerned about the other guys since I pursued a music career outside of the Globetrotters. My looking after my teammates was the motherly instinct coming out in me, though.

Since we often played in large venues in the big cities like New York and Los Angeles, we stayed in higher quality hotels than in small-town America. As a result, we would cross paths with many celebrities and dignitaries, often by chance—being in the right place at the right time.

I met James Brown, the famous singer and musician known as the “Godfather of Soul,” and Milton Berle, the well-known comedian and actor clutching his trademark cigar, on separate rides on elevators in the Knickerbocker Hotel in New York City.

I also ran into Sugar Ray Leonard in a hotel lobby and met Levi Stubbs of the Four Tops in The Playboy Club in London. I was always flattered when celebrities recognized me or were cordial 133

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when I introduced myself. Their stars shone far brighter than mine.

At other times, meeting celebrities was more formal. I visited the Vatican in Rome, and I met Prince Edward and Lady Katharine, the Duke and Duchess of Kent, and Burt Bacharach, the American composer and musician, in London. I was introduced to Aretha Franklin, the undisputed “Queen of Soul,” whose list of musical accomplishments exceeds what many could only dream of because I dated her sister, Erma. And Gladys Knight, the “Empress of Soul,” also an accomplished singer and songwriter. I dated her makeup artist.

The Globetrotters had a game one year at the Pennsylvania State Fair, and we got to meet and interact with Johnny and June Carter Cash, who were the headliners for a show. They were good together and very nice people.

Another time we performed in a show which also included Charley Pride and Ronnie Milsap. Between takes, I got to sit at the keyboard separately with both stars. Charley Pride was a giant in the country-western music world at the time. We played one of his biggest hit songs together, “Kiss an Angel Good Mornin’,” for his practice and my fun. What a privilege it was for me just to sit on the same piano bench with him, much less play. Charley passed away in December 2020 from complications of Covid-19.

The world lost a timeless treasure in him.

Ronnie Milsap was another giant in the country music industry with six Grammy awards and thirty-five No. 1 hits to his credit. Rightfully, both men have been inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. Being a Globetrotter provided me the privilege and opportunity to sit down and play, even briefly, with these two titans in the music industry.

When I was inducted into the Bay Area Sports Hall of Fame in Oakland, I met the actor, Danny Glover. He’s from and lives now in San Francisco, right across the bay. I took my mother as my date to the banquet. It was special for her to meet Danny. It was a fun night for all of us.

While Meadowlark invited many celebrities into our locker room during games for introductions, the least formal way to 134

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mingle with stars was when we spotted them at our games. I saw Donald Sutherland, REO Speedwagon, at a game in Minneapolis.

And at other games, Johnny Paycheck, Dionne Warwick, and James Brady, President Reagan’s press secretary. We’d attempt to acknowledge their presence even with just a wave and a smile.

Our games were good relaxation for everyone—no tension about who would win or lose and whether you’d see a lousy game. We were the masters of fun. *** One of the highlights of my life was twice being invited to the White House to meet Presidents Ford and Carter. When the team visited with President and Mrs. Ford in December 1974, we toured the White House. One of our players, with whom I was close, Jackie Jackson, knew one of the President’s aides because they served in the Army together.

The aide offered to take us downstairs to the Executive Dining Room for lunch. Jackie and I followed him down to the dining room, wondering who we may encounter there. I was pleased when I ended up sitting next to Secretary of State Henry Kissinger for lunch.

I was trying not to look starstruck, staring around the room at all the high-ranking service members in their uniforms with medals pinned to their chests. Henry spoke with us as any other person would about the Globetrotters. He was very interested in us—happy to be talking to a couple of Trotters.

One of the positive things about the Globetrotters is it didn’t matter your role on the team. The recognizability of our uniform and the Globetrotter name is what mattered. It sets us apart from others. It was a delightful day, one of my best memories.

I later learned that in 1976 Henry Kissinger became the first honorary Globetrotter, followed in 1977 by Bob Hope. When Henry received his spot on the honorary roster, he stated in his distinctive accent, “I’m not too good at the fast break, but I’m strong on defense, and despite my height, I’m a pretty good rebounder.”

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His pun about rebounding undoubtedly referred to the debacle leading up to President Nixon’s resignation and Kissinger landing on his feet and continuing as Secretary of State in the Ford administration.

No doubt, Stan Greeson originated the brilliant idea of recognizing honorary Globetrotters, which continues today. In addition to Henry Kissinger and Bob Hope, the honorary roster includes Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Whoopi Goldberg, Nelson Mandela, Jackie Joyner-Kersee, Pope John Paul II, Jesse Jackson, Pope Francis, and Robin Roberts—all ambassadors for the Globetrotters.

In 1982, the Globetrotters were honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame to recognize our movie and TV work.

It was fun being in Tinseltown for the ceremonies.

Today, the Globetrotters remain media darlings and continue to take advantage of the trail we blazed back in the 1970s.

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Part III - The Bridge

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15

Moving On When I began my career with the Globetrotters, I hoped for a long one. I got my wish, but I didn’t anticipate it ending so abruptly the way it did. An often-used saying is “a ball can take some funny bounces,” and so can life.

We played a game in the Bay Area at Stanford University while my mother was in Stanford Hospital recovering from an illness. The team made a grand entrance in our warmup suits to visit her before the game. Mother was Queen of the Ball that night. Our visit and the attention it received buoyed her spirits.

Since we were near my home in East Palo Alto, I decided to spend the night at home with my people rather than in the team hotel. After the game, I went to the hotel to ensure my luggage was ready to go with the team the following day on the bus to our next game in Tucson. I also picked up my primary suitcase, which held my clothes and uniform and some toiletries, and headed home. I was going to fly to Tucson a day later after spending more time with Mother and meet up with the team for our game.

When I got off my flight in Tucson, I was approached from behind and asked, “Are you Nate Branch?”

I turned to see who was inquiring. Two plainclothes policemen walked up to me, flashing their credentials. They said sternly, “We heard you were carrying some contraband in your suitcase.”

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I replied that I wasn’t. And they asked, “Do you mind if we look in your suitcase?”

I replied, “No. Help yourself.”

They opened it and found cocaine and marijuana sitting on top of my clothes like they were on display. I was shocked and wondered how they got there and realized they must have been planted in my suitcase by someone at the hotel when I was away.

I had no idea the drugs were there because I had no reason to open my travel bag after picking it up the previous night.

The officers took me to a small outstation at the airport, and while there, told me someone didn’t like me. They had been notified in advance of my flight number, the color of my suitcase, what I looked like, and any other information needed to locate me. I’ve always felt someone inside the Globetrotters organization set me up and planted the drugs in my suitcase when left unattended in my room.

The officers told me they would allow me to play in the game because many people were there to see me. They took me to the game, and I did play. Afterward, I was allowed to go to my hotel room, take a shower, and get dressed. After showering, I was sitting on the edge of my bed, and the 10 p.m. news was on TV. My picture was plastered across the screen with the news anchors commenting I had been arrested for carrying concealed drugs.

I thought How in the heck does this information travel so fast?

The officers waited for me in the hotel lobby because I needed to go to the police station for fingerprinting. I dreaded the entire process and what it meant for me, but I was happy I didn’t have to spend the night in jail.

Later that night, I got a telegram from the Globetrotters dismissing me. I was angry. I was arguing, “Wouldn’t you want to find out first if I was guilty or not?” But I was fired for what happened, and they stopped all communication with me. The Globetrotters claimed my alleged actions were not consistent with the family image they sought to portray.

I immediately called my ailing mother because I was concerned about her reaction to the news, which now had gone nationwide. She was upset and crying, worried about what it 139

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meant for me. The following morning, I tried to see my fellow players on the team to explain what had happened and that I had done no wrong. But they had already boarded the team bus and were gone. With no cell phones in those days, I had no way to contact them or them to contact me. I was like a man thrown from a lifeboat. I was on my own—banished!

There had been a recent change in management, and my ally, Stan Greeson, the general manager, was gone. It was a hard pill to swallow, but I knew it was time for me to move on.

I had to go to court in Tucson. I was fined $5,000, and the case was dismissed. But my relationship with the Globetrotters was truly over. They no longer wanted anything to do with me. I wasn’t bitter at the team for what happened; that’s not my style, just mad at what and how it had occurred. Life isn’t always fair.

There was no outpouring of consoling words from my teammates or others I knew in the days and months following my dismissal from the team. I suppose the feeling amongst my teammates was I didn’t know what to say, so they said nothing.

I doubt if any of them tried to intercede on my behalf with management. The team’s leadership may have told them to put some distance between themselves and me so the team’s wholesome image wouldn’t be jeopardized.

I didn’t hear from Meadowlark, either. I thought he might offer me a job with his Bucketeers team, but he didn’t. I think he was still upset with me for taking his player-coach position when he clashed with management in 1979 before leaving the team. He and I eventually patched things up and got our relationship back to where it was before it eroded.

I wondered if my reputation would withstand what had transpired, but I think it was my prior good reputation that prevailed over the accusations made against me. People know good when they see it, and everyone in the community knew I was a good guy and not a drug user. I’m sure my mother’s good reputation didn’t hurt either. In the aftermath, nearby Los Altos High School offered me their head basketball coaching job. I turned it down, but the school wouldn’t have offered me

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a job coaching students had they thought I was guilty of drug possession. No one talked about it. It was time for me to move on.

Amazing There are times when I feel That I have gone as far as I can go But He’s the one who gives me strength to carry on When nights are dark and days are dim I promise to stay with Him But He’s the one that brought me through And He knows just what to do Isn’t He amazing?

—song by Nate Branch

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16

My Tale Continues I Don’t Feel Noways Tired I don’t feel noways tired I’ve come too far from where I started Nobody told me that the road would be easy I don’t believe He brought me this far to leave me —song by Rev. James Cleveland Since my career with the Globetrotters ended as abruptly and the way it did, I had to step back and decide what to do with the rest of my life. I was still relatively young at thirty-seven, but playing forty-five hundred basketball games in fifteen years had taken a physical toll on me. A person’s legs can only take so many trips up and down the court. I hadn’t developed a plan for the next phase of my life yet, but I needed one now.

I came home and soaked it all in as to what had happened and took it easy for a year. I had accumulated a few dollars while playing, so I didn’t have to worry about supporting myself in the short run. I knew I would bounce back, though. I just wasn’t sure how.

I never had any 9-5 jobs where I learned a skill I could fall back on. The closest I had as an adult was in the summer of 1969, my second year with the Globetrotters. I wasn’t playing in Europe yet and was offered a position with an engineering company in San Francisco for work in the East Palo Alto area, which was in 142

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the process of becoming incorporated. East Palo Alto was trying to improve its infrastructure with sidewalks and road work and wanted a high-profile liaison with local ties to the community.

They hired me to connect with the people.

It was an easy job because all I had to do was study aerial maps of East Palo Alto and drive through the city to mark potholes in the roads for repair. In the short time I was involved, I didn’t learn any skills which would benefit me later.

When I was a teenager, one of my summer jobs was at a car wash for the deacon at our church. He paid me $1.25 an hour, which was okay and was Saturday work. I also shined shoes one summer for a couple who had a shoe shop and got paid $0.75 a pair.

During a summer in high school, one of my jobs was for a small Chinese-owned grocery store. At one time, bleach was sold in glass bottles, but no one told me bleach was now selling in plastic bottles. I had stacked the cases of bleach and cut the top off with a box knife, so all the bottles would be visible. As I cut around the top of the box, bleach started pouring all over the floor. The owners were upset and began screaming at me in Chinese, and I got fired. It was quite an incident, and I remember it every time I walk into the store today.

These jobs didn’t prepare me for life after the Trotters, but they did teach me you need to do an excellent job at whatever you’re doing, you need to enjoy it, and you need to make money doing it. *** After spending about a year, maybe two years, trying to figure out what I wanted to do, I suddenly had an idea. Basketball and the Globetrotters are what I knew best, so I decided to capitalize on my experience. Many of the old-time players I had played with were no longer with the team. Some had retired, while others didn’t have their contracts renewed. The team seemed to be in a youth movement, perhaps trying to appeal to a younger audience.

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My brother Gerald, who managed the Trotters Inn and was the businessman in the family, and I were talking about the future.

My idea was to form an alternative team to the Globetrotters. I included my mother in our discussions. I thought my idea had merit because I felt I had nearly the entire team I played with at my disposal. I had “Geese” Ausbie, “Curly” Neal, “Baby Face” Paige, Jackie Jackson, Bobby Joe Mason, and “General” Lee Holman, all former Globetrotters who I felt would join a new team. I didn’t have the business knowledge to pull it off, but I still had contact with Stan Greeson, the Globetrotters’ general manager when I was playing, for advice. He was no longer with the organization.

I contacted the former players to see how they felt about the idea. They all liked it and were ready to join. I was excited about the opportunity because I thought it had to be a money-maker given the popularity of those involved. My mother agreed and borrowed $10,000 against the equity in her house to help fund the initial capital so I could get the players to come in.

My wife, Debra, and I had a lady friend, Ann, who went to an investment company willing to hook us up with some investors.

They bought in, and she went to work for the team and even invested her own money. Our office was in nearby Foster, where my wife and I lived, and Debra began working for the team.

After the project was capitalized, I was no longer in control of the money. I had to work through the investment management company for anything I wanted to do. I had a significant role in the company because I had the experience of playing for many years and knew the ins and outs of that side of the business.

One of my first responsibilities was to schedule games. I had the old schedule from when I played, so I called the same arenas around the country. They were very receptive to booking our games because they weren’t very familiar with the new Globetrotter players but knew how popular ours were. Many of the arenas in the major markets were willing to forego any booking fees and work with their promoters to advertise our games, which was a benefit to us.

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My job then was to assemble the team. After we booked over two hundred venues, we sent the players plane tickets, and they flew in to begin workouts.

I called Meadowlark Lemon about playing because he was retired. I told him I was getting the team together and had most of our old team confirmed—those on the TV shows and who were popular with the public. Meadowlark said he was interested, but he wanted $1,000,000 a year. I was stunned by his demand.

I urged him to join the team because we would all be co-owners and share in the profits. He repeated he needed a guarantee of $1,000,000 a year to play. There was no way to guarantee him that kind of money, so we couldn’t agree on a deal. If Meadowlark had joined us, we would have had the old Globetrotters team under a different name—the Harlem Ambassadors. All of the arenas would have eagerly booked us with him in the fold.

Even though Meadowlark wouldn’t join us, I decided to move forward with the players we had. I scheduled around ten games in the Bay Area—Oakland, San Jose, Monterrey, and other nearby locales, to get us back in the feel of playing and entertaining. My brother and I went out at night and placed advertising posters in the area. We didn’t have the money or know-how to promote a game, so we did the best we could.

When I started this team, there was a man who was the organizer of the new investors. I contacted Stan Greeson and told him I wanted to talk to him about the inner business workings of starting a team. He learned who I was working with, people with money, so he agreed. He said he’d charge us $500 a day for us to pick his brain as much as we wanted.

Wilt Chamberlain was still my friend, and he was interested in investing in the new team. He had played for the Globetrotters for one year after college, so he was familiar with the business model. The first thing he asked was who was going to run it. I told him we had Stan Greeson. He didn’t want to run it, but he would give us all the necessary information we needed.

The organizer of the investors wanted to meet with Greeson as well, so he, Wilt, and I flew to Los Angeles. We reserved a room in a hotel near the airport for the meeting. The organizer began 145

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asking Greeson questions irrelevant to why we were there—more like he wanted to impress Stan with his knowledge. I thought to myself We’re paying Greeson five-hundred dollars per day, and this guy’s burning up the time not getting the advice we need because he has a big ego.

Greeson did tell us we’d need $1,000,000 for advertising because we needed to make this look like the biggest show on Earth. Wilt asked who was on the team, and I told him. He asked if we had Meadowlark, and I told him no, Meadowlark wanted $1,000,000. Wilt suddenly backed out on investing. I was very disappointed. We were so close to pulling it off. It was time to play our first game, but we made a big blunder due to my lack of experience in staging an event. Without knowing what else we were competing with, we scheduled a game next to an arena featuring a Disney event. The worst family-oriented competition we could have. We thought we would have a good crowd for our game, but maybe seventy-five or eighty people showed up. It was devastating. I began to learn the business of advertising and promotion the hard way. People have to know about the events.

You can’t schedule an event and hope they show up. Greeson was right. It takes a big advertising and promotion budget.

We had another game in the Oakland Arena, and maybe three hundred people were there because we hadn’t done enough advertising. And it too competed with other events in the area. We ended up only playing a few games. The whole thing imploded.

When it appeared things weren’t going to work, I approached the organizer about any remaining money, and I learned there was no money. I later learned he had stolen what was left. I had my attorney investigate the matter, but it went nowhere. The assets were gone. It was a sad ending to what could have been a terrific opportunity. *** Not long after the Ambassadors failed, I got a call from Bruce Briggs, a former Globetrotters referee. He was in contact with a promoter and was forming a team mainly of ex-Globetrotters to 146

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go overseas and play games in Indonesia and Saudi Arabia using the Harlem Ambassadors name.

I flew to Louisville, Kentucky, to meet with Briggs and Chris Thornton, the brother of Dallas Thornton, an ex-Globetrotter.

Ironically, while there, Muhammad Ali, a friend of Briggs and Thornton, stopped by my hotel to visit. Ali, known for grand entrances, was driven up the hotel driveway by his driver in his Cadillac shouting, “Where’s Nate, where’s Nate?”

We hadn’t seen each other since crossing paths in a restroom at one of our games years earlier in Pennsylvania near his training camp. We had some mutual acquaintances, which drew us together. It was always fun visiting with The Champ. There’s no one like Ali. Briggs got the team formed, and after workouts, myself, Chris, and ex-Globetrotters “Geese” Ausbie, Larry “Gator” Rivers, Harold Hubbard, and a group of former college players from the University of Louisville flew off to Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia, to play. We were there seven or eight days. We then flew to Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, for nine or ten days.

We had to be on best behavior in Saudi Arabia. As with drugs, alcohol consumption is forbidden there. Drinking is punishable by public flogging, fines, or lengthy imprisonment, sometimes accompanied by deportation. We were there to entertain, not to create an international incident. Saudi Arabia is dry in more ways than one!

While in Saudi Arabia, I met a fourteen- or fifteen-year-old boy after he came to one of our games. Somehow, he took a liking to me and would come by our hotel to visit. I didn’t realize at first he was a prince. It was when he came by to pick me up to take me to a game in his Rolls-Royce with a driver that I figured it out.

While riding with him to the game, I saw small groups of people with their camels and belongings on the side of the road, a sight you would expect to see there. But then we passed some other Rolls-Royces parked on the side of the road. I asked him if all those cars were breaking down? He said, no, it’s what’s they do there if one stops running—they just call for another one. They don’t bother to get it repaired. There was so much money there 147

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for the wealthy that they’d order a new car if something went wrong with their old one. A memorable trip, for sure. *** With the opportunity to continue playing basketball seeming to have passed, I fell back on my music in a small way for income but more to utilize and enjoy my passion. Music was part of my life long before basketball, and it would be long after basketball.

I didn’t want my basketball career to define me, but, in a way, playing basketball allowed me to pursue my passion after my playing career ended. It’s an example of how things in life are often built around something else.

Playing music for churches now became my primary occupation. I started by playing for a church in San Francisco.

I was the Minister of Music in charge of the choir as well as playing the piano. They started me off at $100 per Sunday but eventually increased my pay to $300 per Sunday because good church musicians were rare.

I had to drive from East Palo Alto to San Francisco several times a week, though, so when the church my father formed, St. John Missionary Baptist Church, asked me to come back in 1988 and made me an offer I couldn’t refuse, I returned to my roots and am still there.

I’ve never had another occupation other than church music since the Globetrotters. I could have formed another band and played locally or on the road, but I didn’t have the desire or the energy to do either. I was satisfied with my church music, and I was tired of being on the road. Doing what I was, I could be home with my loved ones, not playing a few nights, then traipsing to the next stop. I had enough of the road.

I’ve written more than thirty songs, mostly gospel, and have recorded many on compact discs. I make all the music on my 148

Nate Branch with Barry Kienzle

keyboard. It’s got all the sounds—horns, violins, whatever I need.

Then I take my recordings to a professional studio and overlay the vocals and my backup voices. I’m a one-person band, you might say, and I love doing it. It’s in my soul. I’ll never get rich doing it, but the personal reward I receive makes it worthwhile.

As my reputation as a church musician grew, I began getting calls to perform at weddings and funerals. I play the organ and piano, although I prefer the piano. I supply the music, including the intro or prelude. If they don’t have a solo singer, I sing too. I provide whatever is needed. I often have three or four bookings per week.

My continuous involvement with churches has led me to other venues to express myself over time. I played the organ or piano at banquets for years, but now I end up on stage doing a comedy routine. I always enjoyed the comedy of Redd Foxx, so I like to copy his style, but I can’t use his off-color versions with church groups, as you’d understand.

I also perform at fashion shows. I get calls to play music while the models are strolling down the runway, then to go on stage and tell jokes. I’m a multi-purpose man. It seems like I do about five of those events a year. The banquets and fashion shows all seem to be in the spring, so I stay busy that time of year. *** Over the years, I observed and was intrigued by our audience’s reactions to our Globetrotter comedy routines. Still, I dipped my toe into comedy after my playing days were long over. Years later, I was in Las Vegas at the annual conference for the National Basketball Retired Players Association, comprised of retired NBA, WNBA, and Globetrotters players.

It’s an awards dinner called The Legends. There must have been two hundred people in attendance. After dinner, they worked their way through the ceremonies where people received an award and spoke, quickly getting dull. I thought this place is dying. This isn’t going anywhere.

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Nate Branch—Playing My Way Through Life

I was sitting next to Marques Haynes’ wife, Joan, who I knew from when she came out on the road at times with us when Marques was playing. Unfortunately, Marques had passed away a few years earlier, in 2015.

I had a couple of glasses of wine, so I was feeling pretty good.

I said to Joan, “Hey, everybody here’s going to sleep. Watch this.”

I got up from my seat, went up on stage, and took the microphone from the master of ceremonies. Nobody knew I wasn’t supposed to be up there. They most likely assumed I was on the program.

I announced, “I’m Nate Branch. I’m one of the Harlem Globetrotters. And I’m glad to be here. You know what? This gathering reminds me of a joke.”

My joke was, “This guy had a daughter for whom he had been paying child support. His daughter was turning eighteen years old, and her mother told her, ‘Go to your daddy’s house and get the child support check.’”

So, she went to his house and said to her dad, “Mom sent me for the child support check.”

He started writing out the check and said, “Now baby, take this check and give it to your mother and tell her this is the last check I’m going to write because you’re now eighteen years old and there won’t be any more money coming. And I want you to step back and look at the expression on her face when you tell her that.”

So, she took the check home to her mother. And said, “Well Mama, Daddy said this is the last check you’re gonna get. There won’t be no more money because I’m now eighteen. And he wants me to step back and look at the expression on your face when I tell you that.” And her mother said, “Go back and tell your daddy that he’s not really your daddy. Then you step back and watch the expression on his face.”

The house roared its approval, and everybody relaxed afterward. One guy came to me and said, “We’re going to have you back next year for our program.” So, this was the launch of my comedy career, or call it what you want.

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Nate Branch with Barry Kienzle

Another one of my favorite jokes is one about two preachers, which I’ve told many times at events. These two old-time preachers in the country used to ride their bicycles to church.

They were both pastors at different churches, but they would pass each other on the road on their bikes each week.

One Sunday, one of the preachers was walking. The other preacher rode up and said, “Well, Rev, I see you’re walking.”

He replied, “Yeah, Rev, I think one of my members stole my bike.”

The other preacher replied, “I’ll tell you what you should do, Rev. In church this morning, recite the Ten Commandments.

And when you get to the one that says, ‘Thou shall not steal,’ whoever stole your bike is going to feel guilty and bring it back.

The following Sunday, they were headed in opposite directions on the road and passed each other again. And the one Reverend said, “Well, Rev, I see you got your bike back.”

He said, “Yeah, I did. I did like you said. I got up and preached, and then I started reciting the Ten Commandments. And when I got to the one that says, ‘Thou shalt not commit adultery,’ I remembered where I left my bike.” It gets laughs every time, so it stays in my repertoire.

I try to relate to my audience when I do my stand-up comedy.

When you get before an audience, you must be in control. It doesn’t work if you’re not. I learned that from my mother when I was a young man and would listen to her preach.

Speaking of entertainment, Meadowlark and I got to go backstage once at a Sammy Davis Jr. show In Phoenix. I asked him how he’d lasted so long in show business. He told me, “Just give them enough, so they want some more.”

Good advice from two winners. Keep control of your audience and give them just enough so they keep coming back.

Wise words.

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17

Life Itself Since most of my life has been in and around churches and their ministries, one may wonder if I’m a religious man. I am very much aware there is a God, having been raised that way. It was the fabric that bound our family together. It taught us right from wrong and how to treat others.

But I’ve witnessed other people with an undeniable belief and devotion to God, which has changed their lives for the better.

They were willing to live their religion, not just abide by its rules.

I see the transition in people because I’m often in a church where those feelings are more eagerly expressed. It’s a very profound experience to witness and has strengthened my own faith.

Some aren’t as sincere about their religion and pretend to be more devout than they are. I can tell an honest Christian simply by talking to them and observing how they treat others.

Personally, I don’t read the Bible much, but I probably should read it more. Being in church as much as I am and listening to so many sermons, I’ve probably heard the entire Bible over the years. It’s not an excuse; I’m just being honest.

Many have told me how kind-hearted I am. It has always been part of my personality or makeup, probably passed down or instilled in me by my parents. I look for ways to be kind to others.

Once when we were playing in Rome, three or four of us were sitting in an outside cafe. I saw an old lady standing on the 152

Nate Branch with Barry Kienzle

corner crying. She was noticeably upset. I got up from our table and went over to her to see if I could help. I didn’t speak Italian very well, but I could tell something wasn’t right.

She looked to be maybe eighty years old, standing there proudly in her black dress, with a veil on her head, drying her tears with a hanky. I tried as best I could to ask her what was wrong, but she didn’t respond. A young lady came by and began interpreting for me. She told me the woman’s children had put her out of her house, and she had nowhere to go. I thought, wow, this is terrible—poor lady.

Through the interpreter, I asked if she was hungry. She replied, No. Grazie. I tried to give her some money, but she wouldn’t accept it. No. Grazie. No. Grazie, she kept repeating, which means, No. Thank you, in English.

She grabbed my hand and squeezed it, and slowly walked away; her head bowed in sorrow. My heart sank as I stood there on the sidewalk, feeling helpless as I watched her leave. The Italians are a proud people, and though she refused my assistance, I know she squeezed my hand to show me she appreciated my effort to help her. *** When I was the player-coach with the Globetrotters, there wasn’t much coaching needed during the games because everyone knew their job. The coaching was more off the court, where you looked after your players because of the grind of being away from home for long periods.

I made a purpose of spending time with each player periodically, especially the younger ones. They may have had family or other problems on which they needed advice or just someone to talk to. I wanted to help them as best I could—to show them I cared. It was important to me.

There were times when if we were playing in a small venue, and a player’s role in the game wasn’t critical, I’d give them the night off so they could go to the movies or do something fun and not have to come to work.

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Nate Branch—Playing My Way Through Life

My rule throughout my life is to treat everyone as you want to be treated. *** I’ve never been in a fight in my life. Never. I’m more of a lover than a fighter with just a few arguments along the way. I talked my way out of the arguments I had, but never like I was afraid. I was always prepared to fight if I had to, but I never did. I didn’t see fighting as a solution to differences between people.

Once before a high school basketball game, a classmate walked by and hit me on the arm a couple of times. He was bigger than me, and I think he tried to intimidate me or throw my shot off. Ironically, we later became good friends. He probably came to respect me because he couldn’t goad me into retaliating.

When Martin Luther King was leading protests and marching down in Selma, Alabama, the University of Nebraska’s Black Student Union wanted me to go there to march in the demonstrations. I told them I couldn’t do it because even though I approved of peaceful protests, I’d retaliate if someone used force against me. So, I didn’t go. There was much news about how blacks were being mistreated by the police using water hoses and other methods to disperse the protesters. It was not the place for me.

The only possible racial discrimination I felt I ran into was in South Carolina, I believe. After a game, one of my teammates and I went into a bar to have a beer. I think we were the only two blacks there. As we were leaving, someone threw a beer bottle at us. No harm was done. It was minor, and I wouldn’t call it discrimination, just a couple of bubbas acting out. Everywhere we went, we received especially good treatment because we were the Globetrotters. I know the teams who played decades before us weren’t as fortunate and suffered through segregation in many parts of the country.

I hate to see people fighting on the street. When I see shows on television with two women or two men fighting, I turn it off.

I dislike any form of violence. It’s not necessary. It hurts me—it’s 154

Nate Branch with Barry Kienzle

not my thing. There’s too much real hurt and anger in the world without watching it for entertainment.

Sometimes when I argued, it was with someone jealous of me or my accomplishments. The impression of many when I was in high school was that I had it made—that everyone liked me; my girlfriend was the prettiest one in school, and so on.

But I never took advantage of my standing as a sports hero, even when some of my teachers offered it to me. One teacher told me if I scored fifteen points in the game that night, I didn’t have to take the test on Friday.

I didn’t pal around with many people in high school. I had to be home to go to church. When we would have a school dance, I was a wallflower because I didn’t know how to dance. I still don’t dance. I could slow dance then because then all I’d have to do is shuffle my feet to get by.

Some might even call me a nerd. Science was my favorite class in high school—the wonders of science intrigue me. I have two telescopes, and I go out on my back porch at night when it is clear and gaze at the stars. I’m fascinated by the heavens. When you think about the universe, it’s a never-ending space. We can only see so far even with our current technology. I often wonder how the stars all remain in their exact location. The moon is always in the same place too. It’s all amazing to me.

I understand the solstices, too. I’m a gardener. I like to plant things I can eat. I know that the sun rises and sets in different locations during the year because I’ve studied it—it keeps my mind occupied. Can you imagine the distance to the sun is over 94 million miles, yet it can heat the Earth? How hot must it be on the face of the sun? It all intrigues me and fuels my creativity. *** In 1973, a Sports Illustrated columnist wrote an article on the Globetrotters in which he described me as the friendliest and shrewdest player on the team. I was flattered that he called me the friendliest; I think it all goes back to my upbringing—how my family raised me. I was taught to be courteous to everyone and respect them.

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As to the shrewdest tag, I simply keep my eyes open all the time. One could call it street smarts. I always watch what is going on around me. Growing up on the streets of Chicago and East Palo Alto, it was a necessary trait for survival. I always observed my teammates and their behaviors. You learn a lot about people through simple observation.

The one time I let my guard down was when I was looking after my sick mother, and drugs were planted in my luggage.

Lesson learned.

But shrewd has many synonyms, and I’d prefer to be considered the most enterprising person on the team. I was always looking for a way to make money and look out for myself.

You can call it being shrewd, but it may just be self-preservation.

You need to take care of yourself first to be of any value to anyone else.

If I had to describe my life, I feel like I’ve been blessed since the day I was born. Everything always seemed to fall in place for me. I never went hungry, and I always had clothes on my back. I had loving, caring parents who provided for me. My needs were simple, but I was always hustling too.

To me, it’s not about money. I was in a position where I made a good living playing basketball. Money is not everything. Peace is more important than material things. Happiness is getting along with your family and others. There were times when I had no money, even a little. But I always survived. When you get a little older, you’ve witnessed what money has done to many people who have millions of dollars and are still not happy. I Google some of these athletes and celebrities to see how much they’re worth, $400 million, $600 million dollars, but how much money can you spend after a point? How much do you need to be happy? *** I’ve continued to do charity work in honor of my mother’s tireless hours spent helping those in need. I’ve also tried to inspire the younger generation by speaking to them about life’s challenges to keep them on the right track.

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Nate Branch with Barry Kienzle

I spoke to a group of young prospective broadcasters in the East Palo Alto Recreation Center. I stressed the importance of education with them and encouraged them to learn all they could. I emphasized for them to be the best they can be. Our youth hold the key to our future and theirs.

The most important thing to me throughout my life, other than my religion, is the people I met along the way—those who influenced me and those I influenced. When I was young, I spent so much time in our church because my father was a preacher, and my mother dedicated herself to the ministry. The other mothers in the church were like my own mother. If they saw you doing something wrong, they would scold you. And then you’d get reprimanded again by your parents when you got home. They all played a role in keeping me on the right track.

I was fortunate to meet many great people on my journey.

Not only the celebrities with whom I shared a few brief moments but the many close, truly lasting friendships I made on the Globetrotters. I still meet regularly via Zoom with some of my old teammates and those who played after me. What great friendships we enjoy.

I can’t understate the opportunities presented to me when I was young as a significant influence in my life. I wasn’t very interested in sports in general but had a natural talent for basketball. Fortunately, my brother Gerald played, and he introduced me to the sport. I made the crucial game-winning shot in a high school championship game, which propelled me to greater heights in a sport where I had a career. I have much for which to be thankful.

My journey through life has taken a path few have traveled.

From a young boy of humble origins raised in the church to an unsuspecting hero in a high school basketball championship game to a world traveler with the Globetrotters and back. All wrapped in my passion for music which soothes my soul and has never left my side. I haven’t led the perfect life, no one does, but this is me—this is who I am and who I’ll always be. Who could ask for a more rewarding life? God has smiled on me!

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The first song I learned to play on the piano in church was “Thank you, Jesus.” I can’t say it enough.

Thank you, Jesus Thank you, Jesus Thank you, Jesus Thank you, Jesus Thank you, Lord You’ve brought me from a mighty long way —Anonymous

Globetrotters 1979 publicity photo 158

Nate shows off his ball handling skills in 1982

Nate Branch Jersey 159

1981 magazine advertisement for the JVC Quintet stereo system

Branch / Dabney family: Left to right – Gerald Dabney, Whitney Dabney, Onedia Branch, Nate Branch, Israel “Duke” Dabney, Erwin Dabney 160

1967 Globetrotters promo photo

Nate Dribbles down court as Jackie Jackson looks on

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Nate up to his antics vs. the New Jersey Reds

Nate dribbles down court past a New Jersey Reds defender in 1977

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Nate hams it up for the camera in 1977

Nate “dances” with a Washington Generals player in 1980

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A rare music publicity photo of Nate and Meadowlark Lemon

Nate Branch signing autographs Original artist sketches of Nate as “Fluid Man” on the Super Globetrotters cartoon series (1979)

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Nate with his agent: Celebrity Direct’s Cord Coslor

Branch on stage with venue owner Barbara Horan doing a Q&A session following a musical performance in Greenville, TX (2016) 165

Nebraska, December 12, 1966

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Nebraska, December 12, 1966

Nebraska, January 28, 1967

Nebraska vs Washington State 167

Publicity photo from the short-lived Harlem Ambassadors in 1985 168