The Harlem Wizards is a professional basketball team created in 1962 by sports promoter Howie Davis. Unlike most basketball teams, the Harlem Wizards are not primarily focused on winning games. Instead, their aim is to entertain the crowd using a variety of basketball tricks and alley oops. They perform fundraisers at local schools for the students and the rest of the community, displaying their fancy trickery through dribbling, passing, shooting, and dunking. Through these fundraisers, they have raised millions of dollars for "charitable organizations, schools, and foundations around the world." The audience is not only there to watch the Wizards, but also to participate in the show. The Wizards get the crowd involved, often bringing children out onto the floor to be part of a basketball trick or a comedy act. The Wizards are a comedy basketball team that tour the country. The theme for the Wizards' 2010–2011 campaign was the "Basketball and Beyond Tour." They hold the second longest known

winning streak A winning streak, also known as a win streak or hot streak, is an uninterrupted sequence of success in games or competitions, commonly measured by at least 4 wins that are uninterrupted by losses or ties/draws. Although sometimes claimed as a ...

in all of professional sports—over 5,000 games after the Harlem Globetrotters 24-year, 8,829 game streak

History

According to harlemwizards.com, in 1943, Harlem Wizards creator Howie Davis was working as a Sports Promoter and the Sergeant and Recreation Director at

Wright-Patterson Air Force Base Wright-Patterson Air Force Base (WPAFB) is a United States Air Force base and census-designated place just east of Dayton, Ohio, in Greene and Montgomery counties. It includes both Wright and Patterson Fields, which were originally Wilbur Wr ...

Dayton, Ohio Dayton () is the sixth-largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Montgomery County. A small part of the city extends into Greene County. The 2020 U.S. census estimate put the city population at 137,644, while Greater D ...

. The World Championship of Basketball Tournament in

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asked Davis to provide an emergency 8th team to compete in the tournament. Within one week, Davis assembled the Dayton Dive Bombers. The Dive Bombers' first round opponent in the tournament was the previous

World Champion A world championship is generally an international competition open to elite competitors from around the world, representing their nations, and winning such an event will be considered the highest or near highest achievement in the sport, game, ...

, the Harlem Globetrotters. The Dive Bombers pulled the upset and the Globetrotters' manager, Abe Saperstein, refused to even shake Davis' hand after the game. Davis was intrigued by this event, and twenty years later, he decided to create his own show basketball team, the Harlem Wizards. Before Davis got into sports management and

promotion Promotion may refer to: Marketing * Promotion (marketing), one of the four marketing mix elements, comprising any type of marketing communication used to inform or persuade target audiences of the relative merits of a product, service, brand or i ...

, Howie Davis played semi-professional

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding t ...

for a couple years. He eventually managed the Brooklyn Dodgers football team, the Staten Island Stapes, and the Kokomo Clowns, who actually played in clown outfits. Before creating the Harlem Wizards, he was also a scout for the

San Francisco Giants The San Francisco Giants are an American professional baseball team based in San Francisco, California. The Giants compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) West division. Founded in 1883 as the New Y ...

. In 1962, Davis created the Wizards, wanting to expand on Saperstein's idea of the Globetrotters. Davis wanted the Wizards to be an even more

competitive Competition is a rivalry where two or more parties strive for a common goal which cannot be shared: where one's gain is the other's loss (an example of which is a zero-sum game). Competition can arise between entities such as organisms, indivi ...

, creative, and

entertaining Entertainment is a form of activity that holds the attention and interest of an audience or gives pleasure and delight. It can be an idea or a task, but is more likely to be one of the activities or events that have developed over thousan ...

team than the Globetrotters. When Howie Davis died in 1992, his son, Todd Davis, took over as the

President President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) * President (education), a leader of a college or university * President (government title) President may also refer to: Automobiles * Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ...

of the Harlem Wizards organization. Since 1962, the Wizards have played over 10,000 games, both in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

and abroad. They have played on five different

continents A continent is any of several large landmasses. Generally identified by convention rather than any strict criteria, up to seven geographical regions are commonly regarded as continents. Ordered from largest in area to smallest, these seven ...

and in 22 different countries.

Current roster

Former players

Tiny Archibald Nathaniel "Tiny" Archibald (born September 2, 1948) is an American retired professional basketball player. He spent 14 years playing in the National Basketball Association (NBA), most notably with the Cincinnati Royals/Kansas City–Omaha Kings ...

* Frankie Bradshaw * Tom "Sundance Kid" Chapin * Larry "Butterfly" Cheatham * Hollis Copeland *

Mario Elie is a character created by Japanese video game designer Shigeru Miyamoto. He is the title character of the ''Mario'' franchise and the mascot of Japanese video game company Nintendo. Mario has appeared in over 200 video games since his cr ...

* Dewyn "Air Revolution" Erwin *

Connie Hawkins Cornelius Lance "Connie" Hawkins (July 17, 1942 – October 6, 2017) was an American professional basketball player. A New York City playground legend, "the Hawk" was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1992. Early ye ...

* Guy Hughes * Ollie Lee Ledbetter * Clarence "Mugsy" Leggett * Ken "Blenda" Rodriguez * Ralph " Rubber Legs" Sheets * Mike Simmel * Ed "Czar" Simmons * Frank "Shake & Bake" Streety * Vincent White * James "Speedy" Williams * Hawthorne Wingo * James "Peanuts" Woolard * Sam Worthen * "Headache" * "The Main Event" * Earl “Early” Christy * Lawrence "LaLa" Gable * Buffy "Mr.Magic" Coleman * Javon "Dynamite" Jones * Claude "Tojo" Henderson * Luis Da Silva "Trikz"

References

External links

* http://www.harlemwizards.com/ - Harlem Wizards website. {{New York Sports 1962 establishments in New York City Basketball teams in New York City Sports in Manhattan