Zachariah Clayton, (April 17, 1913 – November 20, 1997) was a
basketball
Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular court, compete with the primary objective of shooting a basketball (approximately in diameter) through the defender's h ...
player for the
New York Rens
The New York Renaissance, also known as the Renaissance Big R Five and as the Rens, were the first black-owned, all-black, fully-professional basketball team in history, established in October 1923, by Robert "Bob" Douglas. They were named after t ...
. He was also a
Negro league
The Negro leagues were United States professional baseball leagues comprising teams of African Americans and, to a lesser extent, Latin Americans. The term may be used broadly to include professional black teams outside the leagues and it may be ...
baseball player and a professional boxing referee. He was inducted into the
Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2017.
As a boy, Clayton's family moved from Virginia to Philadelphia. Clayton played at the Christian Street YMCA along with
Charles "Tarzan" Cooper,
Jackie Bethards and
Bill Yancey
William James Yancey (April 2, 1902 – April 13, 1971) was an American baseball shortstop in the Negro leagues. He played from 1927 to 1936. He also played for the New York Renaissance, an all-black professional basketball team. Yancey also serve ...
. There they began four fruitful careers on a squad called the Tribune Men.
Clayton also played for the
Harlem Globetrotters.
Clayton would win world championships with both teams.
Clayton is enshrined in the Philadelphia basketball Hall of Fame. Clayton later became a boxing referee. His most famous bout was the 1974 Ali-Foreman "
Rumble In The Jungle
George Foreman vs. Muhammad Ali, billed as ''The Rumble in the Jungle'', was a heavyweight championship boxing match on October 30, 1974, at the 20th of May Stadium (now the Stade Tata Raphaël) in Kinshasa, Zaire (now Democratic Republic of t ...
". Clayton also refereed
Muhammad Ali's last fight, against Trevor Berbick in 1981.
References
External links
an
Baseball-Reference Black Baseball statsan
Seamheads
1997 deaths
Bacharach Giants players
Baltimore Elite Giants players
Chicago American Giants players
Harlem Globetrotters players
New York Black Yankees players
New York Renaissance players
Basketball players from Philadelphia
Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame inductees
1913 births
20th-century African-American sportspeople
{{1910s-US-basketball-bio-stub