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 stats
an
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