When Stephen Curry sank a series of three-point shots to help Team USA clinch the Olympic gold medal in Paris this summer, it’s unlikely he was thinking about Abe Saperstein. But as a new biography of the trailblazing Jewish basketball executive suggests, Curry had plenty of reasons to be grateful to Saperstein, who is best known as the founder and longtime head coach of the Harlem Globetrotters.
Saperstein, who at 5-foot-3 is the shortest man in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, is credited with introducing the three-pointer to the game. But his impact on basketball, and sports more broadly, extends far beyond Curry’s signature shot. In a new book, “Globetrotter: How Abe Saperstein Shook Up the World of Sports,” brothers Mark and Matthew Jacob explore Saperstein’s far-reaching legacy, which they say is still underappreciated 58 years after his death.
Saperstein is credited with elevating basketball from a second-tier American sport to a global powerhouse. He pushed the NBA to expand to the West Coast, years before the Minneapolis Lakers moved to Los Angeles in 1960, and urged team owners to charge more for games against better teams. He was also an early advocate for baseball to improve its pace of play, a live issue in MLB debates in recent years.
“Abe Saperstein would be smiling to see that the NBA doesn’t just have an All-Star Game, they have an All-Star Weekend with the slam dunk contest,” said Matthew Jacob. “He was just a great advocate for fans, and he wanted sports and sports teams to constantly reassess how they were operating, to put fans first.”
The book highlights Saperstein’s remarkable journey from his birth in London to his leadership of the Globetrotters. The team was originally called the Savoy Big Five, but Saperstein renamed it and took it on a barnstorming tour that, nearly a century and thousands of games later, the Globetrotters are still on. The team’s famous style of play – a unique blend of athleticism, comedy, and theatrics – has been both celebrated and criticized, with some viewing it as a minstrel show and others seeing it as a form of entertainment that did not objectify the players.
Saperstein’s Jewish identity played a significant role in his career, with the Globetrotters becoming a symbol of Jewish-Black collaboration and cooperation in the early days of professional sports. His experience with antisemitism, including being spat on by a hotel employee in postwar Germany, informed his approach to racial and ethnic issues, as well as his own advocacy for Black athletes.
The Globetrotters’ 1948 exhibition game against the Minneapolis Lakers – a team that had won three consecutive national championships – was a turning point in the integration of the NBA. The game showed that Black athletes could compete with anyone, according to Mark Jacob, and paved the way for the eventual integration of the league.
Saperstein’s identity as an outsider – a Jewish immigrant from London – helped him navigate the complex dynamics between Black and white players in the early years of professional sports. His story is one of endurance, resilience, and a determination to rise above the challenges he faced. As the book concludes, Saperstein’s legacy continues to inspire and educate, reminding us of the power of sports to bring people together and transcend borders.
