No matter how old I got, I always expected to remember Kareem Abdul-Jabbar for three simple things: skyhooks, championships and co-pilot Roger Murdock.
But Kareem’s movie career didn’t end with Airplane! And this is a very good thing.
Because now I’ll remember him for one thing more: On the Shoulders of Giants.
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| Kareem helped make the film. The film’s subjects helped make Kareem. |
Abdul-Jabbar wrote, produced and featured prominently in the documentary, but it’s not really about him. It’s about the long-ago, long-forgotten players who, in no small measure, paved the way for him to become a basketball legend. It’s a fascinating exploration of, as the film puts it, “the greatest basketball team you’ve never heard of.”
And Kareem’s right. Until the former UCLA history major screened his film in Milwaukee over the weekend, I’d never heard of the Harlem Rens. Chances are you haven’t either. Let’s fix that a bit.
It was a team of Jackie Robinsons, a group of African-American sporting pioneers who never earned the notoriety that pioneers deserve. Officially, the team was called the New York Renaissance Big Five, named after the Harlem dance hall where it started playing games. Yes, a dance hall. After the games, they moved out the baskets to make room for the dancers.
But seeing how the official name wasn’t exactly headline-friendly or conducive to conversations, the team came to be known as the Rens. And it came to be pretty darn good. From 1922 until their last year in 1949, the Rens went 2,588-529.
But back then, the sports world was still black and white, and the Rens were black. Professional basketball leagues wouldn’t grant them membership, so they were left to a life of barnstorming, a life the film captures in all its hardship and happiness.
As a young man, legendary coach John Wooden played against the Rens and later said he never saw a club play better team basketball (and he ended up seeing quite a few teams). The Rens got their big chance to prove Wooden’s praise in 1939 with an invitation to the World Professional Basketball Tournament in Chicago.
There, they settled a long-simmering rivalry against another traveling black team, the Harlem Globetrotters (who, the film reminds us, were really from Chicago, but used the Harlem name to drum up barnstorming business). Then in the title game, the Rens beat a renowned Wisconsin team, the Oshkosh All-Stars.
They were, quite simply, the most dominant African-American basketball team of their era. And yet, most of us knew nothing of the Rens. Even Abdul-Jabbar, who grew up in Harlem, was oblivious until much later.
Why?
“I think the story has remained hidden because there’s no footage,” Abdul-Jabbar said after the Milwaukee screening. “People can’t see it.”
But the same is true of Negro League baseball, and yet we remember much about those pioneers. Why not in basketball?
“Baseball being the national pastime, the dominant culture, white America paid a little bit of attention to blacks playing baseball,” Abdul-Jabbar explained. “But in the 1920s and ’30s basketball was a very secondary sport. I always equate it to the Olympic sport curling. Nobody knows about that. It kind of fell through the cracks then, and nowadays it’s totally been forgotten.”
Not anymore. The movie’s on Netflix now. It’s also available at kareemabduljabbar.com. You should see it. Young kids should see it. Frankly, every NBA player should see it. There are lots of lessons here.
One giant has told the story of others, and it’s no small thing.
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