Marques Haynes

Marques Haynes (March 10, 1926 – May 22, 2015) was an American professional basketball player and member of the Harlem Globetrotters, notable for his remarkable ability to dribble the ball and keep it away from defenders. According to the 1988 film Harlem Globetrotters: Six Decades of Magic, Haynes could dribble the ball as many as 348 times a minute.

As a child, Haynes learned to dribble a basketball in the dirt yard of his home. A native of Sand Springs, Oklahoma, he attended Booker T. Washington High School and received a $25 church scholarship to play basketball for Langston University, where he attended from 1942 to 1946. During his time with the Langston Lions, the team racked up a winning record of 112–3, including a 59-game winning streak.

In a February 1945 conference tournament game, Haynes showed off his dribbling skills for more than two minutes, running down the clock on a solid lead to ridicule an opponent, Southern University, which had run up the score against an inferior team (Sam Huston College, later Huston-Tillotson University, coached by a young Jackie Robinson) in a previous round. Haynes' own coach, the legendary Zip Gayles, threatened to kick him off the team for his showboating display, but it got an immense response from the crowd at the game.

In 1946, Langston was invited to play an exhibition game against the Globetrotters in Oklahoma City. In that game, Haynes led Langston to a 4-point win, catching the eye of team owner Abe Saperstein in the process. He was invited to join the Globetrotters, and, after completing his degree, began his long professional career.

Haynes played with the Globetrotters from 1947 to 1953. One of the exhibition games in which he played was the famous game in West Berlin on August 22, 1951, where a landmark 75,000 people were recorded in attendance—although Haynes later insisted the turnout was closer to 90,000—and Haynes met track star Jesse Owens, with whom he roomed on the tour. He also toured South America with the Globetrotters and played a series of exhibition games against some of the top college basketball teams in the United States.

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