sports
BY DANTE ZUÑIGA-WEST
Baller Status
Are all of the games scripted? Is it predetermined
that you guys are going to win by a certain amount of
points? How does that work?
No, no, we never know how much we are going to win
by, or if we’re going to lose. People don’t know: we’ve lost a
total of 345 games. But we’ve won 24,000 in the 86 years
we’ve been around. We try to get a 10-point lead over our
opponents and then we bring the tricks in.
A talk with Harlem Globetrotter Kenny “The Blenda” Rodriguez
he world famous Harlem Globetrotters are part
theater, part comedy act and all basketball. We
caught up with 5-foot-8 guard Kenny “The Blenda”
Rodriguez not long before the Globetrotters packed
Matthew Knight Arena on Feb. 24 to entertain thousands.
T
they liked my energy. And ever since then, in 2007, I’ve been
a Globetrotter.
So, why do they call you “The Blenda?”
‘Cause I make smoothies out of defenders and I shake
people up on the court.
So all theatrics aside, the teams you’re playing against
are seriously trying to beat you guys?
Yeah, sometimes they have to fall back, like when we
grab kids from the audience to do skits and stuff. They know
they have to lay back for a minute and let us put on a show.
But they’re trying to beat us.
How did you become a Harlem Globetrotter?
After high school I took a four-year break from basketball,
but then I came back, playing street ball in New York
and doing halftime shows. What got me onto the Harlem
Globetrotters was a guy by the name of Black Jack Ron, a
street-ball legend known all over New York. He got a call
from one of the agents, and the agent asked him if he knew
any talent in New York, and he told them about me.
So, a scout called me and asked for a highlight video, I sent
the video over to Phoenix, Ariz. and next thing I know they
say I look good, but they want to make sure I can really
do all the stuff I did in the video — make sure there’s
no trick photography. So they invited me to Houston,
Texas, with 10 other guys for a two-day tryout.
It was intense — people think Globetrotters are all
about the tricks, but they looked for the tricks at the
end. First they make sure you’re a good ballplayer.
Within 30 minutes I twisted my ankle. They taped it
up and I was out there limping, thinking I wasn’t going
to make it. But I think they saw that I didn’t give up, and
How do the Globetrotters relate to the NBA?
Well, a lot of NBA players now were motivated to play
ball by seeing a Globetrotter game. Or they saw us on TV,
on Gilligan’s Island or Fat Albert. I recently had a chance
to be on Sesame Street, and I remember being a kid
and seeing the Globetrotters on Sesame Street. It was
pretty cool to hang out with Elmo.
What’s the best part about being a Globetrotter?
Traveling. I’ve been to 40 countries. I can’t remember
them all right now, but to mention a few — Italy, Belgium, the
U.K., China, Japan, Bosnia, Turkey. Basketball is a universal
language, and wherever we go people understand our
antics.
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