Vintage Basketball Thread

[BobC]

Speaking of interesting vintage basketball stories, here's one about the Waterloo Wonders. An unbelievable depression era story from an extremely small and rural Ohio town. They were doing things no one else was at the time, and were possibly an influence on what the Harlem Globetrotters eventually became. (Except their opponents weren't being paid to lay down like the Globetrotters opponents are.)

Below is a link to a 1995 story about them from the SI vault. There is also an almost hour-long PBS documentary that came out about them just a few years back, titled "The 8th Wonder: The Waterloo Wonders". Unfortunately, you can't find and view it for free on YouTube, or elsewhere online, for now. There is a also a book written by Dick Burdette about their exploits, titled "The Fabulous Waterloo Wonders", if anyone is so interested, but again not free. Anyway, they would take on all comers, including college teams, and handle them all pretty well. The reason I bring them up is because they are the kind of story that very few people really know and remember. Also, when I was very young, one of the Wonders players, Beryl Drummond, lived a couple doors over from me.


https://vault.si.com/vault/1995/02/0...-waste-to-ohio

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XwZ4b2jUco