James "Twiggy" Sanders (born in Raleigh, North Carolina), is a retired American basketball player and coach. He played basketball at Ligon High School where he earned All-Conference, All-State and All-American honors.
Sanders went on to star at Johnson C. Smith University. He was voted to the CIAA All-Tournament team in 1973 and 1974. He received his B.S. in Physical Education in 1974.
Sanders later gained fame when in 1974 he joined the Harlem Globetrotters in which he played for 17 years, retiring from the team in 1991.
Since then Sanders become head basketball coach at Bonner Academy in Raleigh and also was head coach for two years with the Raleigh Cougars of the United States Basketball League (USBL). He later became an assistant coach for two years at Morris Brown College.
In 2004, Sanders became the first head coach of the American Basketball Association expansion team the Maryland Nighthawks. Twiggy is now a substitute teacher at Carnage Middle School
Twiggy has three children. Monty Jackson is currently the Director of Operations for the men's basketball team at Elon University in North Carolina.
Twiggy is also a substitute teacher at schools such as Carnage Middle School in Raleigh, NC. He once was the basketball coach at Carnage.
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The Harlem Globetrotters are an American exhibition basketball team. They combine athleticism, theater, and comedy in their style of play. Over the years, they have played more than 26,000 exhibition games in 124 countries and territories, mostly against deliberately ineffective opponents, such as the Washington Generals and the New York Nationals (1995–2015). The team's signature song is Brother Bones' whistled version of "Sweet Georgia Brown", and their mascot is an anthropomorphized globe named "Globie". The team is owned by Herschend Family Entertainment.
Abraham Michael Saperstein was the founder, owner and earliest coach of the Harlem Globetrotters. Saperstein was a leading figure in black basketball and baseball from the 1920s through the 1950s, primarily before those sports were racially integrated.
Dean Edwards Smith was an American men's college basketball head coach. Called a "coaching legend" by the Basketball Hall of Fame, he coached for 36 years at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Smith coached from 1961 to 1997 and retired with 879 victories, which was the NCAA Division I men's basketball record at that time. Smith had the ninth-highest winning percentage of any men's college basketball coach (77.6%). During his tenure as head coach, North Carolina won two national championships and appeared in 11 Final Fours. Smith played college basketball at the University of Kansas, where he won a national championship in 1952 playing for Hall of fame coach Phog Allen.
Norman Leslie Sloan Jr. was an American college basketball player and coach. Sloan was a native of Indiana and played college basketball and football at North Carolina State University. He began a long career as a basketball coach months after graduating from college in 1951, and he was the men's basketball head coach at Presbyterian College, The Citadel, North Carolina State University, and two stints at the University of Florida. Over a career that spanned 38 seasons, Sloan was named conference coach of the year five times and won the 1974 national championship at North Carolina State, his alma mater. He was nicknamed "Stormin' Norman" due to his combative nature with the media, his players, and school administrators, and his collegiate coaching career ended in controversy when Florida's basketball program was under investigation in 1989, though Sloan claimed that he was treated unfairly.
Jesse O. Sanderson High School, more commonly called Sanderson High School (SHS), is a co-educational 9–12 public high school located in Raleigh, North Carolina, United States in the Wake County Public School System. The school was founded in 1968. It is named after a former superintendent of Raleigh public schools, Jesse O. Sanderson. Sanderson runs on a 2x4 block schedule; it was one of the first schools in the area to do so. It is known for its performing arts, athletic, and community outreach programs.
Frank Joseph McGuire was an American basketball coach. At the collegiate level, he was head coach for three major programs: St. John's, North Carolina, and South Carolina, winning over a hundred games at each.
Walter M. Williams High School, the flagship school of the Alamance-Burlington School System, is a high school in Burlington, North Carolina, United States. It was named in honor of philanthropist, industrialist, and former Burlington City Schools chairman Walter M. Williams. The school entered its eighth decade of operation in the 2022 school year.
William Leon Garrett was a basketball player, coach, educator, and a college administrator who is best known as the first African American to regularly play on a Big Ten Conference varsity basketball team. Prior to becoming a college player for Indiana University (1947–51), the Shelbyville, Indiana, native led his Shelbyville High School basketball team to its first state high school basketball championship in 1947 and he was named Indiana Mr. Basketball. In 1959 Garrett coached Indianapolis's Crispus Attucks High School boys' basketball team to the state high school basketball championship title, making him the only Indiana Mr. Basketball to win a state championship as a player and as a coach.
The NC State Wolfpack men's basketball team represents North Carolina State University in NCAA Division I men's basketball competition. N.C. State is one of the seven founding members of the Atlantic Coast Conference. Prior to joining the ACC in 1954, the Wolfpack was a member of the Southern Conference, where they won seven conference championships. As a member of the ACC, the Wolfpack has won ten conference championships, as well as two national championships in 1974 and 1983. State's unexpected 1983 title was one of the most memorable in NCAA history.
Frederick "Curly" Neal was an American basketball player who played with the Harlem Globetrotters, instantly recognizable with his shaved bald head. Following in the footsteps of Marques Haynes, Neal became the Trotters' featured ballhandler, a key role in the team's exhibition act.
Kris Marcus Bruton is an American professional basketball player. Drafted by the Chicago Bulls in the second round of the 1994 NBA draft, he was with the Bulls for two pre-seasons before a serious thigh injury ended his career. Bruton never appeared in a regular-season NBA game for the Bulls. After recuperating, he was recruited by the Harlem Globetrotters, carving a niche on the court as a slam dunk expert.
Monte Corwin Towe is an American basketball coach and retired basketball player. He was a starting point guard on the 1973–74 North Carolina State Wolfpack men's basketball team which won the NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Championship. At five feet seven inches, Towe is also one of the ten shortest players in NBA history.
The Western Carolina Catamounts are the intercollegiate athletics teams that represent Western Carolina University. The Catamounts compete in the NCAA Division I as members of the Southern Conference. Western Carolina fields 16 varsity sports teams. The men's and women's teams are called the Catamounts.
Orlando Radhames Antigua Fernández, nicknamed "Hurricane", is a former Dominican-American basketball player and is currently an assistant coach at the University of Kentucky under John Calipari. He is widely known as becoming the first Hispanic and the first non-black player for the Harlem Globetrotters in 52 years when he signed in 1995. After his retirement from playing professional basketball he was named an assistant coach for the Pittsburgh Panthers, the Memphis Tigers, the Illinois Fighting Illini and the Kentucky Wildcats. In 2014, he was named the head coach of South Florida, which he held until 2017. He also served as the head coach of the Dominican Republic national basketball team from 2013 to 2015.
LeVelle DeShea Moton is an American college basketball coach and the current head coach of the men's basketball team at North Carolina Central University. He was a former player at North Carolina Central, having graduated in 1996.
Stephen T. Vacendak is an American former basketball player and coach. He originally came from Scranton, Pennsylvania, and was recruited by Vic Bubas to play as a guard for the Duke Blue Devils men's basketball team. As a guard for the team he led Duke to a 72–14 record and two Final Four appearances during his three-year varsity career. In 1966 he was captain of his basketball team, ACC Player of the Year, and on the All-ACC Tournament team. Despite being named player of the year, Vacendak was not named to the All-ACC team in 1966.
Phil Spence is a retired American basketball player and coach. He was a key contributor on the 1974 North Carolina State Wolfpack national championship team.
Charles "Tex" Harrison was an American basketball player, born in Indiana and raised in Texas, who played and coached for the Harlem Globetrotters for six decades. Harrison was the first player from a historically African American college to receive All-American honors.
Robert Brickey is an American basketball coach who is currently the head coach of the Fayetteville Stingers of The Basketball League. Previously he was the head coach of the Raleigh Firebirds.