Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Harlem Globetrotters: Dizzy Grant, The General #2. The author of the first 4-point shot in basketball history

Dizzy Grant started playing basketball after he attended a Harlem Globetrotters game at the age of 7. The New Jersey Athletic Conference Player of the Year his senior season in college, Dizzy was also a first team all-conference selection in both his senior and junior seasons.

Dizzy holds the distinction of sinking the first 4-point shot in basketball history, when the Globetrotters unveiled their new game-changing rule during a nationally televised ESPN2 special on Dec. 5, 2010. The basketball and 4-point circle Dizzy utilized on the 35-foot shot will now be preserved for future generations at the mecca of the sport, the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass.


Dizzy has developed into one of the team’s best ball handlers and has also gained a reputation as one of the biggest Globetrotter cut-ups. “He is funny all the time,” says Big Easy Lofton. “He can do impressions of anybody,” adds Flight Time Lang.

He compares being with his Globetrotter teammates to the sitcom, “The Office.” He says, “There are so many different personalities, but when you put them all together, they complement each other.”

Dizzy has been featured in several local TV, radio and newspaper interviews while promoting the Globetrotters, and his talents were on display for a national audience during two TV specials in 2010 from the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex at Disney World.


Being a Globetrotter has given Dizzy the opportunity to see and do things of which most people can only dream. For example, he has walked on the Great Wall of China, visited the Eiffel Tower and done ball handling atop the Space Needle. He has also experienced the satisfaction of helping build homes for Habitat for Humanity.

He wants to reach youngsters the way his father reached him. “He taught me what hard work is and how it can pay off,” says Dizzy. “I just hope I am doing the same for others out there in the world.”

Dizzy enjoys playing golf – he consistently shoots in the 80s – and bass fishing, which he does three to four times a week on his bass boat when he is at home.

Following his playing career, he aspires to become an airplane pilot.

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