Do The Washington Generals Owe Their Existence to Seattle U?

A blogger running a blog called Craw's Corner posted an article about some interesting moments in Seattle University Basktball History.

In the article he mentions that in 1952 Seattle U played the Globetrotters in the pre-Generals era and beat them in a close game with a final score of 84-81. The loss due mostly to the Globetrotters calling a time out in the final seconds when they didn't have one, giving Seattle U a technical foul shot and control of the ball in the final seconds.

This is actually nothing new as this game is well documented as one of the Globetrotters biggest upsets. What is interesting is he claims that after this loss Saperstein cancelled the rest of the Globetrotters benefit games for that season, and it was because of this that the infamous phone call between Saperstein and Klots that formed the Washington Generals took place. The pretense being that creating a team to play into the Globetrotters comedy routines would keep them from loosing again. A tactic that mostly paid off as the Generals wins have been few and very far between.

I did some research and several other people giving retrospectives on the Seattle U game give the same story. This is in direct contradiction with the official story, which as I mentioned in an earlier post is that Saperstein approached Klotz about forming the team that would become the Washington Generals after Klotz own team, the Philadelphia Spha's, scored two upsets against the Trotters. I did find this story odd when I first heard it for no other reason then the Spha's win's happened years before the formation of the Generals. So the loss to Seattle U would make more sense as the catalyst to the Generals formation.

Probably only Saperstein and Klotz truly know what motivated the Generals formation, and one of them obviously won't be talking; but while the Spha's two-game win may have set the wheels in motion it looks like we may owe the existence of the Washington Generals to Seattle U more than anyone else.

READ THE CRAW'S CORNER POST HERE!

YOU CAN CLICK HERE TO READ AN IN DEPTH LOOK AT THE SEATTLE U/GLOBETROTTER GAME!