Globetrotters Showcase Skills for St. Matthew’s

It’s not every day that kindergartener Charlotte Landis gets to spin a red, white and blue basketball on her finger, let alone at 9:45 a.m. on a school day at St. Matthew’s.   But that was the case last Thursday, when hundreds of students congregated at the school’s gym, the Sprague Center, to watch and cheer two members of the world famous Harlem Globetrotters, ‘Special K’ Daley and ‘Wun The Shot’ Versher.   ’This is the highlight of being a Globetrotter,’ said Daley, a seven-year team veteran whose position is listed as Showman. ‘The connection we get to have with these kids is really special.’   For the last decade or so, various Globetrotters have performed at elementary schools across the country. This year’s five-month North American tour spanning 220 cities, 46 states and six Canadian provinces will bring a mixture of basketball skills and comedy to hundreds of schools.   Daley and Versher packed a great deal into their hour-long performance, spending the last few minutes showing off their patented spinning and twirling basketball tricks to the tune of the team’s classic, whistling theme song ‘Sweet Georgia Brown.’   ’It’s amazing to be face-to-face with young minds of today and give them something positive, as well as entertaining,’ said Versher, a 16-year Globetrotter, who was with the team in 2000 when they were inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame and in 2002 when they named Pope John Paul II an Honorary Globetrotter.   Amidst the positive message and tricks, the St. Matthew’s students were positively smitten with the atypical class assembly.   ’Oh my gosh, they had a blast,’ St. Matthew’s lower division principal Jane Young said. ‘They were all in heaven.’   The Globetrotters will take on the Washington Generals at considerably larger venues next month, playing at Ontario’s Citizens Business Bank Area on February 24 at 7 p.m., Anaheim’s Honda Center on February 26 at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m., and the Staples Center on February 27 at 12 noon.   Tickets can be purchased at www.ticketmaster.com, the respective area box office, or by calling 1-800-745-3000. Information on group tickets can also be found at www.harlemglobetrotters.com BALANCING ACT: Globetrotter ‘Special K’ Daley makes use of his head by spinning a basketball on it in front of hundreds of St. Matthew’s students. Daley, a Panama City, Panama native, has been a Globetrotter since 2004. Rich Schmitt/Staff Photographer