Loveable losers: Remembering a basketball coach whose job it was to lose

Transcript

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MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

Time again for StoryCorps. Today, memories of a basketball coach whose job was to lose.

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RED KLOTZ: There's always got to be a fall guy. There's always somebody who's going to lose - only problem is, I lost too often.

MARTIN: That was Red Klotz talking to CNN. He founded the Washington Generals, the team the Harlem Globetrotters have beaten night after night for more than 70 years. Klotz dedicated his life to the Generals as a player and coach - so much so that his daughter, Jody, met her husband, John Ferrari, on the team's world tour. And while Red aimed to lose, Jody and John remember the one time things did not go as planned.

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JOHN FERRARI: It was January in Martin, Tenn., 1971. It was an old arena.

JODY FERRARI: And that game was tight with the score, and one thing led to another.

JOHN FERRARI: Red said, I had the ball in my hands, and it was the last shot, so I took it. And he made it.

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JODY FERRARI: He said the audience got very, very quiet because no one was sure what to do at that point. So it was an awkward win.

JOHN FERRARI: Yeah. You know, Red would always say, the Globetrotters losing is similar to someone shooting Santa Claus. And the Trotters were upset.

JODY FERRARI: Right.

JOHN FERRARI: You know, they said - you know what? - you're not going to win again.

JODY FERRARI: (Laughter).

JOHN FERRARI: And we haven't (laughter).

JODY FERRARI: Right.

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JODY FERRARI: I remember Dad going away for the tour. And he would often write me letters back then about where he was. Yes, there were the Madison Square Gardens in New York, but they would go to the little towns, whether it was 200 people or 20,000.

JOHN FERRARI: Well, basketball was not known in the world at that time. They would play in a country where they had never seen basketball before - ever...

JODY FERRARI: Yeah.

JOHN FERRARI: ...In the desert in Djibouti, Africa, on the beach in the Bahamas.

JODY FERRARI: In Spain, where a floor would be set up in the middle of the bullring.

JOHN FERRARI: And Red, he's had so many nicknames over the years - you know, the losingest coach, the lovable loser and things like that - but I never once ever heard him say, oh, woe is me. And he accepted the fact that he wasn't the star. He realized his place. And I don't think enough of us do.

JODY FERRARI: They would knock him down, but he'd get back up. And he just loved being part of that. He believed that laughter and bringing joy to people was important. He didn't like losing games, but he knew that there was a greater purpose to what they did every night. And that was how he won. For him, that was winning.

JOHN FERRARI: Yeah.

JODY FERRARI: Even after he left the road, my dad always kept an old, scuffed-up basketball in his trunk. And if the car wasn't in the driveway, he was off at the local schoolyard, shooting baskets. And this is well into his 80s. He just loved to play the game, and he would always be found out there shooting the ball.

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MARTIN: Jody Ferrari and her husband, John, remembering her late father, Red Klotz. Red died 10 years ago at the age of 93. For more on the Washington Generals and other sideliners, check out the StoryCorps podcast on NPR.

(SOUNDBITE OF BLUE DOT SESSIONS' "TOWBOAT THEME") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.