Long before Hubert “Geese” Ausbie entertained basketball crowds around the world, he scored 70 points in a high school tournament game for Crescent’s Douglas High School. He followed it with 54 and 62 points in his next two games. Ausbie, who went on to spend 24 years with the Harlem Globetrotters and helped found Guthrie’s sports museum, died Sunday, Nov. 8, at 88.
The Globetrotters announced his death Monday, remembering him as one of the most influential players in team history. Known as the “Clown Prince of Basketball,” Ausbie combined his scoring and ball-handling skills with a knack for making crowds laugh. He performed in more than 100 countries.
Born in Crescent on April 25, 1938, Ausbie was one of eight children of Bishop and Nancy Ausbie. He competed in baseball, tennis, and track as well as basketball. At Douglas, he helped lead the school to four consecutive Oklahoma basketball state championships before graduating in 1956, according to the Arkansas Black Hall of Fame.
Ausbie accepted a basketball scholarship to Philander Smith College in Little Rock, where his older brother Attaway was already a student. He finished his senior season as the nation’s third-leading scorer, according to the Encyclopedia of Arkansas. He also met Awilda Lee at Philander Smith. They married and had four children.
After college, Ausbie turned down a professional baseball contract with the Chicago Cubs and earned a spot with the Globetrotters at an open tryout. He had gone by “Goose” since childhood, but the team called him “Geese” to distinguish him from a former Globetrotters star, Reece “Goose” Tatum.
Ausbie performed alongside Meadowlark Lemon and Curly Neal and took over as the team’s lead entertainer in 1978. He retired as a player in 1985. In 2017, the Globetrotters retired his No. 35 jersey during a halftime ceremony in North Little Rock.
His contributions to Oklahoma sports continued after his playing days. In 1993, Ausbie joined Richard Hendricks and Baseball Hall of Famer Ferguson Jenkins in founding what became the Oklahoma Sports Heritage Museum. It opened in downtown Guthrie in 1996.
Hendricks recalled in a 2020 interview with the Guthrie News Leader that the Oklahoma City Thunder sent a jersey bearing Ausbie’s name for a special recognition at the museum. Ausbie took the jersey home.
Ausbie was inducted into the Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame in 1990, the Arkansas Black Hall of Fame in 1995 and the Oklahoma Sports Hall of Fame in 2001. He made his home in Little Rock, where he spoke to young people through the Drug-Free Youth Program.
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