Earl “the Goat” Manigault.

I am going to talk about the best street basketball player ever, Earl “the Goat” Manigault.

Earl Manigault was an American street basketball player. For many people the best basketball player ever, even though he never played professional basketball. He went to prison and was addicted to heroin…

He spent his childhood in Harlem, in New York. Manigault set the NYC junior high school record by scoring 57 points in a game in the late 1950s. However, he started to go around with the wrong people and ended up in prison. At the age of 17 people started to talk about this legend. He was like any other boy from his neighbourhood , trying to survive day by day.

The legendary Rucker League would have been the place in which he was intended to get himself known. This summer competition combines the best players ion the playground with some of the most renowned professional players: Lew Alcindor, Earl Monroe, Julius Erving, Connie Hawkings, Jackie Jackson or Helicopter Knowings. That's when he got the nickname "the goat," due to his spectacular jumps (say his vertical leap was 1.35 meters high).

Another theory says that the name comes from the inability of one of his teachers to pronounce his surname, which resulted in the nickname, The Goat. In any case, the fact is that from 1.85m Earl could reach an unimaginable elevation.

In his worst period he went to prison because of heroin possession and stealing.
The word that describes his life is to overcome. He overcame his addiction to heroin and he never needed to steal anything again. n the last years of his life he spent his time on a project against heroin called "Walk Away from Drugs".

Kareem Abdul Jabbar, one of the best players ever, the day of his retirement was asked about who he thought was the best player ever and he said that it was probably Earl Manigault

The Double Dunk

The Goat made the best dunk ever. This dunk was incredible, and nobody had done one like it before and probably nobody will ever do one like it in the future. The dunk consisted of throwing the ball with his right hand, taking it down with his left and throwing it down again with his right hand. All this in the air.

There are some films and a book about his life if someone is interested in learning more about his life:
-Rebound. The Story of Earl ‘Goat’ Manigault (FILM)
-More than a Game (FILM)
-Double Dunk (Editorial Holloway House)