Biography:Harlem Globetrotters ball handling wizard
Flight Time Lang is a self-proclaimed reality TV junkie. This fall, he is getting his chance to be the one people are watching from
their living rooms, as he and teammate
Big Easy Lofton are competing in season 15 of the Emmy Award-winning series "
The Amazing Race," Sundays on CBS.
The two face one of the fastest courses ever assembled on the Race - spanning eight countries in just 21 days.
The oldest of nine kids, Flight Time played many sports growing up, like football. In his first game in seventh grade, he broke off a 65-yard run to the end zone... or so he thought. "I put the ball down and started celebrating. The only problem was, I wasn't in the end zone yet," he chuckles.
Success would come easier on the hardwood, as Flight Time earned all-state, all-region and all-conference honors in high school, and then starred at Centenary College, where he was a first-team all-conference selection and a conference scoring champ. A standout student, Flight Time was named the 1998 Male Student Athlete of the Year at Cetenary, made the Dean's List twice and graduated with a degree in health/physical education. Flight Time is one of the Globetrotters' most talented dribblers. "I like to look at old videos of Globetrotters like Marques Haynes and Curly Neal. I've had the good fortune of playing Curley Boo Johnson over the years, and he taught me a lot. He's the best dribbler I have ever witnessed first-hand."
Of course, he's nicknamed Flight Time for a reason. He was only 5-10 when he dunked for the first time in a game (as a high school junior), and he says it was like a dream. "People were kind of in awe and hanging over the railings in the stands. A guy on the other team got a dunk the very next play, but the crowd didn't pay attention to that." He got to display his dunking abilities before a live ESPN audience in 1998, as he captured the NABC Slam Dunk Contest at the Final Four in San Antonio.
Flight Time enjoys the opportunity to visit all parts of the world with the Globetrotters. "You get to see that things aren't always what they seem to be. I am glad that I had an opportunity to see that up close and personal, instead of only being able to see many of the bad things that are shown on TV. I do think we live in the greatest country on the planet, but I have realized that people are happy all over the world."
Making people happy is what Flight Time and the Harlem Globetrotters are all about.
