VIDEO: No Joke As Backboard Almost Crushes Globetrotter

NPR | By Mark Memmott

Published November 12, 2013 at 11:21 AM EST

William "Bull" Bullard of the Harlem Globetrotters is OK, but what happened to him during an exhibition in Honduras is not a laughing matter.

The video is here. As you'll see, the 6-foot-4-inch, 217-pound guard slammed the ball through the hoop, hung on to the rim and then had some scary moments as the backboard crashed to the floor.

It looks like Bull was just able to get his head and upper body out of the way or things would have been much more serious Friday night. As CBS News reports, he "suffered a nasty gash above his eye but he eventually walked off under his own power."

Bullard, 29, played his college ball at Texas A&M Corpus Christi.

Mark Memmott

Mark Memmott is NPR's supervising senior editor for Standards & Practices. In that role, he's a resource for NPR's journalists – helping them raise the right questions as they do their work and uphold the organization's standards.

See stories by Mark Memmott

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