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Research dossier · People & Ideas

Robert Hall (basketball)

American basketball player (1927–2014)

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
People and ideasInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJul 28, 2026
Entity authoritySource title only
Source-derived summary

Robert "Showboat" Hall was an American basketball player and member of the Harlem Globetrotters. He attended and played basketball at the former Miller High School in Detroit. He joined the Globetrotters in 1949, and in 1955 succeeded Reece "Goose" Tatum as the team's primary showman. In 1968 he became player-coach, and played in more than 5,000 games before his retirement in 1974.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Robert Hall (basketball)” as american basketball player (1927–2014). Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA useful biographical orientation record, particularly for establishing names, roles and a first chronology. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1949, 1955, 1968, 1974—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. The account is most persuasive where Robert, Hall and basketball can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the people & ideas register because the source frames it as american basketball player (1927–2014). Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 28, 2026. The first chronological checks are 1949, 1955, 1968 and 1974.

Critical limits

Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Robert Hall (basketball)”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Robert Hall (basketball) primary sources, Robert Hall (basketball) archive and Robert research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Robert Hall (basketball)”?
  2. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
  3. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Robert Hall (basketball)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.