EL DORADO — When the world-famed Harlem Globetrotters take to the court in Wildcat Arena next month, they are expected to honor legendary team member and El Dorado native Reece “Goose” Tatum.
Van Phillips, the semi-retired owner of Van Phillips Construction, said he just might be in the audience on Jan. 30 to witness the posthumous tribute to his former mentor and teammate.
Yes, teammate.
Many people in El Dorado and South Arkansas know Phillips for cement finishing work he has done over the past several decades on countless homes and businesses in the region.
What they may not know is that prior to going into the cement business and starting his own contracting company, Phillips played professional basketball alongside Tatum and another notable Globetrotter, Marques Haynes.
The trio were part of a barnstorming team called the Harlem Magicians, which was founded in 1953 by Tatum and Haynes in a fashion and entertainment style similar to that of the Globetrotters.
Phillips was born and reared in Mount Holly. He attended New Hope High School, where he was part of the state junior championship basketball team of 1951.
“They won the senior championship in 1954 after I had graduated in 1953,” he recalled.
It was while playing pickup basketball games that Phillips got to know Tatum and when Tatum took notice of Phillips’ prowess on the court.
“Goose, after his season was over, he would always come back and play pick-up basketball games around here,” Phillips said. “I would play with him or get a team and play against him.”
To his surprise, Phillips said Tatum invited him to join the Magicians in 1955.
By that time, Tatum and Haynes had left the Globetrotters to strike out and form their own basketball enterprise in the same vein as the Globetrotters.
Phillips accepted the invitation.
Not long after, he went to Tulsa, Okla., to meet and train with Haynes — whose hometown was Sand Springs, Okla. — and the rest of the team.
From there, Phillips traveled all over the country with the Magicians, who, like the Globetrotters, toured as an exhibition team and entertained audiences with a fusion of comedy, athleticism and tricks.
In a video posted on YouTube, Phillips can be seen performing with the Magicians in a game against the Boston Shamrocks.
The silent reel contains one of the Magicians’ most popular bits, the warmup known as the “Magic Circle.”
“We were doing tricks, and I always stood behind Goose. I was the youngest thing out there,” Phillips recounted with a laugh.
Inside his North Roselawn residence, Phillips proudly displays a photograph of him wearing a Harlem Magician uniform while signing autographs for young fans.
“When my grandson first saw that, he said, ‘Is that you, Paw-Paw?’ When I said yeah, he said, ‘You must have been good,’” Phillips said.
Phillips remained with the Magicians until 1957, deciding to leave when the game was no longer fun for him.
“It wasn’t organized that well, and I got burned out. The first year, it was a lot of fun. The second year, I made all the rounds, but it was more work than fun,” he explained.
Phillips returned to Union County. At first, he tried enlisting in the military but was declined after failing to pass the physical.
After graduating from high school in 1953, Phillips had immediately gone to work for a Coca-Cola bottling plant that was in El Dorado at the time. He had gotten a job with a moving company when he joined the Harlem Magicians.
When he came back home following his stint in professional basketball, Phillips began a long, fulfilling career
in construction.
He poured concrete and performed cement finishing for several area contractors, and after becoming a member of the labor union, he worked for two years in Baton Rouge.
While there, he and four other contract workers from El Dorado hatched a plan to start their own cement finishing business once they came back home.
The partnership quickly fizzled however, after Phillips said he began noticing that the lion’s share of the work was falling into his lap. The group parted ways, and Phillips struck out on his own, much like Tatum and Haynes had done when they left the Globetrotters and formed the Magicians.
Over the years, Phillips has subcontracted on so many homes and businesses that the appropriate question to ask would be what structure hasn’t he poured cement for?
Phillips said he worked on the former Kmart building — now Atwoods — Walmart Supercenter, Burger King, Wendy’s, McDonald’s, Sonic, JCPenney, “two out of three houses” in Oak Manor, St. John Missionary Baptist Church, the former GP plant on U.S. 167, and the Arkansas Fire Training Academy in East Camden, just to name a few.
He has also poured cement for swimming pools in Illinois.
“I have people who come up to me and say, ‘You poured my house 30 years ago. Do you remember?’ and I say, ‘Uh-uh,’” Phillips said, chuckling.
Phillips also used his business to employ people, many from his neighborhood, known as Fordville Addition, just off Champagnolle, south of the Union County Fairgrounds and Lions Club Municipal Golf Course.
Oftentimes, he would drive around the neighborhood and offer jobs to those he encountered.
“Used to, you could just pick up somebody who was a laborer, and it wasn’t long before they would start (concrete) finishing. There were a lot of them in this neighborhood,” he said.
Phillips would typically work with a crew of about 12, which, he said, is small compared to today’s standards.
“You don’t see a lot who want to do it now. You’ve got several companies who are doing it. Used to, you could just go up the street and find somebody who knew how to work, but those days are gone,” he said.
Many of the crew members who learned the trade with Phillips have gone on to work with other contractors or gone into business for themselves — a story that he tells with a source of pride.
“A lot of people in the community who started cement finishing got their start right here,” he said.
These days, a mostly retired Phillips works two or three days a week, doing jobs, such as patios, on a much smaller scale than the ones he did back in the day.
The cement work around his house was done at his own hand, and — along with the pink and blue color palette — makes the property one of the standout features of Fordville, with wife Thelma’s salon, “My Desire,” adjacent to the house.
Phillips also spends time tending to his 10-acre garden, where he grows and sells turnips, collard greens and purple hull peas — a skill he picked up from his mother while growing up on Mount Holly.
“It’s just something I do on the side when I get home in the evenings. My mama was a farmer. I just like to see stuff grow. That’s just the way I was raised,” he said.
During his time with the Magicians, Phillips said he learned a valuable lesson that has served him well in life and in the cement business.
It started when he realized that playing professional basketball, with its allures of travel, fame and money, ceased being fun.
“Whatever you do, you’ve got to be dedicated to go out and do it. If you don’t like it, you’ll never be good at it. There’s just something about concrete that I like,” he said.
Tia Lyons may be contacted at 870-862-6611 or by email at tlyons@ eldoradonews.com.