John Snookie Walker. Walker, John Snookie, 1919-1985. John Snookie Rendall Walker was a Harlem business entrepreneur and organizer/manager of several Harlem-based youth and professional athletic teams. He lived his entire life in Harlem (1919-1985), opening the Sugar Bowl Restaurant on West 137th Street and Seventh Avenue in 1947, which he co-owned with his wife, Dolores. In 1950 he organized Snookies Sugar Bowl Five basketball team, which featured semi-professional and professional players and had its glory years from the late 1950s to the early 1960s. In 1951 Walker helped to reorganize the New York Renaissance, or Rens, the well-known professional basketball team, and was the teams manager-coach through the mid-1950s. In 1957 he organized the boys Biddy Basketball League of Metropolitan New York and became its first commissioner. Walkers Biddy teams went on to win national and international basketball tournaments from the mid to late 1960s. He also formed youth leagues in softball and baseball for pre-teens throughout the 1950s to the 1970s, and an all-womens basketball team, the Harlem Globe Travellettes, in the early 1950s.
Posted on: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 14:22:13 +0000