Who Was College Basketball's Greatest Coach?

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Julius Erving, NBA Hall of Famer, called him the “Father of Black Basketball.” Bill Russell said he was “the best and greatest coach of all time.” Noted television sports commentator Billy Packer said he was one of the “top ten basketball coaches of the century.” And Marty Blake, director of scouting for the National Basketball Association, said he “did for the court game what Jackie Robinson did for baseball, only Coach John’s efforts as a civil rights pioneer cover seven decades.”

All of these men are referring to Coach John B. McLendon. And now his story is told for the first time in Milton Katz’s biography, Breaking Through: John B. McLendon, Basketball Legend and Civil Rights Pioneer, published by the University of Arkansas Press (cloth, $29.95).

John B. McLendon Jr. was the last living protégé of basketball's inventor, Dr. James Naismith. Breaking Through is the uplifting story of a champion's struggle for equality in 1940s and 50s America, when one coach refused to accept the notion that teams at traditionally black colleges like North Carolina College and Tennessee State were unable to achieve national prominence. McLendon's creative and courageous efforts to "break through" the color lines of institutional racism include the famous "secret game" between his North Carolina College players and the Duke Medical School in 1944, 10 years before the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision. 

McLendon taught his players, including such NBA standouts as Sam Jones, Dick Barnett, and John Barnhill, that dignity and self-respect were more important than the numbers on a scoreboard, though he nonetheless achieved a 76 percent winning mark over a twenty-five-year collegiate coaching career. He was an early pioneer of game preparation, conditioning, the fast break, the full-court press, and a two-in-the-corner offense that became the seed for Dean Smith's famous four-in-the-corner, and he won eight Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association titles while coaching at North Carolina College between 1941 and 1952.

McLendon's far-reaching list of firsts include being the first coach to win three consecutive national titles (Tennessee State, 1957-59), the first black coach of an integrated professional team (the American Basketball League's Cleveland Pipers), the first black coach at a predominately white college (Cleveland State), the first black coach in the American Basketball Association, the first black coach to publish a basketball book, the first black coach on the Olympic staff, the first black coach inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame, . . . the list goes on.

His amazing career culminated in his efforts as a basketball ambassador; he traveled to 58 countries teaching the fundamentals of the game and the value of sportsmanship, and many believe he contributed more to the proliferation of basketball worldwide than any other individual. Breaking Through is both a history lesson and an inspiration to any player, coach or spectator who has ever known the transcendent powers of a game.

Milton S. Katz is professor of American studies in the School of Liberal Arts, Kansas City Art Institute. He met John McLendon in 1980 and became close friends with him after spending untold hours interviewing him and researching his life. The book includes forewords by Billy Packer and Ian Naismith, grandson of the inventor of basketball, who describes McLendon as his “adopted brother.”