John McLendon's coaching record has belatedly led to his being voted into the Basketball Hall of Fame after years of being overlooked.
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- A couple of young basketball coaches were arguing about strategy at a national convention within earshot of John McLendon. Asked his opinion, McLendon deferred to a higher power.
"Well, Dr. Naismith said..." he began.
End of argument.
Naismith's pupil
At Kansas University in the 1930s, Naismith was McLendon's faculty adviser. Naismith backed his African-American pupil when McLendon faced a strain of racism so virulent that teachers there almost considered him a poison. Officials drained the pool each time after he swam, alone, in a physical education class.
McLendon was undeterred. Eventually, the pool went undrained.
Naismith, the Canadian who invented basketball, and McLendon -- his disciple, a coach whose teams made the fast break a decisive weapon in a previously plodding game -- are together now in their rightful capacities in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. McLendon will be inducted as a coach in September.
Previously, McLendon had been made a Hall of Fame member as a "contributor" for his career as a racial pioneer.
Enshrined contributors include promoter Abe Saperstein, who owned the Harlem Globetrotters, and Syracuse owner Danny Biasone, who came up with the idea for the 24-second shot clock.
You could argue that the Cavs' mascot Moondog contributes to the game, too.
A long wait
The honor is overdue because McLendon, who died in 1999, won three straight NAIA national championships at Tennessee A&I (today's Tennessee State University) in Nashville; coached the semi-pro Cleveland Pipers to the first AAU championship an Ohio team ever won; then led the Pipers in the American Basketball League, an early 1960s challenger to the NBA, to the first half championship of their division before he was forced out by owner George Steinbrenner.
With the Pipers he was the first black coach of an integrated professional team. Later, at Cleveland State, he was the first black coach of an integrated college team.
A tight budget
McLendon worked on a shoestring his whole career.
That was true at historically black colleges such as North Carolina Central, where he coached future Hall of Famer and Boston Celtics guard Sam Jones, and at Tennessee A&I, where he coached Dick Barnett, a player whose jersey has been retired by the New York Knicks.
It was also true with the Pipers, a team run by an owner in Steinbrenner who had none of the financial resources he would enjoy with the New York Yankees.
It was certainly true at CSU, where McLendon said Ohio State spent more money on the grass in the Horseshoe than he had in his recruiting budget.
Obscurity
McLendon coached in small college gyms even Rand-McNally had barely heard of and in bigger professional arenas before small crowds. Pro basketball was almost universally an obscure endeavor then.
What drove McLendon was the satisfaction of doing his job well, despite the sparse crowds, the lack of acclaim and the blight of prejudice.
Pioneer
"I'd go home on holidays to southern Indiana on the bus out of Knoxville," said Gene Tormohlen, a white Pipers player who went to college at Tennessee. "We would make rest stops, and all through Tennessee and Kentucky, I'd see signs that read, 'Colored entrance.'"
Today in sports a "hostile environment" is rude fans in Ann Arbor when Ohio State is in town. McLendon passed through the American version of apartheid in the 1950s as a pioneer on a violent frontier.
The character McLendon showed with his calm demeanor, fair-mindedness and inner strength shaped his players and made him a black authority figure in a time when that seemed to be a contradiction in terms.
That role is usually the preserve of high school and college coaches, who shepherd their players from boyhood to manhood. Pro coaches need to win. Period.
Tormohlen was a teammate with the St. Louis Hawks of future Cavs coach Lenny Wilkens, who is a Hall of Fame member as both a player and a coach. Tormohlen said Wilkens had the same quiet strength.
"I never heard anyone say one bad word about Jonn McLendon," said Tormohlen.
NAIA dynasty
Founded by Naismith himself to give small-college players exposure, the NAIA Tournament was a freedom road, opening its doors to black players in late 1948, two years before the NCAA and NIT followed suit. Due to racial segregation in the South, the NAIA always had a strong field.
The NAIA tournament is a meat-grinder, held in Kansas City over six days with a field of 32 teams. Eight games are played on each of the first two days. Depending on the breaks of the schedule, a team might have to play on five straight days.
To win 15 straight games over three years in such circumstances is almost unimaginable.
In my book, "George Steinbrenner's Pipe Dream," after the 1958 NCAA championship game in Louisville, Ky., between Kentucky, coached by Adolph Rupp, and Seattle, led by Elgin Baylor, Chuck Taylor, the Converse sneakers spokesman, said: "That little school down the road (Tennessee A&I) could beat them both in the same afternoon."
McLendon didn't have to use Naismith's words to guide the next generation. He did so by the example he set.
His coaching record spoke for itself too.
