11/08/2024
John B. McLendon, Jr, Invents Basketball's Fast Break, zone press, and four corners offense.
John B. McLendon, Jr. was a pioneering American basketball coach who is recognized as the first African American basketball coach at a predominantly white university and the first African American head coach in any professional sport. He was a major contributor to the development of modern basketball and coached on both the college and professional levels during his career. He has been enshrined twice in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, and also inducted into the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame.
John B. McLendon, Jr. was born in Hiawatha, Kansas (April 5, 1915 – October 8, 1999) and graduated from KU in 1936 with a degree in Physical Education. While at KU, he studied basketball under its creator, Dr. James Naismith. Though not allowed to play on the varsity team at KU due to the university’s color line, he would go on to an impressive career as a basketball coach. He won eight CIAA (Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association) championships. He also invented several facets of the game, including the fast break, zone press, and four corners offense.
He went on to become a successful high school and college coach, at schools such as North Carolina College for Negroes (now North Carolina Central University, Hampton Institute (now University), Tennessee A&I (now Tennessee State University), Kentucky State College (now University) and Cleveland State University). In his early years, his teams were restricted to playing only against other all-black teams. However, while coaching at North Carolina College for Negroes, McLendon participated in "The Secret Game", a match against a team from Duke University, which was the first collegiate basketball contest where blacks and whites competed on the same floor. He led the Eagles to eight CIAA Championships (1941, 1943–44, 1946–47, 1949–50, 1952). McLendon's teams were credited with increasing the pace of the game of basketball from the slow tempo of its early years to the faster tempo that prevails today. At Cleveland State, he was he first African American head coach of a predominantly white university.
He was a three-time winner of the NAIA Coach of the Year award and won three consecutive NAIA championships at Tennessee State, making him the first college basketball coach ever to have won three consecutive national titles. When he was hired at Cleveland State in 1966, he became the first African American basketball coach ever at a predominantly white university.
McLendon also coached professionally on two occasions. Cleveland Pipers General Manager Mike Cleary hired him in 1962 to be the head coach of the American Basketball League team which was owned by George Steinbrenner. McLendon's hiring made history, as he became the first African American head coach in professional sports. In his, and the Pipers', only season in the ABL, partway through the season he quit or was fired (sources differ). McLendon was replaced as coach by Bill Sharman of the recently defunct Los Angeles Jets of the ABL; under Sharman, the team completed the season and won the league championship. McLendon went on to coach the American Basketball Association's Denver Rockets (which later became the Denver Nuggets of the NBA) in 1969, although he was fired after the team started the season 9-19. Despite the fact that he was only 54 when dismissed, this was the last college or professional head coaching job in his career
