Lessons of a legend

(Sunday, December 16, 2007)

John McLendon used to call me Max.

When McLendon would sit in the Wolstein Center stands, often with his wife, Joanna, during warm-ups for a Cleveland State basketball game in the 1990s, not many would take notice of the slightly built man.

But if you had the opportunity to meet him once, you never passed up a chance to get a second helping from the soft-spoken coaching legend.

McLendon, who died at 84 in October 1999, would get a gleeful chuckle if he heard those last two words about him -- "coaching legend." Even with all his accomplishments, as so many have said, it was never about him. He was comfortable with what he had gone through, and he wanted you to know and learn from his experiences, but he wanted you to be comfortable with what he had to say.

Maybe it was that deliberate, low-toned way of speaking, which seemed to mesmerize and draw you close to listen.

All the stories were there for the asking: Dr. James Naismith, the game's inventor, his adviser at the University of Kansas in the 1930s; staging the first integrated basketball game in the South in 1944; coaching three straight NAIA national title teams in the 1950s; coaching the American Basketball League's Cleveland Pipers and Cleveland State in the 1960s; traveling the world as an international U.S. representative for the game in the 1970s and 1980s; returning to teach and live here.

If you had the wits to pay attention, it was an up-and-down historical ride, a little basketball thrown in as part of the lesson plan.

It's why so many of his peers, family and friends will gather on Tuesday for both a luncheon and a Cleveland State-Ohio State evening basketball game, the inaugural John McLendon Classic.

It is fitting this will be another first as a fund-raiser for the scholarship fund aimed at helping minorities in athletic administration, because McLendon was the initiator in so many ways. Through all the festivities, qualities like humility, dignity, innovation and preparedness will echo as a constant refrain from those who knew him.

But for the many who did not, this is a time to learn -- there's that word again -- about a true pioneer, one who very often is underappreciated and forgotten, even in this a town that he called home for many years.

"I've been at affairs where he's been so overlooked I wanted to cry," said Joanna McLendon, 79, living in Cleveland Heights. "For so many years it was like that. He was more than just a basketball coach. He was a writer, poet, speaker and a friend to young and old.

"I have to think somewhere deep inside, he was aware of being hurt. But he had a belief in the good side of things. It's rewarding that he gets recognized."

Talking to McLendon before one of those CSU games, I told him about watching the Pipers play at the old Cleveland Arena when they were in the National Industrial Basketball League. He got a good laugh when I told him the only thing that still stands out were the players running through a big, logo-covered length of plumbing as they were introduced.

That was pretty cool to a kid.

I also told him I had a Cleveland Pipers program from the team's lone year in the American Basketball League in 1961-62. The game was against Pittsburgh, the Pipers won and I wanted him to autograph it for me on the page with his biography.

Every time I would see him, that old program would come to mind, and he'd joke about being ready to sign it. I never got around to getting that signature.

Coach Mac will sign it in spirit this time around.

McLendon's legacy lives on in many ways, including through the lives of some of the people who knew him best:

THE FIRST

Milton Katz moved to Kansas City, Mo., in the late 1970s to teach American studies in the School of Liberal Arts, Kansas City Art Institute. Having written on civil rights issues, he became interested in the history of black schools playing in the National Association of Intercollegiate Basketball [forerunner of the NAIA] national tournament that is held there.

When Katz contacted Al Duer, the former NAIB executive director, Duer told him the fellow he needed to talk to was McLendon, who happened to be sitting next to him visiting.

"We started talking -- and never stopped for the next 20 years," said Katz, who has chronicled McLendon's life in the just released "Breaking Through: John B. McLendon, Basketball Legend and Civil Rights Pioneer" (University of Arkansas Press, $29.95). "He was deeply principled, and the more you heard, the more you were impressed. He was the first in so many areas."

At the time of his collegiate retirement in 1969, McLendon's 522 wins ranked behind only Adolph Rupp, Hank Iba and Paul Hinkle.

"And he was turned down five times before he was elected," said Katz, who will sign his book at Borders Express at Tower City in downtown Cleveland at 4:30 p.m. Monday.

Last month at the opening of the College Basketball Hall of Fame in Kansas City, McLendon was included in a group that included Forrest "Phog" Allen, Iba and Rupp as one of the founders of the game.

THE COACH

Mike Cleary was the general manager of the Pipers when McLendon was hired on June 30, 1959. Pipers owner Ed Sweeny hired McLendon, whose innovative up-tempo running style was working to perfection as Tennessee A&I [now Tennessee State].

After winning an NIBL title, the Pipers were sold to a group of investors headed by George Steinbrenner in the new American Basketball League. Cleary likes to point out that he was the first employee ever fired by Steinbrenner, over a newspaper leak, with McLendon the second one fired, one of the few times in his life when that happened to him.

McLendon raised King George's ire when he let the media know Steinbrenner had missed the player payroll. McLendon gave up the coaching reins in January 1962, and Bill Sharman coached the Pipers to the title in the ABL's lone season.

As McLendon liked to say about Steinbrenner: "He treats us all the same. Like dogs."

With the Pipers, McLendon brought Dick Barnett, Ben Worley, John Barnhill and Ron Hamilton from Tennessee A&I to integrate the team with southern white players such as Gene Tormohlen from Tennessee and Johnny Cox from Kentucky.

Before winning the 1960-61 NIBL and National AAU titles, the Pipers handed the 1960 U.S. Olympic Team the only loss it ever suffered. That was a 101-96 overtime affair on Aug. 6, 1960, in Canton. The Olympians had Jerry West, Oscar Robertson, Jerry Lucas, Walt Bellamy and Terry Dischinger.

"John coached well in advance of a game," said Hamilton, 71, now retired from a publishing company in Chicago. "It was all about conditioning. We'd run and run and run. Before a game, he would tell us what we had to do to win. He'd tell us to get our act together, say Come follow me,' and walk out. Then we'd go out and play . . . ."

THE INNOVATOR

%%bodybegin%% North Carolina coaching legend Dean Smith always gets credit for the four-corners offense -- in which offensive players stand in each corner of the frontcourt, spread the floor and dribble around, trying to run the clock out or earn a layup. But McLendon had been teaching the fundamentals of the four corners for years, and wrote about his version of the offense in a 1957 article called "Two in the Corner," a few years before Smith took over the UNC program in 1961-62.

There were other innovations:

His team would scrimmage "shirts and skins" during pregame warm-ups to get properly ready.

Practice 3-on-3 full-court games, with the losers having to continue until they won.

In scrimmages, a team was not allowed to score until all the players were across the half-court line. The players all had four seconds to run from their defensive positions, cross the half-court line and move into a scoring position.

Played a version of one-on-one, one-bounce volleyball with a basketball in a game called "volleybounce." A player would have to race around his side of the court and prevent the ball from bouncing twice.

"I like to say he had a iron fist in a velvet glove," said Barnett, 70, who went on to play nine seasons for the NBA's New York Knicks. "He was always resolute in manner and purpose. Race was a big issue in those days, and he took a pivotal stance. In Kansas City, we were not going to play unless we stayed in the same hotel as the other teams.
"I can't point to one thing, except that he set an agenda I could follow. He had that steady demeanor that made you want to go beyond being good basketball players."

And, Hamilton said, the players listened.

"Here was this guy, 5-6 and maybe 125 pounds, telling all these big guys what to do," said Hamilton. "He was never intimidated. We would have died for him."

McLendon proved early that intimidation would not work.

As the first black physical education major at Kansas, he was required to take a swimming course. However, black students were "discouraged" from using the pool.

The story goes McLendon dove in every day, and every day, the pool workers subsequently emptied and refilled the pool. In his conversational way, McLendon asked the workers if they were doing that because of him -- and if they were, it sure was going to run up one huge water bill.

It became open swimming after a time.

THE CLASS ACT

"He had so many stories," said Jim Rodriguez, 76, who was Cleveland State's basketball coach for one season before serving as an assistant for three seasons when McLendon arrived in 1966. "When we would practice at Grays Armory, he would give the team manager a roll of dimes to go out and feed the parking meters.

"He used to talk about recruiting with [Winston-Salem coach] Clarence Big House' Gaines. They would save money by recruiting together, sleeping in the car. I never heard him swear or drink a beer. He loved Dr Pepper.

"I learned a heck of a lot about basketball. We always started out in a zone because that was the easiest way to get into a fast break."

CSU's lack of a home court and commitment to basketball never let McLendon work his magic with the Vikings. He went 27-42 during three seasons, forced to play games at high school gyms across the city. While Julius Erving, the future Dr. J, was a visiting recruit, there was not much chance for him to sign. But to this day, Erving calls McLendon "The Father of Black Basketball."

If there was a highlight, it was McLendon recording his 500th career win on Jan. 11, 1967, at Walsh College. Even that one had its unique side.

"Here was the master of the fast break, and the score was 24-22," said retired CSU sports information director Merle Levin. "They just held the ball on him. What a strange way to get your 500th.

"I never saw him get a technical or yell at a player. John's favorite saying was Better days are coming.' I must have heard that a thousand times."

That sounds about right from the man who was one in a million.

To reach this Plain Dealer reporter:

jmaxse@plaind.com, 216-999-5168

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