North Carolina Central University

HALL OF FAME

PHOTO FILE
 

John B. McLendon's contributions to the sport of basketball are virtually innumerable.  His advisor at the University of Kansas was the inventor of basketball, Dr. James Naismith.  At North Carolina College from 1937 to 1952, and as head basketball coach from 1941 to 1952, he pioneered basketball's full court game, using such strategies as the full court press, the full court zone (now known as the zone press), the open center offense whose variants include the "four corners," the rotating pivot, and the double-pivot.  With these strategies, Coach McLendon won tournament or visitation championships for the Eagles in 1941, 1946, 1947, 1949, 1950 and 1951.  No official CIAA championships were awarded between 1943 and 1945, but with only seven men left to play for the second half of the 1944 season because of World War II, Coach McLendon still racked up a 19-1 season.  The Eagles also led the CIAA in 1943.  In 38 years as a head coach, he achieved a collegiate coaching record of 523 wins to 165 losses for a .760 winning percentage, including a 239-68 record at NCC. He was also the first black coach in a professional basketball league (with the Cleveland Pipers in the American Basketball League in 1961) and the first black coach at a predominantly white university (Cleveland State employed him in June 1966). 

Basketball Hall of Fame Bio

Biography at HBCUsports.com

"Coach McLendon ran the distance"  written by Lut Williams, Black College Sports Page Editor

"Secret Game"

	Coach McLendon with Floyd Brown (left) and James "Boogie" Hardy, stars on the 1940 North Carolina College team.  Brown later coached the Eagles from 1952 to 1970.
	The 1940-41 North Carolina College basketball team was Coach McLendon's first as head coach.  He called them his "thousand-dollar team" because for the privilege of coaching them he had declined an offer of $1,000 more a year from another college.  The team repaid his loyalty by bringing NCC the first championship in its athletic history.  (14-0 CIAA, 25-4 overall)
	Coach McLendon (right) as a football assistant coach with William F. Burghardt, NCC head football coach from 1937 to 1941.
	Coach McLendon returned to the gymnasium named in his honor in the Fall of 1998 to assist NCCU head coach Greg Jackson (left) and the Eagle men's basketball team during preseason practice.

Last Revised:  Oct. 9, 1999