John McLendon
| Sport(s) | Basketball |
|---|---|
| Biographical details | |
| Born |
April 5, 1915 Hiawatha, Kansas |
| Died | October 8, 1999 (aged 84) Cleveland Heights, Ohio |
| Coaching career (HC unless noted) | |
| 1941–1952 | North Carolina College for Negroes |
| 1953–1954 | Hampton Institute |
| 1955–1959 | Tennessee State A&I |
| 1961–1962 | Cleveland Pipers |
| 1964–1966 | Kentucky State |
| 1967–1969 | Cleveland State |
| 1969 | Denver Rockets |
|
Basketball Hall of Fame Inducted in 1979 & 2016 |
|
|
College Basketball Hall of Fame Inducted in 2006 |
|
John B. McLendon, Jr. (April 5, 1915 – October 8, 1999) 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.
Born in Hiawatha, Kansas, to John Blanche McLendon, Sr. (June 24, 1882 – October 15, 1973), a college teacher, and Effie Katherine McLendon (née Hunn; 1886 – 1918), one of his students at Washburn University. McLendon Jr. was part African American and part Delaware Indian from his mother's side. His mother died in the 1918 flu pandemic which would lead to the temporary break-up of his family. John and his younger brother Arthur were sent to be with his Delaware Indian grandparents on a ranch near Trinidad, Colorado while his older sister, Anita, was sent to be with an aunt in Omaha, Nebraska, and his younger sister, Elsie, was sent to be with other relatives, but would end up with a foster family on a ranch in Idaho. John would not see his younger sister again for 45 years, but the rest of the family were reunited after his father remarried in 1921 to Minnie E. Jackson, a school teacher in Kansas City, Missouri.
The family settled in Kansas City, Kansas, where John would first go to Dunbar Elementary School and later Sumner High School. John became enamored with the sport of basketball while on a field trip from Dunbar Elementary to the new Northeast Junior High School in Kansas City, Kansas, where he saw his first official basketball court. He soon became an all-around athlete at Sumner High School and chose basketball as his favorite sport, although he failed to make the basketball team at Sumner. Instead, he lettered in gymnastics and was the basketball team manager.
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