Who is the greatest basketball coach of all time?
My list starts with Red Auerbach and his 8 straight NBA titles (9 out of 10) and has to include John Wooden, the immortal coach of UCLA's run of 10 NCAA titles in 12 years. There are others who will point to Phil Jackson and his 9 NBA titles, coaching two different teams, or immortal college coaches like Dean Smith and Adolph Rupp, but there is another coach, who very few present day hoops fans have heard of, who may belong on that list.
Our guest this week, Lynn Worthy, the Celtics writer for the Lowell Sun, makes a strong case for John B McLendon in his column of August 3rd.
Mike Kryzewski is a tremendous basketball coach with enough accolades to fill an arena, and he is very deserving of his place as the head coach for USA Basketball. But he's no John B. McLendon.....the first African American basketball coach enshrined in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, the first black coach to coach a professional basketball team, and the first black coach on the USA Olympic coaching staff.
In 1960, he coached the first and only amateur team to ever beat a U.S. Olympic squad, and that U.S. team included some guy named Oscar Robertson and another named Jerry West....
The thing about McLendon or "Coach Mac" is that many of his accomplishments have been sort of overlapped by those of others in later years because McLendon's feats came at smaller colleges and in league's other than the NBA.
That being said, you could make the case that his career in basketball should've been as celebrated if not more celebrated than that of Red Auerbach and Dean Smith combined.
Coach McLendon actually studied under the inventor of basketball, James Naismith , at the University of Kansas in the 1930's.
His small college teams won 8 CIAA titles in 11 years and 3 consecutive NAIA National Championships. His college winning percentage was 76% and his teams often beat the big time, all white schools, who would dare play them.
He is credited as the first black man to coach in the professional ranks, winning the ABL championship with the Cleveland Pipers in his single season there. He also coached the Denver Rockets in the ABA in 1969
Here is a passage from an article written by Tony McLean for Black Athlete.net which quotes a biography of McLendon: "Breaking Through: John B. McLendon, Basketball Legend And Civil Rights Pioneer" written by Milton S. Katz;
He was an early pioneer of game preparation, conditioning, the fast break, the full-court press, and a two corner offense that became the seed for Dean Smith's famous four corners, and he won eight CIAA titles at North Carolina College between 1941 and 1952.
In fact, nine years before Texas Western captured the NCAA championship, McLendon's black college squads from Tennessee A&I University defeated more than a dozen white teams from throughout the United States, including the South, to capture three consecutive NAIA national championships.
McLendon's on-and off-court accomplishments paved the way for black colleges, black coaches, and black athletes to compete and succeed on both the collegiate and professional levels.
Katz added, "Here was a man that was never whistled for a technical during his entire coaching career. According to many of his players, he never used profanity and never raised his voice."
We will enjoy talking to Lynn about Coach McLendon and perhaps some other aspects of the history the game and particularly the evolution of the athletic, fast paced style, that we know and love and was the trademark of the McLendon coached teams.
I'm sure we will also have a bit of time for a little analysis and celebration of the 17th championship as well as the shape of the current roster and the offseason activity of some of the Celtics main rivals in pursuit of banner 18.
We hope you will join us.
If you want to participate in the show you can call our toll free number (1.866.751.9649), send us an e-mail to CSL@CelticsBlog.com, or join us in the “Pit” (the chat) during the broadcast.
Topic: Celtics Stuff Live! Sun. 8-10PM, W/Lynn Worthy. (Read 1223 times)