.. THE BOSS-GUESS WHICH ONE?

51ST FOUNDER'S DAY ORATOR-

-HON. JOHN B. McLENDON-

John Blanche McLendon, advisor of athletics and professor of black studies at Cleveland State University, was the guest speaker at NORTH CAROLINA CENTRAL UNIVERSITY, as they observed the 51st FOUNDER'S DAY.

Coach McLendon began his career in higher educations at North Carolina College for Negroes (now North Carolina Central University) in 1937, during the administration of Dr. James E. Shepard.

He came to the College as an assistant basketball coach. He soon became superintendent of the college's SUNDAY SCHOOL and served in that position for several years. He recruited several great players who went on to professional basketball fame, such as Tex Harrison and Sam Jones.

As chair of the Department of Physical Education and as director of athletics, be brought to the campus such leaders as Herman H. Riddick, teacher of biology and football coach, and Dr. Leroy T. Walker, teacher in the Department of Physical Education and track coach.

McLendon has written three books which have contributed to the revolutionizing of basketball as a major world sport.

In defiance of laws of segregation, Coach McLendon secretly hosted the first racially intergrated college level basketball game in the South. It was on Sunday, March 12, 1944.

He arranged a game between the North Carolina College Eagles and the Duke University Medical School Basketball team on NCC'S campus, following the game, they also participated in a racially mixed inter-squad scrimmage, and an after-the-game rap session in the men's dormitory.

McLendon's college coaching record represents a lifetime win percentage of 760, slightly less than sixteen games weon for every year of his 25-year career, one of the 10 greatest records in basketball history.

In 1957, McLendon became the first African-American coach to have a team win a national basketball championship. In 1957, he became the first college coach to win three consecutive national basketball titles.

He was the first Africian-American to coach a professional team (The Cleveland Pipers in 1961) and the first college coach of African-American desent to be named head coach at a predominantly white American university (Cleveland State, 1966).

Coach McLendon was the only University of Iowa graduate to be inducted into the Naismith College Basketball Hall of Fame.

Coach McLendon was among other things, a member of the 1968 and 1972 United States Olympic basketball coaching staff and a member of the U.S. Olympics basketball committee from 1964 to 1979.

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