| John Mclendon |
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He went onto to become a successful high school and college coach, at schools such as North Carolina College , the Hampton Institute , Tennessee State A&I University , Kentucky State College , and Cleveland State University . He was a three-time winner of the NAIA Coach of the Year award, and won three consecutive NAIA championships at Tennessee State, which made him the first college basketball coach ever to have won three consecutive national titles.Woolf, ''Big Game, Small World'', p. 142. When he was hired at Cleveland State in 1966 , he became the first African American basketball coach ever at a predominantly white university.Woolf, ''Big Game, Small World'', pp. 142-43. McLendon would later coach professionally when George Steinbrenner hired him to be the head coach for the Cleveland Pipers of the American Basketball League 1961-63 . McLendon's hiring made history as he became the first ever African American head coach in professional sports. McLendon later went on to coach the American Basketball Association 's Denver Rockets . In 1979 , McLendon was inducted into the Basketball Hall Of Fame as a coach. He was selected in 2007 for the second entering class of the National Collegiate Basketball Hall Of Fame for his coaching achievements.1 He was also inducted into the Cleveland State athletics hall of fame in 2007 where his wife Joanna accepted the award in his behalf. A biography of John B. McLendon, Breaking Through: John B. McLendon, Basketball Legend and Civil Rights Pioneer, by Milton S. Katz, was published in 2007. NOTES AND REFERENCES EXTERNAL LINKS |
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