James Naismith: The Man Who Invented Basketball

11. Becoming a Mentor

C H A P T E R 11 • • • Becoming a Mentor J ohn McLendon graduated from Sumner High School in Kansas City. He loved basketball and had decided as early as the sixth grade that he wanted to become a coach. He wanted to attend college in Springfield, Massachusetts, but could not afford to go that far away. McLendon’s father told him that the man who had invented the game was teaching just down the road in Lawrence, and “I ought to go there and learn from him.” Furthermore, when McLendon’s father dropped him off at Kansas, he told his son to go find Naismith and introduce himself : “Tell him that he’s to be your adviser.” McLendon found the office, knocked on the door and went inside, and did exactly as his father had told him to do. Naismith responded by saying, “Who told you to do this?” McLendon answered, “My father,” and Naismith said, “Fathers are always right.” Thus began a relationship between McLendon and Naismith that was to last the rest of Naismith’s life and prove instrumental to McLendon’s future coaching success. There is one additional detail, however, that cannot be overlooked: McLendon was black. 144 • Chapter 11 A special act by the Kansas state legislature had allowed Naismith to remain on the university faculty past the mandatory retirement age of 70. He was told he could teach as long as he wanted, and the required class in health education that he taught to all freshmen remained one of the school’s most popular classes. McLendon recalled years later, in an interview with the New York Times, a conversation between Naismith and the dean of the school, who wanted Naismith to explain why so many students were receiving As in the class. Naismith reportedly said, “Anybody that came to my class deserved a good grade if they had to listen to me.” When he arrived at Kansas, McLendon was one of only seven students majoring in physical education at the university and one of only 60 black students in a population of about 4,000 overall. “Many of my doubts about being at Kansas were quickly dispelled by Dr. Naismith, who treated me courteously and attentively, and made me feel comfortable in my surroundings as a new student,” McLendon told the Times in 1996. Naismith had strong feelings against segregation, which dated back to his time working with the military along the Mexican border and then in World War I in France. He had spoken often with black soldiers, and he talked about how much he enjoyed and benefited from the experience. While the Naismith family did employ a black woman, known as Auntie Silvers, to help with household chores and child care, Naismith viewed her as another member of the family and never as a servant. He also would not allow his children to view her as less than their equal. Still, McLendon’s arrival on campus presented Naismith with a new challenge because there were many people at the university who had strong feelings against blacks in general and black students in particular. “Dr. Naismith didn’t know anything about color or nationality ,” McLendon said in an interview with Kansas Alumni magazine in 1979. “He was so unconscious about your economic or Becoming a Mentor • 145 religious background. He just saw everyone as potential. There wasn’t anything in his body that responded to anything racist.” McLendon found that wasn’t the case among other university personnel, however. “I walked out of one class because the teacher continued to tell ethnic jokes,” he said in the same interview . “I had to go back, because the course was required. It was the only ‘C’ I ever got in my years at KU.” Another time, McLendon dropped a class because the teacher accused him of cheating, and he knew the only reason for that accusation was that he was black. At that time, all students were required to pass a swimming and water safety course before they could graduate. The problem for black students was that, because of the segregation rules, they were not allowed to use the school’s swimming pool. Instead, they were automatically given passing grades without ever taking the course. McLendon, backed by Naismith, objected. “I refused to go along,” McLendon said. “To give blacks automatic grades wasn’t fair to the students taking the class, and the matter of water safety, being able to swim and to know...