Biography · Sports & Achievement
John McLendon
1915–1999
United States
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Biography
John B. McLendon Jr. (April 5, 1915 – October 8, 1999) was an 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 three times in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, and also inducted into the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame.
Sources & collection details
Wikipedia contributors — original record ↗
Biography text · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source checked 2026-10-20
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