By Nick Pantages
@nick_pantages22
Springfield College is known as the “Birthplace of Basketball,” a label that does not do the school’s men’s basketball team justice – the program would stand up for itself even without the notoriety of playing on James Naismith Court. It was one of eight teams to qualify for the second ever edition of the Division I NCAA tournament (losing to eventual champion Indiana in the first round), and they have made 21 postseason appearances since then, with 14 wins in those appearances.
But there was one thing the school that is arguably tied the deepest to the roots of the game, which has been historically dominated by Black stars, never had – a black head coach.
That is not to say the school did not have a rich history of great coaches, including Naismith Hall of Famer Ed Hickox, Edward Steitz, Ed Bilik, Mike Theulen and the program’s all time wins leader Charles Brock.
In June 2022, Springfield’s Director of Athletics, Craig Poisson, changed that by hiring Michael McClendon to be the 15th head coach of the men’s basketball team, and the first black head coach in the program’s history.
For McClendon, the job meant that he was able to become a head coach at a school so ingrained in basketball history, and the opportunity to add to the basketball culture of a program that is entrenched in it.
“When I got here and I learned so much about the tradition here, not only of basketball, but just Springfield College, it made me more grateful that I was able to get this job on my merits,” McClendon said.
Now in his third year on the sidelines, McClendon has put himself in a position to do what coaches do best – help others out. One of the people McClendon has had the opportunity to help is current assistant coach Bernard Palmer, who is attending Springfield in pursuit of a Master’s degree in Athletic Leadership.
“[Palmer] is a guy who wants to be a head coach one day,” McClendon said. “He has the opportunity to do so now, because now he is an assistant coach at Springfield College, where if he was doing AAU, which all of us do, he might not have the opportunity to become a coach at the high school or JUCO (junior college) level.”
The concept of race and equal coaching opportunities has been a talking point for decades.
In 2003 the NFL introduced the Rooney Rule, a policy requiring teams to interview ethnic minority candidates for coaching and executive openings. However, as of recently, many have expressed concerns about the rule, saying it can demean potential black coaches who are being interviewed only to satisfy the rule. These concerns were seemingly justified by a lawsuit in 2022 by Miami Dolphins head coach Brian Flores against his former team, as well as the New York Giants and Denver Broncos, for saying that his meetings with the Giants and Broncos for their head coaching positions were “sham” interviews only done to fulfill the Rooney Rule.
In an interview with Andscape’s William Rhoden about the future of Black coaches in college basketball, Missouri State University coach Cuonzo Martin said, “What happened 40 or 50 years ago, you had a select few that were head coach and everybody else was kind of relegated just to be assistant coaches. So that was your role, ‘I need you just to recruit players.’ It wasn’t a need for us intellectually to be able to break down films, scout reports, run the practice, even though we were qualified to do that.”
Although McClendon got the head coaching role he desired, he has seen potentially harmful philosophies play out during his rise through the coaching ranks.
“I think everyone wants the best person to get the job hands down,” McClendon said. “But I do think we haven’t gotten that opportunity because of the prejudice against us. If we’re not educated, we don’t understand, we only know how to play, we don’t have the smarts to actually coach it. And that has to go out the window. It’s not that we are begging for anything, we’re just asking that you look at our work.”
McClendon also pushed back against the assertion that black coaches may need to work harder than other potential candidates, saying it’s always up to the person making the hire to be an advocate for black coaches, like Poisson did for him.
“I won’t be one of those people that say, ‘Oh we have to work 10 times harder than the next person because that’s the only way we can build an equal playing field,’ McClendon said. “No, we need someone in that room to see us as equals, period.”
Someone McClendon has been able to relate to is MIT head coach Larry Anderson.
Anderson is a legendary figure at MIT, having qualified for nine NCAA Tournaments and ranking as the Engineers all-time wins leader with 441. He is also currently the only other black men’s basketball head coach in the NEWMAC, and McClendon has reached out to Anderson to help navigate being a black head coach in New England.
“Me and coach Anderson are really close,” McClendon said. “He’s one of the guys I do call and look to, and he’s given me so much knowledge about how to operate as an African American in this conference, in this New England territory, so I really look to him for a lot of guidance and things of that nature.”
One of the things that McClendon is grateful for in his position is the chance to give people opportunities, whether that be on the court or on the sidelines.
“I just think it’s important that you always give back, and especially when you’re a minority, because we haven’t always had the opportunities that everybody else has.”
“Not only do I want to see more [black coaches], but at the same time, I want to have the opportunity to give. You can give more young men the chance to be coaches or players in the NEWMAC or New England at all, I’m going to stand on top of that mountain and scream as loud as I can, because I think it should happen. Warranted and earning are two different things, and I think we are earning more and more opportunities. People might not want to see it because that’s the way this world is, but I do think African American head coaches are earning their opportunities, and they’re showing it on the biggest stages.”
Photo by Springfield College Athletics.