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THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 15, 2012
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
CIVIL RIGHTS
Alum breaks barriers in sports
KAYLA SOPER
ksoper@kansan.com
Seventy years ago, it would have been impossible for both Jeff Withey and Elijah Johnson to start on the same team.
We take it for granted now, because basketball and America have come a long way. But many don't know that James Naismith and KU alumnus John McClendon helped begin breaking barriers of prejudice and institutionalized segregation.
One of the most monumental moments in basketball history was kept a secret for over 50 years, a secret game coached by McClendon, a student of Naismith.
In 1944 white and black basketball players played against each other for the first time in small gymnasium in North Carolina. McClendon, who attended the University in the 1930s, coached a team from the all-black North Carolina Central University, then known as the North Carolina College for Negroes, against an
all-white Duke intramural team.
McClendon, who died in 1999,
changed the pace of the game — a game he learned from James Naismith, its inventor.
Naismith was McClendon's
mentor while he went to KU, and helped him along his battles with segregation. Mike Reid, a historian at the University, said Naismith helped McClendon get his physical education degree.
dents could use it again.
"Naismith took
Naismith convinced KU to get rid of rules like that, Reid said.
McClendon under his wing," Reid said. McClendon, a Hiawatha native, was urged to go to the University by his father, who wanted his son to work with Naismith. When McClendon attended the University he had a tough time working around the rules of segregation.
Naismith also helped get McClendon a student teaching job, which was extremely rare
McClendon
In those days, black students were not allowed to do things like swim in the pool on campus, and if a group of them did, the pool would have to be emptied out and re-filled before white stu-
for an African American student back then.
Att the time of the secret game it was unheard-of to have teams of different races play either with or against each other in any sporting event. While Naismith was athletic director The University of
Kansas was still segregated, with an all-white basketball team.
The 1944 game had to be kept a secret because it was a violation of North Carolina's segregation laws. Even some of the players on the teams didn't know what was happening until the day of the game. However, no one found out about the game. The only people present were the players, coaches and one referee. One reporter is said to have known about the game going on, but kept quiet for the sake of McClendon's career.
The teams met in a YMCA gymnasium in Durham, N.C., on a Sunday afternoon while most people were still in church. The NCCU Eagles won 88-44. Even after the loss, the teams integrated for a scrimmage, shirts and skins.
Erica Dixon, the director of campus recreation at NCCU, said no one found out about the game until much later.
PHOTO COURTESEY OF JOANNA MCCLENDON
"It wasn't until the early 90s when people found out about what really happened." Dixon said. "A Duke student happened to be sitting next to McClendon on a plane, and McClendon just told him everything."
According Mitlon Katz's book "Breaking Through", despite the segregation laws, members of the Duke and NCCU Y.M.C.A. chapters had begun meeting to discuss racial issues. At one meeting, George Parks, an Eagles' player, overheard a boast that the Duke Medical School intramural basketball team was the best in the state. Parks challenged the Duke student to prove who had the best
team in town. To everyone but McClendon, this idea was absurd. The 28-year-old McClendon had only lost one game all season but was denied a postseason championship game because the NIT and NCAA tournaments did not allow African Americans to participate.
Since the game, both NCCU and Duke have had events to remember that day. In 2010 NCCU hosted the first Bull City Showdown, which was like a reenactment of the secret game. In the day-long tournament, men's and women's teams from Duke and NCCU played against each other. At the end of the event, they featured an All-Star game, which integrated everyone, exactly like the scrimmage that followed the original secret game.
Edited by Luke Ranker
CAMPUS
Allen Fieldhouse used as concert venue, movie set in past
EMILY BROWN
ebrown@kansan.com
Cots, makeshift stretchers and bodies cover the floor of Allen Fieldhouse. Only the occasional cough or moan interrupts the eerie silence of the building. The people are wrapped in bandages, but the fabric can't hide the burns, blood and missing clumps of hair — evidence of a nuclear fallout.
KANSAN FILE PHOTO
This scene from the Cold War era movie "The Day After," was shot in Allen Fieldhouse and illustrated the effects of a nuclear fallout in the city of Lawrence. The movie aired nationally on ABC in 1983, and the victims were actually University students acting as extras for the movie.
Freshman Nick Shaheed from Lawrence, Kansas, watched the film in eighth grade. "My history teacher showed it to us because we were learning about the cold war era," he said. "I personally think it was the best made for T.V. movie ever. So it was kind of cool that it was here at KU."
And basketball wasn't the only
sport played in Allen Fieldhouse.
While Allen Fieldhouse is best known for its basketball, the venue used to be a multipurpose facility, featuring musicians, comedians and politicians like Bill Clinton, Robert F. Kennedy, Bill Cosby, Cher, The Beach Boys and Leon Russell.
The floor used to used to be removable, allowing for indoor track meets. In "The Day After,"
the floor of Allen Fieldhouse isn't actually wood. It was the surface used for track running.
Associate professor at Mississippi State University and former interim project director of khistory.com Mark Hersey said one of the most significant events
held in Allen Fieldhouse, besides basketball, could be track meets.
"You could point, athletically, to things like Jim Ryun's record runs in indoor track there," he said.
Hersey was a child of the 80s, and he watched "The Day After"
when he was a child. He said the film tied KU into the culture of the cold war.
"It also drew a great deal of attention to the heartland, Lawrence particularly," he said. "History is local. Everything takes place in a particular place in a particular point of time. Which is actually what gives a venue like Allen Fieldhouse its power. Wilt [Chamblelain] played here. These people were here."
Though, Allen Fieldhouse used to host a variety of entertainment events and indoor track meets, the venue now is almost exclusively used for basketball.
Director of Public Affairs of KU Memorial Unions Mike Reid said this is because the character of Allen Fieldhouse has changed.
"It used to be more or less a multi-purpose facility," he said. "Now it hosts a large museum in the front of it. It cut down some of the things you can do in there. And also, we did have indoor track meets and things like that because the floor was removable in the past, but that's been changed."
Hersey said another reason for this change is because of the revenue basketball brings.
"There are a lot of expectations," he said. "It is big business. Why risk damage? It plays a big role in getting donations for the University."
Edited by Kelsey Cipolla
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