Game Changer: John McLendon and the Secret Game

A fascinating, lesser-known story of basketball and civil disobedience, featuring a clandestine game that was illegal due to segregation. John McLendon is an inspirational figure. Then fairly new to coaching, McLendon was determined to "further the idea that we all played basketball, that we all played it well, and that we should be playing it together." (McLendon was well ahead of his time-;the National Basketball Association wasn't integrated until 1950 and the Civil Rights Act wasn't passed until 1964.) It is heartening to see that Coach McLendon's belief was quickly proven true. At first, the athletes in both lineups were afraid to even "touch or bump into one another," but these initial misgivings dissolved almost immediately. The difference in the two teams' playing styles is interesting and will be especially noteworthy to basketball fans: The Eagles "raced up and down the floor in McLendon's innovative fast-break style that emphasized attacking the basket. This was basketball the white players had never seen." The Eagles won by forty-four points and gave Duke a glimpse of "basketball of the future." Randy DuBurke's evocative, largely monochromatic artwork adeptly conveys the time period and mood as well as the excitement of the game.

Based closely on a 1996 New York Times article by Scott Ellsworth, this picture book tells the dramatic story of an illegal college basketball game planned and played in secret in Jim Crow–era North Carolina. On a Sunday morning in 1944, while most Durham residents, including the police, were in church, the white members of the Duke University Medical School basketball team (considered "the best in the state") slipped into the gym at the North Carolina College of Negroes to play the Eagles, a close-to-undefeated black team coached by future Hall of Famer John McClendon. What happened when "basketball of the present" (Duke's three-man weaves and set shots) met "basketball of the future" (the Eagles' pressure defense and fast breaks) is suspenseful, dramatic, and telling: the Eagles beat Duke 88–44. Afterward, pushing the boundaries even further, the players evened up the teams for a friendly game of shirts and skins. Coy's succinct narrative is well paced, compelling, and multilayered, focusing on the remarkable game but also placing it in societal and historical context. DuBurke's illustrations can be static at times but nicely capture the story's atmosphere, from the tension of the Duke players' covert arrival to the basketball action to the post-game geniality and then back to tension (since all parties, including several newspaper reporters, had to pledge to keep the day's events secret to protect themselves and Coach McClendon). A fascinating story, with appeal far beyond sports- and history fans; appended with an author's note, a timeline, and a brief bibliography. Martha V. Parravano

Coy tells the dramatic story of an illegal, secret basketball game in Jim Crow–era North Carolina between the white Duke University Medical School team and the black North Carolina College of Negroes team. The succinct narrative is well paced, compelling, and multilayered, focusing on the remarkable game but also placing it in societal and historical context. DuBurke's illustrations nicely capture the story's atmosphere. Timeline. Bib.