Black Magic
espn documentary spotlights college greats
2008-03-14
By Ronda Racha Penrice

Too often, when it comes to sports and inequality, basketball floats under the radar because, today, it’s the one sport where we can point to the ample Black players, coaches and high-level personnel with pride. Black Magic, airing commercial-free on ESPN March 16 and 17, 9pm EST, shows us that basketball isn’t without its scars.

So few of us, HBCU alums included, have given significant thought to the basketball programs or unsung players that racial injustice destroyed at our educational safe havens. Just two years ago, we applauded Glory Road, the Disney film starring Derek Luke about the all-Black starting line-up at nearly all-white Texas Western that won the NCAA championship in 1964, ushering in the general acceptance of Black basketball players at all colleges, north and south. Never once did most of us think to ask, ‘what of the great basketball players at Black colleges who were also denied opportunities?’ Worse yet, who still find opportunity bypassing them.

In football, some of us may know of NFL legend Jerry Rice’s heroics at Mississippi Valley State or the stellar play of newly crowned Super Bowl champion Michael Strahan of the New York Giants at Texas Southern. Probably fewer of us know that Earl “The Pearl” Monroe, who co-produces Black Magic, graduated from Winston-Salem State University or that both Ben Wallace and Charles Oakley attended Virginia Union.

Chances are you’ve never ever heard of the coaching genius of John McLendon and Clarence “Big House” Gaines. McLendon, the man behind fast-break basketball, now a staple of the sport, learned the game from Dr. James Naismith, basketball’s mastermind, while a student at the University of Kansas in the 1930s. As head coach of the Tennessee State men’s basketball team, McLendon became the first coach, not ‘the first Black coach,’ but ‘the first coach,’ to lead a team to three consecutive national championships when his squad ruled at the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics tournament in 1957, 1958 and 1959. They might have dominated at the NCAA too, had Black colleges been allowed to compete, that is.

At a towering 6’5 and some 265 pounds, Winston-Salem’s head man Clarence “Big House” Gaines and dear friend and colleague of John McLendon, truly earned his name. From 1946 to 1993, an astonishing 47 seasons, he guided his Rams, whose most well-known player remains Earl “The Pearl” Monroe, with a firm hand.

An outspoken critic of the devastating blow that college athletics, particularly the NCAA, dealt to Black college sports programs once predominantly white colleges welcomed Black athletes, Gaines amassed 828 wins in his career and 12 CIAA titles. The CIAA, for those who don’t know, is the annual Black college basketball blowout that, despite being among college basketball’s most well-attended conference tournaments, goes on every year without significant television coverage. Yes, in the 21st century, even with 2008’s conference marking the 63rd contest, you still have to be there to know it happened.

Black Magic isn’t a collection of awesome jump shots, slam dunks and blocks. Of course there are outstanding basketball players such as Grambling’s Willis Reed, also a famed New York Knick, and coaches like Southern’s unheralded Ben Jobe, mentor to Avery Johnson, former Southern player turned 1999 NBA champion guard of the San Antonio Spurs as well as current Dallas Mavericks’ head coach. Civil Rights is the focus here and the too often never acknowledged role that our Black college athletes have played in that struggle. Oh, trust me, there are many heartbreaks.

Watching Winston-Salem’s Cleo Hill, a former professional player with the St. Louis Hawks, now the Atlanta Hawks, recall the price he paid for making his stand against racial injustice is not for the faint of heart. Who knew that John Chaney, Temple’s renowned former basketball coach, was such an outstanding player? Despite being Philadelphia’s top hardball devotee, had it not been for Black colleges, he would never have played college ball. Furthermore, were it not for Black newspapers, in particular, Chaney’s basketball excellence may have remained lore with which he, or someone who witnessed his brilliance, entertained guests.

Basketball isn’t centerstage in Black Magic, at least not among those who lived it. These are men who were, by no means, strangers to poverty, dead-end jobs, racial indignation, you name it, they have a story for it. When they speak of their Black college experience, they speak of far more than bouncing a ball or blocking a shot. They speak of honor, integrity and personal and collective responsibility. They speak of hard work and determination, of excellence and pride. Harlem streetball legend Pee Wee Kirkland, who played at Norfolk State, ignored those lessons to follow the streets and ended up in prison. He serves as a cautionary tale of how excelling at athletics alone will not save you. On the flip side, Dick Barnett, one of McLendon’s star players at Tennessee State, demonstrates how athletics can lead young people to education. Notorious for not going to class, today Mr. Barnett holds a Ph.D.

Black Magic isn’t perfect; after all, one production can’t be all things to all people. It is, however, a landmark beginning, filled with the promise that there is more reason than ever to put us all in the game.

Veteran freelance writer and self-diagnosed television junkie Ronda Racha Penrice is the author of African American History For Dummies, which includes chapters on film/television and sports.