Ben Jobe’s unofficial introduction to Denver came in 1978 when good friend and colleague Donnie Walsh insisted he should take the vacant University of Denver basketball job. Jobe’s official introduction to the Mile High City came on the morning of his interview, in April, when he pulled back the drapes at his motel room.
“I looked out the window and saw this white stuff on the ground,” Jobe said. “I closed the drapes quick.”
A little later came a knock on the door. It was the housekeeper.
“Ma’am, could you help me, please?” Jobe said.
“Yes,” the housekeeper said.
“Would you look out the window and tell me what that is on the ground?”
“Oh, that’s snow,” the housekeeper said.
A lifetime of living in the South hadn’t prepared him for Denver’s weather, but he adapted well, just as he did in inspiring a generation of young men in the game he loved.
He is one of two legendary pioneering African-American coaches — John McLendon, his mentor, being the other — who spent time in Denver and helped change a game that becomes an American sports obsession each March. Their contributions went far beyond wins and losses. They inspired, innovated and helped break down barriers to enable blacks to have the impact they have today, as players and coaches.
“I don’t think it was an accident that Ben ended up at the University of Denver or an accident that he ended up coaching in the pros in Denver for one year, like McLendon did,” said Dan Klores, director of the civil rights-through-basketball documentary, “Black Magic,” which airs tonight on ESPN.
McLendon coached the ABA’s Denver Rockets in 1969, and Jobe spent a year on Walsh’s Nuggets staff in 1980.
“People treated me good,” Jobe said of his time in Denver. “They didn’t hug and kiss me, but they didn’t slap me, either. I didn’t see any racism in Denver, I just saw people going on about their business. Whereas in the South, you know the man crosstown doesn’t particularly care for you, he’s tolerating you or he hates you.”
Quick-tempo basketball
NCAA Tournament fans remember Ben Jobe’s 1993 Southern team, even if they didn’t know it was Jobe who coached it. His 13th-seeded Jaguars upset Georgia Tech in the first round, one of the finest moments in Jobe’s 45-year coaching career that included two seasons at DU (1978-80).
“I thoroughly enjoyed it,” Jobe said of DU. “It was one of two basketball teams where I remember every player, and I’ve had 15 different jobs in nine states and two countries.”
Two players on his first DU team stood out — Mike Gallagher and Tom Jorgenson.
“They helped me to sell this philosophy to the rest of the guys,” Jobe said. “My philosophy was 93 shots a game, and try to score within eight seconds. Upbeat tempo all the way, 94 feet of offense.”
He copied that fast-break philosophy from McLendon, who learned basketball at the knee of the game’s inventor, Dr. James Naismith, in the 1930s at the University of Kansas. It was simple, yet different from the way most teams played the sport.
Anyone who could shoot, Jobe turned into a shooter. His center, Matt Teahan, was on the skeptical side. But under Jobe, Teahan set a still-standing DU record of 61 points against Nebraska Wesleyan, as well as the school’s single-season scoring record (659 points). DU, which had five losing seasons prior to Jobe’s arrival, finished 15-12 in his first season.
Lonnie Porter, coach at Regis University then and now, was in-state competition. But the duo, who became fast friends, also needed each other.
“We would compete like I don’t know what against each other when we would coach,” Porter said. “But stuff he and I did just doesn’t happen anymore. For example, we used to go recruiting together. Neither program had enough money to be just out recruiting, so we’d share the gas.
“He’d sit down and I’d listen to his spiel at a home (of a player) that I wasn’t recruiting and he would listen to mine. And we would help each other recruit. Sometimes there would be the same kid that we would be after. We would share the expenses for the kid to come in for a visit. Sometimes he would get the kid, sometimes I would get the kid.”
Stories of his days with Jobe ooze from Porter. Admiration pours from Walsh, who was an assistant with Jobe at South Carolina under head coach Frank McGuire.
“He had a great basketball mind,” Walsh said. “But if you combined it with the ability to teach and to lead young men, I thought he was perfect because he had the right balance of humor and toughness that you need to have, particularly with younger people.”
Both, however, knew the Nuggets weren’t a good fit.
“I don’t know how much he enjoyed that,” Walsh said.
Not much, Jobe said.
“I was totally like a fish out of water. I’m of country school teaching. It’s important to know who you are and what you are. I knew what I was, but I went because of my love and respect for Donnie Walsh. I thought I could help. After being there for a few weeks, I knew that I was out of my element,” he said.
“We were always taught that as a coach you are a minister, you are a counselor, you are a father, everything to each and every player. I found that I could not administer any of that to the players. I felt helpless.”
McLendon’s short tenure
Joanna McLendon, widowed on Oct. 8, 1999, when her husband died of cancer, likes to tell the voodoo doll story. It ties in nicely with the Rockets and their time in Denver, which is ironic because she doesn’t recall it being too nice at all.
McLendon was fired 28 games into his only season as Rockets coach in 1969, with the team having lost 19 times.
Joanna McLendon remembers John receiving the word as the team came off a road trip.
“He didn’t speak a great deal about it, but I’m sure he felt as I did, that he had pretty much been used,” she said. “I was convinced of that, because he wasn’t given a chance. When he was fired, we had been down to the islands and I had a little voodoo doll, so I put it into practice. I got my voodoo doll and did some things to it.”
John McLendon wanted to implement his patented fast-paced tempo with the Rockets, which he also thought would allow his team to take advantage of playing at altitude. His star player, Spencer Haywood, was on board. Others were not.
“He told me some players came to him and said they didn’t feel comfortable doing this,” Jobe said. “Players told him, ‘Running is for horses.’ That really hurt Coach Mac. I think the owners bought into it.”
But McLendon’s legacy was cemented by the time he coached in Denver. His efforts to break through institutional racism in the game included helping organize what is now known as the “Secret Game” in 1944, pitting his all-black North Carolina College team (now N.C. Central) against an all-white college team.
Players were sneaked into the North Carolina College gym on a Sunday morning. There were no spectators. The opponent was Duke’s medical school team, a mishmash of standout varsity collegiate players attending Duke to take the Army-Navy accelerated medical education program. McLendon’s run-and-gun team rolled, 88-44.
He was the first African-American to coach at a predominately white university (Cleveland State, 1966) and the first to coach professionally, when he headed George Steinbrenner’s — yes, that George Steinbrenner — Cleveland Pipers of the American Basketball League (1961). His Tennessee State teams won three straight NAIA championships (1957-59), defeating more than a dozen white collegiate teams.
Winning games became commonplace for the Naismith protege, but breaking down barriers of racial segregation was his goal.
“He’s the Godfather,” Porter said. “I would say Coach Mac was probably the Martin Luther King of basketball.”
Ben Jobe (1933-present)
* Taught and coached for 45 years, mostly at historically black colleges, including 12 years at Southern, where his teams made four NCAA Tournament appearances. Also was head coach at University of Denver, Talladega College, Alabama State, South Carolina State and Alabama A&M and spent one season with the Denver Nuggets.
* Led DU to a 34-22 record in two seasons (1978-80).
* Retired from coaching in 2003 with 524 career wins as a head coach.
* Started coaching career at Cameron High School in Nashville, Tenn., in 1958.
* Retired and living in Montgomery, Ala.
John McLendon (1915-1999)
* Was taught the game of basketball by Dr. James Naismith.
* Finished 25-year career with 523 victories.
* Was first black coach elected to Basketball Hall of Fame (1978).
* Was the first African-American to coach at a predominantly white university (Cleveland State in 1966).
* Was first African-American to coach a professional team (Cleveland Pipers of the American Basketball League).
* Was the first coach of any color to win three consecutive collegiate championships with NAIA titles from 1957-59 at Tennessee State.
* Was a member of the U.S. Olympic coaching staff in 1968 and 1972.
Chris Dempsey: 303-954-1279 or cdempsey@denverpost.com
