EVERYBODY INTO THE POOL: How the inventor of basketball and the father of the fast break beat segregation in the 1930s.

Decades later, John McLendon, Jr. told his friend and biographer Milton Katz what his father said as he was packing to leave. “Go up there and do what everybody else does, and try to do it in a way that won’t have you getting hurt,” he had told his son. “If you happen to get hurt, let me know. I’ll be up there with my .44.”

The man had reason to fear for the boy. John B. McLendon, Jr. was about to become the first black man to enroll in the physical education program at Kansas.

When they arrived, John, Sr. let his son out of the car, gave a final set of instructions, and drove away. John, Jr. entered Robinson Gymnasium and followed his father’s parting advice to the letter. After a brief search, he found himself standing in an office doorway, looking in at the university’s Director of Physical Education. Dr. James Naismith looked up and examined his unexpected guest.

Read the whole thing.