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Against All Odds Michael McClendon did a lot of running during the tumultuous first half of his life, when he faced adversity on and off the court. Now, the 40-year-old family man is ready to use his hard-won wisdom to build on his challenging first year as head coach of the Springfield College men's basketball team.

By Garrett Cote (@garrett_cote)

Four naked, white walls and a painful silence so quiet it irritatingly tickles the ears.

This is what Michael McClendon II, 40, wakes up to in his unpretentious – and lonely – one-bedroom apartment in Windsor, Conn. He just finished his first year as men’s basketball coach at Springfield College – which was also his first year away from his wife and kids, who stayed home in New Jersey.

The previous day’s season-finale win over Coast Guard fresh on his mind, McClendon wipes the sleep from his eyes and slides on a pair of black Nike slippers. He sits down to reflect on the past five months over a cup of coffee.

Coach McClendon instructing captain Daryl Costa.

He ponders how October’s anticipation turned into February’s disappointment, the late blown leads, the 7-18 record, the fatigue of leading a group of young men for a full season – he thinks about all of it. What he could’ve done differently, what worked, what didn’t.

Once his mind starts racing, there’s no stopping it.

“I was thinking about all the things I could’ve done better,” McClendon said. “No coach is ever satisfied – I’m never satisfied. [Winning only] seven games is a failure. I’m constantly in a state of ‘What if?’ What if I don’t turn this around? What if I continue to only win single-digit games, and I fail? What if I fall flat on my face here?”

These same thoughts swarm McClendon for the rest of the morning. His dream has always been to be a basketball coach, but he didn’t know that dream would come with constant doubt.

Just as it seemed McClendon would spend his whole Sunday in this cycle of personal skepticism that he couldn’t shake, he was interrupted by his buzzing phone.

As he glanced down, the contact name “Pops” appeared on the screen. With a single text, Michael McClendon Sr. pulled his son out of his daze and brought him to tears.

Everything else suddenly felt irrelevant.

“Sitting in my apartment, I’m lonely,” McClendon said. “When he texted me, it kind of ignited something in me. It made me very emotional. ‘Damn, he gets it.’ He’s thinking what I’m thinking without me even telling him anything. It helped me kind of energize myself moving forward instead of sitting in a state of despair.”

The text held more meaning than saving the rest of McClendon’s Sunday. On one hand, his “10-second crying session,” helped him look at his first year on Alden Street from a new perspective.

On the other hand, it showed how far his relationship with his father had come.

The Last Straw

While home in Atlantic City, N.J. in 2002, following his first year at Wesley College in Dover, Delaware, McClendon found a summer job to earn money.

He was hired by Caesars Casino – the same place where his dad worked as a pit boss and craps dealer.

During one of McClendon’s shifts, a co-worker told him he needed to check on his dad.

“He told me, ‘Hey, your dad’s up there [in the cafeteria]. He’s in bad shape,’” McClendon said. “I’m just thinking to myself, ‘He’s probably tired.’”

When McClendon found his dad, he was crushed at what he saw. There, still wearing the polo from an earlier valet shift he picked up, was McClendon Sr. – passed out and helpless.

McClendon knew his father had a drug and alcohol problem, but he wasn’t aware it was this bad.

“He was out. Like, out out,” McClendon said. “You could smell the alcohol on him. When I found him, I couldn’t move him. I couldn’t wake him up. He just kept mumbling words. So I left. I just left him there.”

McClendon moved out of his dad’s apartment that same night and moved in with his grandmother.

The next time he saw his dad was when he stopped by to grab something he left behind. McClendon didn’t want to enter unannounced, so he started pounding on the door. No answer. More knocking, and still, no answer.

McClendon began to yell while banging as hard as he could.

Finally, McClendon Sr. opened the door, and instantly got in his son’s face. The two wound up in the middle of the street, and their verbal argument quickly turned physical.

“It was the last straw for me,” McClendon said. “That was the last time I [had] seen him for two years.”

A Father-Son Reunion

It didn’t take long after that for McClendon Sr. to recognize he needed to get help. His drug and alcohol problem had become so bad he not only lost his job, he let it come between his relationship with his only son. He hit rock bottom.

Looking for a fresh start, McClendon Sr. moved to Philadelphia.

“I stayed away from Mike because I didn’t want him to see me in the condition I was in,” he said.

After a few months on the streets of Philly living in halfway houses, clinging to a part-time job to support his habit, McClendon Sr. checked into a Salvation Army sobriety program in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Before the program started, he was given the option to make a phone call.

He had only one person in mind.

“I kept thinking about Mike,” McClendon Sr. said. “I gotta talk to my son. But I said, ‘No, let me wait and get myself together first.’”

Three months later, he was ready to pick up the phone. McClendon Sr. was nervous, the most apprehensive he had ever been in his life. Would his son even want to hear from him?

“I asked the Major at the Salvation Army if I could use [the payphone], and I was just shaking,” he said. “‘I gotta call my son.’ I was sober, I had 90 days under me. It was time to talk.”

Anticipation built with every ring. To McClendon Sr.’s sorrow, his son didn’t answer. He called his son three more times that week; three more times he was consumed with disappointment.

About a week later, the payphone rang back.

His son, who had been busy with school and practice, returned the missed calls.

“I don’t think we spoke for the first five minutes, I think we both cried,” McClendon said. “There was no way for me to verbalize any feeling that you have after not speaking to your father for so long. I started operating as if I was never gonna see him again.”

From there, father and son began to patch their relationship little by little. They never brought up their past struggles. Every thought was about the present or future.

An appreciation grew in each of their souls – an appreciation for the strength of their bond. If they could get through that, they could get through anything.

“When we reconvened, we were able to have the relationship we have now, which, outside of the relationship with my son, is the best [father-son] one I could ever ask for,” McClendon II said. “I hate that things have to happen the way they happen, but I am so happy and ecstatic that they did happen, because I don’t know if we would be where we are now. He is my biggest fan and my biggest supporter.”

‘We Kind of Grew Up Together’

Michelle Brown became pregnant with her son when she was 14 years old and had him when she was 15. They are close enough in age to be siblings, so the running joke in the family was that Brown and McClendon were being brought up at the same time.

“We kind of grew up together,” McClendon said. “My grandmother was still raising her as she was trying to help raise me. I didn’t realize how different it was until I started going to school. You start to learn that [other] people have both parents in the same house, and have a mom that doesn’t work. I didn’t know anything other than a working mom. She worked since she was 14 years old.”

Raising a child while that young kept Brown from being a kid herself. Even when McClendon was 4 or 5 years old, and she was approaching her 20s, he always came first – before any extra-curricular activities.

“I tried to keep my eyesight on him,” Brown said. “It wasn’t just about me anymore, or what I want to do. I had this other human being that I had to provide for.”

In spite of the challenges his parents faced, McClendon had a stable, happy childhood. At Absegami High School outside of Atlantic City, he starred in both football and basketball. One day, after basketball practice, he grabbed his belongings, dapped up his teammates and headed home – ready to gobble whatever food his mom had ready for him.

When he walked inside, he heard a terrifying scream. There were no cries for help, just a series of piercing howls. The only one home was his mother, so he knew it had to be her.

“I run upstairs, and she’s on the bed with her knees tucked to her chest and both her arms behind her back. And she’s like, ‘I’m stuck,’” McClendon said. “Her body wouldn’t move.”

He called 911. By the time the ambulance arrived, Brown was already loosening up. The EMTs ran a handful of tests on her and told her that nothing was wrong. Brown and McClendon were incredulous.

“‘My mom was in a fetal position with her hands stuck behind her back. What do you mean she’s fine?!’” McClendon said, questioning the lack of diagnosis. “That process was so grueling because nobody would ever tell her what was going on.”

It took almost 10 years from that first episode for doctors to officially diagnose Brown with multiple sclerosis.

As the years went on, MS took its toll on her. She was unable to do simple daily tasks she could accomplish in the past, and she began to rely on her son – who had attended two different colleges and dropped out, in part to help care for her – to increase his workload around the house.

“I became a chauffeur, I had to drive her around and stuff, and had to run all these errands all the time,” McClendon said. “But I knew nobody else would. I had to do it.”

Brown never complained. She always had a smile on her face. To the best of her ability, she was filled with energy – as much energy as the MS would let her muster. Because she put up a good front, it was difficult for McClendon to truly comprehend how heavy a load MS was on his mom.

Then Brown sat her son down.

She looked him in the face and told him she was thinking of taking her life – that it would be the best decision for not just her, but the entire family.

“I felt like a burden on everyone, and felt like the MS was this devastating tragedy that happened to me,” Brown said. “Like it was unfair.”

He didn't know how to respond.

“That was the hardest thing, to have to hear her say that,” McClendon said. “Nobody would ever want to hear a parent speak like that.”

Soon after that conversation, a freak accident caused by medication she took before an MRI nearly paralyzed Brown and left her hospitalized for 45 days. Her mindset shifted drastically.

“When I was lying there, unable to move, the switch flipped for me,” Brown said. “I had no mobility. I had only my own voice to listen to. So, I started to be grateful for the little mobility that I did have. I was still breathing, so there was still plenty of stuff I could do in life – whatever I put my mind to.”

Brown’s time in the hospital also helped her come to the realization that her son needed to create his own path in life – and not focus on taking care of her.

Brown knew it was what he wanted. She pushed him to go back and get his degree, and wouldn’t take no for an answer.

“I wanted him to live out his vision, and everything he had going for him,” Brown said. “I didn’t want my disability or my own visions and missions to be imposed on him. He always wanted to have a college degree, he always wanted to pursue his dream. He had to go live his life.”

He took off for Towson University in Maryland. With the motivation from his mother – whom he calls the strongest person he has ever met – at the front of his mind, McClendon wasn’t going to let her down.

A Guardian Angel at Towson

It felt like a scene straight out of a movie. The protagonist – in this case McClendon – was out at a bar with his boys, and all of a sudden a pretty girl walks in with her group of friends. McClendon did a double-take.

He had been around the bar scene quite often in Towson, and had even worked as a bouncer at one point to keep money in his pocket while at school. It turned out that one of his friends knew the girl who walked in. Her name was Jessica, and she was also enrolled at Towson.

Too shy to approach her, McClendon kept his distance and just admired her from afar.

“I [had] seen her probably months earlier, and I said to my friend, ‘Eventually I’m gonna talk to her,’” McClendon said.

When McClendon finally built up the courage to introduce himself to Jessica, the two hit it off. Right away, he knew that it was fate. They were supposed to meet. Since McClendon had experienced so much tribulation, he was forced to grow up quicker than most people his age. Jessica was drawn to his maturity.

“He was more grown than anyone else I had talked to, he had a different kind of energy,” Jessica said.

Jessica, 22 at the time, was months away from earning her degree in nursing. She had a plan and a purpose. McClendon, though, was 25 with no degree.

“I thank God every day for her, I truly do,” McClendon said of Jessica. “She gave me a sense of direction. She had her s— together. So I had to say to myself, ‘If I wanna stay with a person like this, I gotta get my s— together, too.’”

McClendon with his wife Jessica. (Photo Courtesy of The McClendon Family)

He got back in the classroom, got his grades up and even found a passion for broadcast journalism. He also picked up his first coaching gig as an assistant at the junior varsity level at The St. Paul’s School in Maryland. His life began taking shape.

But, a short time after Jessica graduated, she became pregnant. It was unplanned. She and McClendon had only been together for six months.

“I had to sit down in a dark room for days and think, ‘How am I gonna take care of this child?’” McClendon said. “I’m doing all these side jobs while I’m at Towson. Neither of us had enough money to take care of a child.”

McClendon had no other option but to work his tail off to help take care of his firstborn. In the past, he didn’t have anything to work for. But now, he had a purpose. He had a child on the way. He and Jessica decided, at the urging of her parents, to get married before the baby was born.

Given the circumstances, he needed more money.

“My daughter changed me and my direction,” McClendon said. “She gave me the proper purpose and focus. She gave me discipline, which I struggled with for so long.”

When Jessica was seven months pregnant, they decided to move back to New Jersey – and settled in Jessica’s hometown, Mahwah.

But McClendon still needed a job. One of his best friends, Bruce Hicks, had just taken the head coaching position at Raritan Valley Community College in Branchburg, N.J., and was looking for assistants to join his staff. The stars aligned perfectly. Hicks didn’t hesitate to bring McClendon on board.

He had coaching experience, but the lead assistant for a collegiate team was a leap forward.

“It couldn’t have been even a week after we made the decision to move,” McClendon said. “And Bruce calls me and he’s saying he’s got a head coaching gig, and he needs an assistant. What a coincidence, because I was moving up next week. It all made sense to me after that. I needed to be chasing [coaching].”

Mirror, Mirror

His success at Raritan Valley helped McClendon earn his first head coaching position at Middlesex County College in Edison, N.J., in 2020. Following a two-year stint there, he took the job at Springfield College in June of 2022.

He and Jessica now have three children, Ariana (13), Layla (9) and Michael Benjamin, known as Benny (6), and Jessica works full-time as a labor and delivery nurse at Chilton Medical Center in Pequannock, N.J.

In the offseason, McClendon commutes to campus from his apartment in Connecticut during the week, and travels home to New Jersey – where Jessica stays with the kids – on weekends. Throughout the season, however, McClendon is in Springfield seven days a week.

Whenever the two are together, Benny never leaves his dad’s side. He’s either hanging off of him, cuddling up next to him or following him around the house.

Benny is a mini version of his father. When McClendon looks at him, it’s like peering into a mirror. When Benny was born, McClendon instantly thought back to the roller-coaster relationship he had with his own father, and made a vow to not put Benny through that rough ride of ups and downs.

He has learned from the mistakes both he and his father have made, and corrected them while parenting his own kids. McClendon goes the extra mile to make sure they have everything he didn’t have growing up – especially a strong father-son relationship with Benny.

“All the things you knew you could be better at growing up, you can now help them with, and you can mold those mistakes,” McClendon said.

The close bond that McClendon and his father now have is exactly what he wants with Benny – the honesty, the authenticity and the friendship-like connection.

“Everything that my dad and I have going for each other right now, that’s what I want with Benny,” McClendon said. “I want to be the best father I can be, and my dad has shown me how to do that.”

McClendon’s kids attended a few of his games during the 2022-23 season, and each time it brought a giant smile to his face. Whether it was Benny interacting with the Springfield players, standing under the hoop during layup lines encouraging the team or carrying a “that’s my dad” swagger as he walked around Blake Arena, it’s evident the two are indivisible.

Benny with junior guard Zeke Blauner

No matter how McClendon’s coaching career is defined, no matter how many games he wins or loses, his son is always going to be proud of him – and will forever think he has the coolest job in the world.

“Benny just wants to do whatever his dad does,” Jessica said. “He thinks he’s going to grow up and be a coach someday, because that’s what Mike does.”

Flipping the Script

Running from adversity is a natural instinct. Everybody would confront it if it were easy.

McClendon will be the first to admit that when the going got tough throughout the first half of his life – he ran, and ran a lot.

“I just wanted to keep running,” McClendon said. “I was just scared of all that commitment, scared of all that adversity I had to go through, scared of all the real-life trauma that I was dealing with. I protected myself from all of those feelings by running.”

He stopped running when he met Jessica, became a father and found his purpose in coaching.

That purpose continues to drive McClendon, who encountered plenty of adversity in year one as head coach of the Springfield College men’s basketball team. He is the first African-American basketball coach in the school’s 138-year existence, and he checked none of the prerequisite boxes prior to his hiring.

When he was hired in June of 2022, Michael McClendon II officially became the first Black head coach in Springfield College basketball history. (Photo by Garrett Cote)

Unlike the coaches who preceded him, he isn’t an alum of Springfield College and he had no connection or ties to the school.

The second McClendon accepted the job, he was at a disadvantage – especially replacing the most successful coach in Springfield men’s basketball history.

“The one thing that bugged me, is that the first thing everyone asked me when I got the job was, ‘Who’d you know?’ As if I didn’t earn it on my own,” McClendon said. “Because not only am I Black, I’m not even from here. A Black coach who didn’t come from New England, people here are going to have their doubts.”

But with the pressure and adversity mounted right in front of him – coming off a discouraging inaugural season at the Birthplace – McClendon isn’t turning away. This time he’s running through the adversity. Not from it.

He’s facing it head on.

With his family – including several role models who know a lot about running like hell through adversity – back in his corner, he knows he can win any fight life throws his way.

“My mother and my father being able to overcome the hardest things life has to offer is the reason why I can never, in a million years, think about folding,” McClendon said. “It’s impossible.”

(Photos by Garrett Cote & Ty Coney)
Created By
Garrett Cote
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Credits:

Garrett Cote, Ty Coney and Nick Storlazzi