Men's Basketball to Participate in Third Annual “This Game is No Secret” Event

(PITTSBURGH, Pa.) – The Carnegie Mellon University men's basketball team will participate in the third annual "This Game is No Secret" event, organized by the coaches behind ERACISM. Teams from all levels of the sport honor the legacy of John McLendon.

The Tartans host NYU on Friday, February 3 at 7:30 p.m. in Wiegand Gymnasium and will be wearing t-shirts with those five words: 'This Game is No Secret.' Fans are asked to wear black to the game in support of this event.

"Coach McLendon's visionary leadership and the courage of the players in The Secret Game, should be credited with helping to make basketball a global game," said head men's basketball coach Tony Wingen. "It is played by all people -- regardless of race, gender or ethnicity. Thankfully, because of legendary pioneers like John McLendon, our game never again needs to be played in secret."

The event is an opportunity for players, coaches, and fans to learn more about the iconic Secret Game, in which Coach McLendon's North Carolina College for Negroes (now North Carolina Central) defeated Duke, 88-44, in a 1944 exhibition game. In 1944 - 10 years before the Brown vs. Board of Education Supreme Court suit which would lead to the integration of schools, it was illegal for integrated sporting events. Due to Jim Crow laws, The Secret Game was a landmark event played in a locked gym with a referee, scorekeeper and one reported to serve as witness. The players and coaches participating in this game, under Jim Crow laws, could have been jailed. Due in part to the courage of those who arranged and participated in this game and other courageous activist movements of the time, within the next 25 years, schools and college basketball were racially integrated in the south.

McLendon became the first African American coach to win an integrated national championship. His team went on to win the NAIA Division I Men's Tournament in 1957, 1958, and 1959, making him the first coach in history to win three consecutive NAIA championships. He received full enshrinement in the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in 2016.

"As we move towards a community that is more accepting of all people and honoring the differences they bring to our spaces, we must actively learn of the hard past that many have endured to adjust our frame of reference through which we are entering our interactions," commented Assistant Director of Athletics for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and Carnegie Mellon's NCAA Athletics Diversity and Inclusion Designee, Monica Harrison. "It is through this collective understanding that we can move forward in the pursuit of inclusive excellence."

Established on December 3, 2020, ERACISM is a social inclusion movement committed to bringing forth change through education, awareness, and action with current and former college basketball coaches leading the way.

For more information and to learn more about the initiatives of ERACISM, visit http://www.eracism4ever.com.