April 4, 2024

HOUSTON’S KELVIN SAMPSON RECIPIENT OF 2024 JOHN MCLENDON AWARD
Presented annually to the top head coach among all levels of college basketball

PHOENIX, AZ -- Houston’s Kelvin Sampson is the recipient of the 2024 John McLendon National Coach of the Year award.  The award is presented annually to the top head coach among all levels of college basketball (DI, DII, DIII, NAIA, and JUCO).

Houston’s Kelvin Sampson is this year’s recipient of the John McLendon Award, presented annually to the top collegiate basketball head coach - including Division I, Division II, Division III, NAIA and NJCAA.

Houston’s excellence under Sampson continued this season. The Cougars won the Big 12 regular season championship in their first year as a conference member.

Despite enduring several critical season-ending injuries to key players, Houston won at least 32 games for the third consecutive season and reached the Sweet 16 for the fifth tournament in a row.

Sampson has a 264-79 record in 10 seasons at Houston and has won 689 games overall in his 31-year career as a Division I head coach.

After winning the award in 2021, Sampson becomes the first to win the McLendon Award twice.

"What Kelvin Sampson has done at the University of Houston is remarkable," said Joe Dwyer, President of CollegeInsider.com. "He inherited a program that hadn’t finished .500 in its conference for five years and turned it into a perennial national power. The doubters and naysayers thought Houston would struggle in its first season in the Big 12, instead the Cougars were a dominant force winning the outright league title. Kelvin Sampson has been a great coach for a long time and it’s a travesty that he is not the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame."

The Coach John McLendon award is named in honor of a one of the greatest coaches in the history of the sport. A trailblazer and one of the true pioneers of the game, 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.

In 1962 he became the first African American head coach in a major professional league (ABL) with the Cleveland Pipers. In 1966 he became the first African-American head coach of predominantly-white university, when he took over the Cleveland State program. He led the team to their best record in school history.

In 1969, McLendon was hired by the Denver Rockets and became the first African American head coach in the American Basketball Association. After a brief stint with the Rockets, McLendon ended his 25-year professional coaching career with a winning percentage of .760 and a lifetime career average of 523 victories and 165 losses.

Coach McLendon passed away on October 8, 1999. He was 84 years of age.

The recipient of the annual award is determined by a 10-member voting committee, which consists of current and former head coaches, as well as two senior staff members of collegeinsider.com.