TO THE CHAPTER INVISIBLE
Q: When people contacted you about trying to get you in it, you told them you weren’t interested? Why? Jobe: “Until they correct some things, I wouldn’t want to be go- ing in at the same time they were admitting Dick Vitale. Or the guy who invented the shot clock. There are so many great black coaches who’ve never been considered, and you’re going to let a guy in who runs his mouth on TV, and a lot of times he doesn’t know what he’s talk- ing about? And you’re going to let another guy in because he invented a shot clock? No, I wouldn’t want to be a part of that. So, some people say, ‘Aw, don’t be like that. We need more black folks in there. No we don’t. Not under those circum- stances.” Jobe: “ I’d want it to be legitimate. Right now, it’s illegitimate. They’ve got some guys in the Hall of Fame who couldn’t coach their way out of a bath tub.” Brother Jobe opined about HBCUs with his usual candor and perspec- tive: “HBCUs have mentored and nurtured young black males from dysfunctional families and poor families since slavery. Whereas the white universities, that wasn’t their job. I understand that, and I’m not knocking them. They didn’t have to do this. The white kids came from very stable families and they didn’t need the university for that. They just needed the university to teach them reading, writing and arithme- tic. But the HBCUs have always had that job of helping youngsters iden- tify themselves, to know who you are. I’ve used this my whole career. I ask kids the “four W’s’’ - who are you, what are you, why are you on this earth, and where are you going? If you can get them to grasp those four W’s, then they can make it in the world. Q: Your point is ....?
versity’s longtime baseball coach Roger Cador; Coach Jobe “came out of that system at historically black schools that taught you that you had to make the right first impression, I know about it, because I came out of the same system. Ben lived it to the fullest. I’m sure he impacted a lot of young men’s lives, on and off the floor. Even in my 40s, I was impressed. I thought it was a thing of beauty.” “Ben put things in the right perspec- tive,” said former Notre Dame coach Digger Phelps, a broadcaster for that epic Southern upset. During Brother Jobe’s coaching career he was proactive not only with the players he coached, but the environment that affected their lives and African Americans in general. It was an interesting journey for me to research portions of the life of Brother Jobe. This was a journey of love intended to introduce this Brother to those who never met or heard of him. He was a Brother in my generation, worthy to be incor- porated in the narrative of what we mean by “Training for Leadership.” I found some interesting and power- ful anecdotes in an interview of Brother Jobe by John Pruett of the Huntsville Alabama Times in Febru- ary 2008. Pruett. He asked the man who spoke truth to power: Q: Many believe you should be in the Basketball Hall of Fame. Do you? Jobe: “I have no interest in belong- ing to that organization because of the way they treated John McClen- don. It’s a racist organization. They kept him out of the Hall of Fame for years before they finally admit- ted him as a contributor. Even the NCAA worked to keep him out of the Hall of Fame because he fought the NCAA for years over their racist policies. The NCAA used their clout to keep him out.”
But a lot of our kids - and we’re getting down to basketball and basketball is going downhill, but that’s another story - they can’t answer those four ques- tions. I’ve interviewed kids, mainly in the SWAC, kids from Southern, A&M, Alabama State, Mississippi Valley, as many of the kids as I can get to, and I can tell: Many of them don’t know who they are. They have no identity. They’re just floating. But Fisk University imme- diately gave us an identity. They made sure we knew who we were, and we could answer those questions. We had a goal. When I graduated, I wanted to stay there and I asked Dr. Johnson, “Can you give me a job on the campus?’’ And he said, “Oh, no. No inbreeding.’’ I didn’t know what that meant, but he explained it. He said, “We educate you to serve humanity. Go out into the world and carry with you and teach what you’ve learned here.’’ So that’s what I did. When I left, I left. Since that time, I’ve lived in nine dif- ferent states and two different coun- tries. I went to school in Europe. I try to tell kids today, “When you graduate today, don’t stay there. Don’t get your Masters in the college where you got your BA. Don’t get your Ph.D. where you got your Masters.’’ Life is short. My daddy, being an agrarian man and an uneducated man, lived in David- son County and Rutherford County all his life. He never left the state of Tennessee. I have brothers and sisters who never left Tennessee. What Dr. Johnson was trying to tell us was, move out into the world and grow. I tell kids, “When you graduate from college, think in terms of getting an education so you can function in the world.’’ I’ve been preaching that for years, and it’s truer now than ever because the world is shrinking.” Jobe had to be taken on his terms. But if you did, he opened you up to a perspective on the world that you didn’t know existed. A world much larger than
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