About a year removed from the conversation that sparked Chris Hughes’ interest in the John McLendon Foundation’s McLendon Minority Leadership Initiative, that’s how he remembers it.

One could imagine there were any number of emotions coursing through Blair Griffith. Frustrated? Further motivated? It could haven been a combination of those and more.

When this year’s Legends of Basketball Classic was announced, we discussed how a pay-per-view model for a NCAA basketball exhibition game was an unusual approach, and that it would be worth watching the results to see if that was more widely adopted. Well, that Oct. 28 event (featuring the Tennessee Volunteers and Gonzaga Bulldogs) appears to have gone well enough to make a 2023 return. Organizers Intersport (managing the ticketing, game operations and event production), iNDEMAND (the game’s exclusive TV and streaming distributor), the National Basketball Retired Players Association (title partner), and the McClendon Foundation (charitable beneficiary) announced that news Tuesday.

The McLendon Foundation and underdog venture team announced a strategic partnership rooted in each organization's shared mission to expand opportunities for underrepresented communities in the sports industry. The focus of the partnership is to elevate the Foundation through expanded marketing and brand development, partnerships and strategic organizational enhancements to make a lasting impact.

The McLendon Foundation and McDonald's are proud to announce a new corporate partnership benefiting the McLendon Minority Leadership Initiative (MLI).

The McLendon Foundation is set to host its Inaugural Leadership Weekend, Presented by McDonald's and the NCAA. The event is taking place August 26-28, with support from the University of Kentucky (UK) and G3 Marketing. More than 60 individuals from across the country are expected to attend, including several 2020-21 McLendon Postgraduate Scholarship Recipients and Minority Leadership Initiative (MLI) Future Leaders.

Kurt "KJ" Russell was scouting apartments in Phoenix when he received a call from Adrien Harraway, vice president and director of the John McLendon Minority Scholarship Foundation. He called to tell KJ that he had been selected to receive the scholarship that the Fiesta Bowl awards annually through the foundation to a student at an Arizona institution.

The John McLendon Foundation has launched the McLendon Minority Leadership Initiative, a coach-driven program to create access and opportunity for meaningful employment experiences for minority candidates known as MLI Future Leaders