MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Kentucky coach John Calipari has always been an idea guy and his latest one involves roughly 35 college basketball coaches so far, including West Virginia's Bob Huggins.
 
Calipari's plan is to use the influence and resources college basketball coaches have to partner with the John McLendon Minority Scholarship Foundation to launch the McLendon Minority Leadership Initiative.
 
According to a press release sent out Monday by the McLendon Foundation, this initiative will "provide minorities a jump-start to their careers through practical experiences, opportunities to build their network, and instilling the values of John McLendon: Integrity, Education, Leadership and Mentorship. Participants in the initiative will be known as MLI Future Leaders."
 
"This is Cal's brainchild," Huggins said. "That's all Cal does is sit around and think about these types of things."
 
Calipari announced his involvement in the McLendon Minority Leadership Initiative during his "Coffee With Cal" Facebook Live series on Monday night.
 
Huggins was part of a coaching guest list on the program that also included Michigan State's Tom Izzo, Gonzaga's Mark Few, Tennessee's Rick Barnes, Pitt's Jeff Capel, Missouri's Cuonzo Martin and South Carolina's Frank Martin.
 
"We didn't start where we are," Huggins noted. "We started at a lower level and worked our way up, or we were a graduate assistant who was the guy who went and got the coffee. We understand. Having the experience of being able to be involved in different areas … ADs were once like we were – you work your way up.
 
"Just the resume part of it, meeting people and being able to add to their resume is priceless for young people," Huggins added.
 
So these coaches, and many more, are lending their names and donating their time to help raise money for this great undertaking.
 
Huggins said his goal is to get more than just college basketball coaches involved.
 
"I'm sitting there thinking 'why would we just limit this to basketball coaches? Let's get the football coaches involved in this as well,'" he explained.
 
So, who is John McLendon and why are these coaching greats linking this important objective to the McLendon Foundation?
 
McLendon is considered among of the great lesser-known coaches in college basketball history, winning three straight NAIA titles at Tennessee A&I State University in the late 1950s.
 
Prior to that, his teams captured eight conference championships at North Carolina College and he won 744 career games during 34 years of coaching. 
 
College basketball analyst and historian Billy Packer once listed McLendon among his top 10 basketball coaches of the 20^th century.
 
McLendon, who died in 1999, was also a civil rights activist and a basketball ambassador who frequently gave basketball demonstrations in other countries. In the summer of 1980, the Chinese government invited McLendon to do a series of basketball lectures that were videotaped and distributed nationally.
 
He owns the rare distinction of being inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame as a coach and as a contributor.
 
Of the current coaches involved in McLendon Minority Leadership Initiative, Huggins probably knew McLendon best. When Huggins was coaching at Akron, he spent a lot of time with McLendon when his coaching career was winding down at Cleveland State.
 
"It was a blessing for me to be at Akron when coach McLendon was at Cleveland State," Huggins said. "Every time we played Cleveland State or every time I was in Cleveland I got to hook up with coach McLendon and talk basketball.
 
"We were blessed, I think, coming along in the age we came along because we were able to be touched by some of the greatest coaches, some of the greatest people, some of the greatest minds and some of the greatest innovators that have ever been in basketball."
 
Huggins continued, "Just to be blessed to be around those kind of people – those kind of minds – was just incredible and certainly coach McLendon was right at the top of the heap."
 
In West Virginia, Huggins is hopeful other colleges will get on board with this movement.
 
"In our state we have two major colleges and we have seemingly 100,000 small colleges," he explained. "The goal is to try put at least one person in each college where they are going to get exposed to everything to help them develop into our leaders and decision makers of tomorrow – and they are going to have to work in order to do this."
 
The McLendon Foundation, along with G3 Marketing and ProLink Staffing Services, will be assisting in the solicitation of collegiate coaches, administrators and corporations to build this program to help provide opportunities within athletics departments at all levels.
 
Furthermore, the Joel Cornette Foundation will assist participants with corporate mentorship, development and job placement.
 
"This can be a phenomenal deal," Huggins noted. "We've already got a lot of coaches involved in this and we hope to get many more involved in the future."