Arthur McAfee was longtime Morehouse basketball coach, athletic director

Arthur McAfee, the former Morehouse basketball coach and athletic director, had a 464-449 record at the collge. Morehouse went to the NCAA tournament for the first time ever in 1981 when his son Arthur III was on the team. With his experience at other colleges, he had a total of more than 500 wins in college basketball.

Arthur McAfee, the former Morehouse basketball coach and athletic director, had a 464-449 record at the collge. Morehouse went to the NCAA tournament for the first time ever in 1981 when his son Arthur III was on the team. With his experience at other colleges, he had a total of more than 500 wins in college basketball.

There is no actual proof that Spike Lee tried out for the Morehouse College basketball team in the late 1970s. Further, it can’t be confirmed that Coach Arthur McAfee Jr. launched a legendary film career by looking at the 5-5 Lee and saying, “I want you to concentrate on something that you have as much passion about as playing basketball.”

What’s undisputed is that McAfee was a force at five colleges over 45 years, the last 35 years at Morehouse, including 28 as Athletics Director.

In 1990, several months after Morehouse earned a NCAA Division II Final Four berth, Sports Illustrated writer Billy Reed found McAfee in his third-floor office. The gym, with a capacity of 2,500,was one floor below.

Reed reported that McAfee’s total athletics budget was $350,000, compared to nearby Georgia Tech’s (then coming off its own Division I Final Four) $10 million.

“I don’t have a TV show, and I don’t have a shoe contract,” McAfee told the writer. “But when I look up there [at team photographs] and see 25 years, I know it hasn’t been a bad life.”

That long life and career ended March 7 when McAfee, 88, died of metabolic encephalopathy. Funeral services were March 21.

Condolences: Read and sign the guestbook for Arthur McAfee Jr.

Arthur James McAfee Jr., nicknamed “Sonny,” or Coach Mac, was born in Wichita, Kanas, in 1928.

Even a cursory glance reveals a family of remarkable achievements. His great grandfather Jacob McAfee, a Union veteran of the Civil War, moved his family from central Kentucky to Wichita by covered wagon. His grandfather charged up San Juan Hill with Teddy Roosevelt and his father, Arthur Sr., was a Pullman Porter.

Arthur Jr. was the second of three children. His older sister, the late Gwendolyn Marie McAfee became head of the hematology lab at UCLA’s medical school. His younger brother Charles remained in Wichita and became a noted architect. His firm, now run by his daughters, has offices in Atlanta, Dallas and Witchita.

“For as long as I can remember,” Charles said recently, “Sonny was my role model, my inspiration. He taught me to play marbles. He taught me how to build model airplanes. In building those planes, it was probably the first time I ever read a set of plans.”

Both Charles and Sonny were all-state middle school basketball players on their African American squads. But neither ever played at integrated East High School whose varsity allowed only one black player. Segregation also kept both off their college teams, Charles at the University of Nebraska and Sonny at Wichita State University, where he graduated in 1951.

Despite all the closed doors McAfee kept pushing. After four years in the Air Force he began an Odyssey that took him to six jobs—including four college head coaching assignments not counting Morehouse—in 10 years. In the early 1960s, at what was then the Mississippi Valley Teachers College, his team won a conference championship but was barred from the NCAA tournament because of race.

“I think a whole lot of us who came out of Wichita were driven,” said Charles McAfee. “This was one of the most segregated U.S. cities. My sister, top of her class in high school and college, couldn’t get a job here. Fact is we continue to export great black talent.

“But the good news,” he said, “is that a lot of energy comes out of our Wichita families. People expect to do better when they leave here, and they usually do.”

Arthur McAfee eventually won 517 games total, arriving at Morehouse in 1965 and going 464-449. Morehouse went to the NCAA tournament for the first time ever in 1981 when his son Arthur III was on the team. His 1990 team went 26-7 and featured Harold Ellis who averaged 25.8 point and would later play three seasons in the NBA.

Perhaps the most glittering stat of all is that McAfee once estimated 90 percent of his Morehouse players graduated.

“I think he saw his job as preparing us to move forward into the workplace,” said Arthur III, currently Senior Vice President of Player Engagement for the NFL. “He wanted to win, he wanted you to enjoy sports. But he really wanted to raise your consciousness so you’re on equal par with people of all cultures.”

Arthur III believes his father’s influence as an athletics director goes “far beyond” that as coach. He provided more scholarship opportunities for Morehouse athletes while also transitioning the school into an era of more regional and national competition.

“He did things on a national level, particularly in the [1960s and 1970s] when [Historically Black Colleges and Universities] had so few resources and a lack of facilities,” said Carter Wilson, longtime basketball coach and AD at Decatur High School. “Art is one of my primary role models because, through him, I gradually realized, somebody has to be in charge, somebody has to make decisions. Programs don’t just happen out of thin air.”

Wilson, who gets inducted into the Georgia Athletics Directors Association Hall of Fame on March 25, points out that, “you usually don’t hear about athletic administrators except when things go wrong. Maybe that’s why Art isn’t better known, because he made everything go right.”

He is survived by his wife Sylvia McAfee, daughters Sylvia McAfee Jr. and Gwen McAfee Bynum, son Arthur McAfee III, brother Charles F. McAfee, along with two granddaughters, one grandson and three nieces.