In the midst of segregation, the all-black Tennessee A&I Tigers were the first collegiate basketball team to win three consecutive national championships. Yet they were never duly recognized for this singular achievement.
The Dream Whisperer airs Sunday, November 3 at 2 p.m. on WXXI-TV.
In 1957, nine years before Texas Western’s NCAA title victory over Kentucky, there was the Tennessee A&I (now known as Tennessee State University) Tigers. And while Texas Western became the first team to win the NCAA title with an all-Black starting lineup, Tennessee A&I was the first Historically Black College and Universities (HBCU) to win a national championship tournament. Led by Hall of Fame coach John McLendon, and future NBA players Dick Barnett and John Barnhill, Tennessee A&I closed out the 1950s winning the NAIA Tournament in 1957, 1958, and 1959, the first college team, on any level, to win three consecutive national titles.
Nearly 67 years after the Tigers’ first national championship of that historic run, comes the 2024 release of The Dream Whisperer, from presenting station Nashville Public Television. Eleven years in the making, the documentary chronicles New York Knicks legend Dick Barnett’s long and often frustrating journey to have his team recognized for its achievement at the highest level — induction into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame. The Dream Whisperer, which won the Audience Favorite Award at the Pan African Film Festival, is not only a homage to a historic team from a small HBCU school which won three consecutive national championships in the midst of segregation in the Jim Crow South, but a testament to Barnett’s persistence and perseverance to make sure the Tigers’ legacy would be honored and remembered.
Narrated by Dr. Barnett, The Dream Whisperer features interviews with: John Thompson, Hall of Fame coach; Julius Erving, Hall of Fame NBA player; Walt Frazier, two-time NBA Champion; Bill Bradley, two-time NBA Champion; Phil Jackson, Hall of Fame coach; David Stern, Hall of Fame NBA Commissioner; Al Sharpton, Civil Rights activist & TV host; Joanna McLendon, Coach McLendon’s widow; Jim Satterwhite, Tennessee A&I championship team member; Harry Carlton, Tennessee A&I championship team member; Howard Gentry, former Tennessee State University Athletic Director; Dr. Harry Edwards, Civil Rights activist; John Doleva, President, Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame; and George Willis, sports journalist .