Don Haskins
From Hoopedia
Donald L. "Don" Haskins (born March 16, 1930 in Enid, Oklahoma, United States) is a former collegiate basketball coach and player. He played for three years under legendary coach Hank Iba at Oklahoma A&M (now Oklahoma State University). He was the head coach at Texas Western College (renamed the University of Texas at El Paso in 1967) from 1961 to 1999, including the 1966 season when his team won the NCAA Division I Men's Tournament Championship over the Wildcats of the University of Kentucky, coached by hoops legend Adolph Rupp.
In his time at Texas Western, he compiled a 719-353 record, suffering only five losing seasons. He won seven Western Athletic Conference championships, four WAC tournament titles, had fourteen NCAA tournament berths and made seven trips to the NIT. Haskins led UTEP to 17 20-plus win seasons and served as an assistant Olympic team coach in 1972.
He was enshrined into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1997 as a basketball coach. The 1966 team has been named in its entirety to the Basketball Hall of Fame, and will be formally inducted in September 2007.
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Early Coaching Career
After college and a stint with the Amateur Athletic Union’s Artesia Travelers, Haskins began coaching, successfully leading some small-town high school basketball teams. He took a pay cut for a chance to be a college coach, accepting a job offer at Texas Western College (now the University of Texas at El Paso) in 1961.
In the 1950s, prior to Haskins' arrival, Texas Western recruited and played African American players, in a time when it was still common to find all-white college sports teams, particularly in the South. When Haskins arrived in El Paso, he inherited three black players from his coaching predecessor. (One of those players, El Paso native Nolan Richardson, would go on to win a national title as the head coach at Arkansas.)
The Miners reached the NCAA Tournament in 1963 and 1964 and played in the National Invitation Tournament (commonly called the NIT) in 1965. On numerous occasions, Haskins stated that he believed his 1964 team could have won the NCAA Tournament had All-American Jim "Bad News" Barnes not fouled out after playing only 8 minutes in a 64-60 loss to Kansas State in the Tournament.
The 1966 NCAA Championship Team
The Texas Western Miners finished the 1965-66 regular season with a 23-1 record, entering the NCAA Tournament ranked third.
In the first round of the tournament, the Miners defeated Oklahoma City 89 to 74. In the next round, they defeated Cincinnati 78 to 76 in overtime. They went on to defeat Kansas in double overtime in the Midwest Regional Finals, 81 to 80, and to defeat Utah in the National Semifinals, 85 to 78.[4]
Facing the University of Kentucky in the championship game, Haskins made history by starting five African-American players for the first time in a championship game against Kentucky’s all-white squad, coached by Adolph Rupp. The Miners took the lead midway in the first half and never relinquished it -- though Kentucky closed to within a point early in the second half. The Miners finished with 72 points to Kentucky’s 65, winning the tournament and finishing the year with a 28-1 record.
Later asked about his decision to start five African-American players, Haskins downplayed the significance of his decision. "I really didn't think about starting five black guys. I just wanted to put my five best guys on the court," Haskins was later quoted as saying. "I just wanted to win the game."
Though credited with setting in motion the desegregation of college basketball teams in the South, he wrote in his book, Glory Road, "I certainly did not expect to be some racial pioneer or change the world."
Also, in his book, he wrote: "I've said this many times over the last 40 years, but for a long time I thought winning the national championship was the worst thing ever to happen to me. I wished for a long time that we had never won that game with Kentucky because life would have been a heck of a lot easier for me, my school and my players."
Post-Championship Career
Although Haskins was never able to duplicate his 1966 success, he is nonetheless regarded as an important figure in basketball history. Among the players he coached at UTEP over the years were future NBA all-stars Nate Archibald, Tim Hardaway, and Antonio Davis. Other UTEP alums moving to the NBA included Marlon Maxey and Greg Foster. He was also a mentor for several future coaches, including Nolan Richardson and Tim Floyd. He served as an assistant coach under Hank Iba in the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich.
Haskins' fishing partner, and one of his best friends, is Texas Tech coach Bobby Knight, former Indiana Coach, along with once rival, but also good friend, Norm Ellenberger, former coach of the University of New Mexico Lobos.
Glory Road
Disney released a movie called Glory Road on January 13, 2006, concerning UTEP's 1966 championship season. On November 29, 2005, the City of El Paso also renamed the street between its two basketball arenas "Glory Road." Adolph Rupp, Jr., pointed out that his father had previously used the term "Glory Road" in his farewell speech to his fans and worried that his father would be villainized in the film. However Director Jim Gartner stated that Rupp Sr. will not be portrayed as racist in the film, claiming that Jon Voight, who plays Rupp, was careful in his role, and sought not to mischaracterize Rupp as a racist. Nevertheless, some dramatic license was taken and misrepresentations exist, such as a scene depicting rebel flags being waved by UK fans (The rebel flag, while significant to other, more Southern members of the SEC athletic conference, has never been a fixture in Kentucky or at UK sporting events.)
Haskins has stated his disappointment 2 at the cutting of the movie scenes of his one-on-one games with his boyhood friend Herman Carr, who is African-American. Carr was present in El Paso as a guest for the premiere screening, November 28, 2005. These scenes would have depicted a formative influence on Haskins' game of basketball. Don also appeared in the movie as an "extra."
Glory Road, produced by Jerry Bruckheimer,Haskins' official autobiography written with Dan Wetzel, was released by Hyperion Books in 2005. A national best seller, it was reprinted five times in its first four months of release and was selected as an "Editor's Choice" by the New York Times Book Review.
