“Glory Road” Coach Don Haskins Dies at 78

Don Haskins coached Texas Western (which later was renamed to UTEP, University of Texas El Paso) for nearly four decades between 1961 and 1999. He was the coach for the 1966 Texas Western team about which the Disney film Glory Road was made. As you might know, if you watched the movie or know your sports-meets-cultural significance trivia, the 1966 Texas Western team won the college basketball national championship versus the favored, Adolph Rupp-coached, winningest hoops program ever Kentucky Wildcats. What was significant about the win, despite the fact that a small school did it against a large one, was that it was the first time an all-black starting team won the national title. The fact that the Wildcats were all white made the contrast even more apparent. If you don’t have Glory road on your Netflix, you’d better sign up to get it soon, because there are a lot of people putting it on their queue today. Said famous coach Eddie Sutton of Haskins’ move to play an all African American starting five in the title game:

“When they won the national championship against the University of Kentucky, that changed college basketball. At that time, there weren’t many teams in the South or Southwest that had African-Americans playing. There was a change in the recruiting of the black athlete. It really changed after that. They’ve had a great impact on the game.”

To get NCAA basketball tickets, go to StubHub.com.

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