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09-08-2008, 07:33 AM
http://images.sportsline.com/u/photos/basketball/college/img10966213.jpg
Sep. 8, 2008
By Gary Parrish
CBSSports.com Senior Writer
The coaching philosophy in the 1960s was pretty simple and laid out in an off-color joke.
You could play two blacks at home.
Or three on the road.
Or four if you were behind.
"But you never played five," said Dan Wetzel, who wrote the book Glory Road with Don Haskins. "Nobody played five."
Nobody except Haskins, of course.
That's why his Sunday death at the age of 78 garnered national headlines.
"He did so much for so many people," said Tony Barbee, the coach at UTEP (formerly known as Texas Western). "He was a national treasure."
We've spent a large part of the past few months hearing about how one politician is breaking barriers and another is putting cracks in ceilings. These are historic times, for sure. But 42 years ago Haskins accomplished similar things in his own little way, only he wasn't similarly celebrated like Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton or Sarah Palin. Instead, he was ridiculed and threatened and, well, I'll just turn things back over to Wetzel.
http://images.sportsline.com/u/photos/basketball/college/img10966894.jpg
Haskins didn't receive any coaching offers after winning the National Championship. (Getty Images)
"His friends asked him 'Don, are you crazy? Are you f---ing nuts?'" Wetzel said. "They said 'If you play five blacks they're going to call you the black coach. Even if you win you'll never get another job. And if you lose and get fired, nobody will ever hire you. And if one of those kids f---s up, then you're done. Your entire career is done and you've got kids to feed. Don't do this. It's stupid.'"
Haskins' response?
"He said 'F--- that,'" Wetzel said. "He said 'Seven of my best eight players are black, and I'm playing them. I don't care what the repercussions are.'"
So he played them, started five of them, and you know the story by now.
Texas Western beat Kentucky to win the 1966 national title.
Texas Western started five blacks.
Kentucky started five whites.
And the win started a revolution of sorts, but essentially stalled Haskins' career. In other words, his friends were correct. He had won a national title at 36, and yet the job offers didn't come. Instead, all he got was hate mail, negative (and untrue) articles from the media and a campus full of NCAA investigators because, you know, there was no way all those blacks were really attending classes (even though 10 of the 12 players from that championship team earned their degrees).
"He won the national title and didn't get a job offer," Wetzel said by phone late Sunday, still noticeably shaken by the news. "Can you imagine if somebody won the NCAA championship at UTEP now? They'd give him the Lakers job and $15 million a year. But you know how many job offers he got? None."
But do you know how many scholarship offers he created for blacks in the south?
Thousands, according to Nolan Richardson.
"That spring (after the national title in 1966) there were no blacks in the SEC, ACC or Southwest Conference, but right after that (those schools) started recruiting them, and in a hurry," Wetzel said. "(Haskins) told me a story one time that five years (after the national title) he was reading the paper and there was a picture of the All-Southwest Conference team, and they were all black. Just five years later. And Nolan Richardson told me one time that (Haskins) got thousands of black kids scholarships because (the other schools) were scared they were going to lose (if they didn't take the black players). So he forced their hands."
Still, it took decades for the proper notoriety to come. Haskins wasn't elected to the Hall of Fame until 1997, Wetzel's book didn't publish until 2005 and the film by the same name wasn't released until the following year. By then, Haskins had long been retired after compiling a career record of 719-354 in 38 seasons, all of them at Texas Western/UTEP.
"He won a lot of games and had a lot of success but gave up so much personally in terms of wealth, fame and professional opportunities, and he knew it," Wetzel said. "He said 'I know the risks (in starting five blacks) but I'm doing what's right, and that took a lot of courage. I'm 35 with two kids and I don't know if I could do that. Would I give up my career and say I'm going to stay at a smaller place forever just on principle? I don't know. ... But this guy had courage and to me there are not a lot of things basketball coaches have done that are more important than what he did."
http://www.sportsline.com/collegebasketball/story/10966892
Sep. 8, 2008
By Gary Parrish
CBSSports.com Senior Writer
The coaching philosophy in the 1960s was pretty simple and laid out in an off-color joke.
You could play two blacks at home.
Or three on the road.
Or four if you were behind.
"But you never played five," said Dan Wetzel, who wrote the book Glory Road with Don Haskins. "Nobody played five."
Nobody except Haskins, of course.
That's why his Sunday death at the age of 78 garnered national headlines.
"He did so much for so many people," said Tony Barbee, the coach at UTEP (formerly known as Texas Western). "He was a national treasure."
We've spent a large part of the past few months hearing about how one politician is breaking barriers and another is putting cracks in ceilings. These are historic times, for sure. But 42 years ago Haskins accomplished similar things in his own little way, only he wasn't similarly celebrated like Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton or Sarah Palin. Instead, he was ridiculed and threatened and, well, I'll just turn things back over to Wetzel.
http://images.sportsline.com/u/photos/basketball/college/img10966894.jpg
Haskins didn't receive any coaching offers after winning the National Championship. (Getty Images)
"His friends asked him 'Don, are you crazy? Are you f---ing nuts?'" Wetzel said. "They said 'If you play five blacks they're going to call you the black coach. Even if you win you'll never get another job. And if you lose and get fired, nobody will ever hire you. And if one of those kids f---s up, then you're done. Your entire career is done and you've got kids to feed. Don't do this. It's stupid.'"
Haskins' response?
"He said 'F--- that,'" Wetzel said. "He said 'Seven of my best eight players are black, and I'm playing them. I don't care what the repercussions are.'"
So he played them, started five of them, and you know the story by now.
Texas Western beat Kentucky to win the 1966 national title.
Texas Western started five blacks.
Kentucky started five whites.
And the win started a revolution of sorts, but essentially stalled Haskins' career. In other words, his friends were correct. He had won a national title at 36, and yet the job offers didn't come. Instead, all he got was hate mail, negative (and untrue) articles from the media and a campus full of NCAA investigators because, you know, there was no way all those blacks were really attending classes (even though 10 of the 12 players from that championship team earned their degrees).
"He won the national title and didn't get a job offer," Wetzel said by phone late Sunday, still noticeably shaken by the news. "Can you imagine if somebody won the NCAA championship at UTEP now? They'd give him the Lakers job and $15 million a year. But you know how many job offers he got? None."
But do you know how many scholarship offers he created for blacks in the south?
Thousands, according to Nolan Richardson.
"That spring (after the national title in 1966) there were no blacks in the SEC, ACC or Southwest Conference, but right after that (those schools) started recruiting them, and in a hurry," Wetzel said. "(Haskins) told me a story one time that five years (after the national title) he was reading the paper and there was a picture of the All-Southwest Conference team, and they were all black. Just five years later. And Nolan Richardson told me one time that (Haskins) got thousands of black kids scholarships because (the other schools) were scared they were going to lose (if they didn't take the black players). So he forced their hands."
Still, it took decades for the proper notoriety to come. Haskins wasn't elected to the Hall of Fame until 1997, Wetzel's book didn't publish until 2005 and the film by the same name wasn't released until the following year. By then, Haskins had long been retired after compiling a career record of 719-354 in 38 seasons, all of them at Texas Western/UTEP.
"He won a lot of games and had a lot of success but gave up so much personally in terms of wealth, fame and professional opportunities, and he knew it," Wetzel said. "He said 'I know the risks (in starting five blacks) but I'm doing what's right, and that took a lot of courage. I'm 35 with two kids and I don't know if I could do that. Would I give up my career and say I'm going to stay at a smaller place forever just on principle? I don't know. ... But this guy had courage and to me there are not a lot of things basketball coaches have done that are more important than what he did."
http://www.sportsline.com/collegebasketball/story/10966892