People refer to Texas Western-Kentucky as the Brown v. Board of Ed of college basketball

[tannybogus]

On the night of March 19, 1966, Texas Western basketball coach Don Haskins started five African Americans -- known then in popular vernacular as Negroes -- in the national championship game against an all-white team from the University of Kentucky.

Haskins, who died of congestive heart failure Sunday at age 78, would say years later that he started those five players for one reason: He thought it was the best way to win the game. "I wasn't trying to make any kind of statement," he said. "I thought those five guys gave us our best chance to win."

Texas Western was a huge underdog against Kentucky, which was seeking a fifth national title under the legendary coach Adolph Rupp, but the Miners won the game, 72-65. That game is now considered the most important in the history of college basketball because it literally changed the face of the sport.

"I remember walking out afterwards hearing the Kentucky fans saying to one another, 'We need to get some of them,' " Maryland basketball coach Gary Williams said this week. "It wasn't long afterwards that everyone began to recruit them."

Williams was then a 22-year-old Maryland junior. He sat with a teammate, Billy Jones, during the game, which was played at Maryland's Cole Field House. Jones was the first African American to play at Maryland and in the Atlantic Coast Conference.

"I can remember seeing how much it meant to Billy," Williams said. "We were sitting with a lot of Kentucky fans and . . . their tone was almost mocking, as if it was beneath their team to even play the Texas Western guys. That changed as the game went on."

Everything in college basketball was to change after that game. Within three years, Rupp and Kentucky had recruited an African American player, and the entire Southeastern Conference, along with the rest of the ACC, was recruiting black players. Basketball people now refer to Texas Western-Kentucky as the Brown v. Board of Education of college basketball.
<snip>
All that said, it still took guts in the 1960s to recruit black players to a small school in West Texas, travel through the South and play them at segregated schools where they were hooted at and taunted. Haskins grew up in the 1940s in a small town in Oklahoma with "white only" signs on water fountains. One of his best friends was Herman Carr, an African American boy he played basketball with in the schoolyard. Years later, Carr talked about Haskins's shock when he learned there were places his friend wasn't allowed because of the color of his skin.
<snip>
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/10/AR2008091002724_pf.html

Haskins is one of the quiet heroes!:patriot:

[Democrat 4 Ever]

1. I just wish the media or someone would get the whole story straight

Adolph Rupp was about basketball, first, foremost, forever. He wanted to integrate the Kentucky team years earlier for one reason and one reason only - he wanted to put the best possible team on the floor to play his game. I don't think he was a racist but I can't say for sure since I didn't know him personally. What I do remember is that he wanted to recruit the best damn players period - no matter their race. If they could handle a basketball and hit the basket and hustle they were his type of person.

This was the south in the 60s and he was told if he tried to play an African American player their opponents would not take to the floor to play the game. The Kentucky team would be refused lodging, food, they couldn't (wouldn't?) promise the safety of the team in the deep South. Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Louisiana, Florida, Tennessee - they don't call it the Southeastern Conference for nothing. The commissioner and the teams of the SEC flatly refused to allow black players. That Kentucky ended up playing Texas Western in the finals and it was a black vs white contest is the stuff of myth and misinformation of a MSM looking for a story to write about and to create false legends. Kentucky was outplayed that day in March 1966 but it wasn't because it was a good vs evil, racism vs integration game.

Yeah, I'm a Kentucky fan and that shtick just gets old after 42 years of people re-writing history to sell a few papers.

[tannybogus]

2. Rationalize much?

You contradicted yourself. If the SEC teams and commissioner refused to allow black players, it was racism. Haskins took his teams all over the South,

and they experienced the full brunt of racism. Haskins got shitrolled then because of playing an all black lineup. It was a fluke that it ended up being

Kentucky vs Texas Western. Kentucky was the perfect foil for a story. All-white Southern team coached by a racist, Adolph Rupp. That Rupp was a racist

has never been explicitly proven. Would the story have been as big if it hadn't been Kentucky? Probably not, but it would have still been historical.

What Haskins did that night and with during his career was groundbreaking. He deserves credit for it because it was courageous. You're pissed because it

happened to be Kentucky, and they have been unfairly singled out as if they were the only team with no black players. Be pissed and point out that Kentucky

wasn't alone, but don't try to blow off Haskins and his team as just another made up story. It was all too real.