Texas Western's: Historic Glory on the Hardwood Championship

On March nineteenth, nineteen sixty six, which a turning point in sports when Texas Western started five black players for the first time in a National Basketball Championship game, beating Kentucky, who had an all white team, which changed the sporting world forever and brought civil rights into sports, not only changing the sporting world, but changing the culture of America as well. Here's the story behind this iconic event today on Daily Sports History. Welcome to Daily Sports History. I'm Ethan Reese, your guide to a rapid deep dive into sports history every day. So, Texas Western was a small college in al Paso, and it has since changed its name to the University of Texas Passo. Bet are known as the UTEP, and they weren't really known for sports, and in nineteen sixty one, they hired a former women's basketball coach, Don Haskins. Now, Haskins wasn't the first to recruit black players at Texas Western, It's something they'd been doing for a few years before, but he realized that many black players were going overlooked in the recruiting process and he wanted the best players on his team, no matter the color of their skin. And this wasn't an overnight sensation. It took him four years before he had the team that would eventually go to win the national championship. And it's not like they came out of nowhere. The year before in nineteen sixty six, they were a good team. They went sixteen and nine, but unfortunately didn't do good enough to make the tournament, which at the time only involved twenty two schools. Was much harder to make the big dates, but coming into the sixty five sixty six season, Texas Western had upperclassmen and was ready to go. During the season, they were on a terror, beating teams by an average of fifteen points, and started in the season twenty three to h including a win versus number four Iowa. But their last game of the season was a road game at Seattle versus the University of Seattle, where they lost. A day before the NCAA tournament was to take place, So on March sixth, nineteen sixty six, they played their first NCAA game versus Oklahoma City in Wichita, Kansas, beating them eighty nine to seventy four. They went on to beat the next three opponents, Cincinnati, number four Kansas, and Utah to make it all the way to the national championship game, where they were going to face the number one rate Kentucky. Now, at the time, they were actually ranked third in the nation, so they weren't just an out of nowhere underdog. They had been starting to get more and more publicity as the time went on. Now, three years before this happened, Kentucky coach eight Off Rupp, who's a Hall of Fame coach and one of the best basketball coaches in college basketball history, had said that five black players couldn't beat five white players. And this quote may have been taken out of context, but this quote was fuel for Texas Western. Now. The game took place Coalfield House on the University of Maryland campus in front of over fourteen thousand fans. At the time, they actually had a third place game for the two losers in the semi finals, where Duke beat Utah to win third place. The championship game started at ten PM, and heading into the game, Don Haskins had told his sinner David Latin, to dunk as early as possible in the game to send a message to them and help lead them to a thirty four to thirty one halftime lead. Now Kentucky rallied back with future NBA coach and player Pat Riley leading the way. But Texas Western was too disciplined and they shot twenty seven free throws, only missing one, which helped lead them to a seventy two to sixty five win over Kentucky. This was a great day as the country had been going through many civil fights. Just a year prior, they had the march down in Selma, and two years before doctor Martin Luther King gave his I Have a Dream speech, and now sports was taking the reins. Now, Texas Western continued to be to be a good basketball team with Don Haskins at the helme till the year nineteen ninety nine when you retired, but they were never quite the same and never won downe their championship. But this one time they were center stage and made a statement that changed the basketball world forever. Thank you for joining us today on Daily Sports History. If you like this, please like to subscribe wherever you're at so you don't miss any episodes because they come out every day, so you don't want to miss one. You can come back tomorrow for more Daily Sports History.