ESPN Classic - Texas Western's 1. Watch the 1. 96. 6 NCAA Championship game now and you'll. This is the most important college game ever played? It looks more like. Princeton- Dartmouth on a Friday night in January. Ten players in laughably short pants move slowly through 4. There's not much drama, very little passion, and, in. The NCAA title game had yet to morph into March Madness when Kentucky and. Texas Western met that Saturday night, March 1. University of. Maryland's Cole Field House. There was so little madness surrounding the. 1966 NCAA Basketball Champions Texas Western now called UTEP or The University of Texas at El Paso. American cities. But examine the grainy film more closely. The crowd is white. So are the. NCAA officials, the referees, the coaches, the cheerleaders and almost all. High in the bleachers, Kentucky fans wave a. The 1965-1966 Texas Western Miners from El Paso, Texas, led by Coach Don Haskins had a historic year. The Miners ended the regular season at 23-1 and went on to win a. On this day in History, Texas Western defeats Kentucky in NCAA finals on Mar 19, 1966. Learn more about what happened today on History. Texas Western's 1966 Championship Game Roster: Texas Western College Miners FG FT RB F Pts. Kentucky, Texas Western and the Game That Changed American Sports. Game Writeup - by Gordon S. White, Jr., New York Times. Texas Western Upsets Kentucky for N.C.A.A. Title. MINERS WIN, 72-65. COLLEGE PARK, Md., March 19 -- Texas. Amazon.com: 1966 Texas Western/Kentucky: Pat Riley, Don Haskins, David Lattin, Bobby Joe Hill, Harry Flourney, Willie Cager, Willie Worsley, Nevil Shed, Louis Dampier. ALSO SEE Chat wrap with coach Don Haskins Is Jesse Jackson out of his league? Wednesday, November 19, 2003 Texas Western's 1966 title left lasting legacy. 1966 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament; Teams: 22: Finals site: Cole Field House College Park, Maryland: Champions: Texas Western (1st title, 1st title game. 1966 Texas Western vs Kentucky (3) macomoto. Subscribe Subscribed Unsubscribe 83 83. 1966 Texas Western College NCAA Champs 20th reunion part 1. Confederate flag as the Wildcats' five white players line up for the opening. Then history steps into the picture. Walking toward the red "M" at center court, in their orange uniforms and. Converse All- Stars, are the five starters for Texas Western. They are. Until that moment, at the height of the civil- rights era, no major- college. NCAA championship game. In fact. until Texas Western coach Don Haskins did it earlier that season, no. ANY game. For the first time that night, on the edge of the Mason- Dixon Line, a major. American sports championship would be contested by one team that was. What a piece of history. If basketball ever took a turn, that was it," said Nolan Richardson, the Arkansas coach. Haskins at Texas Western. Texas Western, an independent from remote El Paso, was little known. Southwest despite its 2. No. 3 ranking. Their. No. 1 Kentucky, coached by the legendary Adolph. Rupp, stunned college basketball and upset conventional wisdom. In 1. 96. 6, American cultural and sporting mythology insisted at least one. Black athletes, prevailing wisdom. Otherwise, games. There was a certain style of play whites expected from blacks," said Perry. Wallace, who a year later at Vanderbilt became the first black basketball. Southeastern Conference. Nigger ball' they used to call it. Whites then thought that if you put five blacks on the court at the same. Sportswriters who had never seen Texas Western play until that weekend and. Rod Hundley, the former West Virginia and Lakers star, had the funny. Texas Western," wrote John. W. Stewart in the Baltimore Sun that weekend. They can do everything with. The Miners, who don't worry much about defense but try to pour the ball. Kentucky," wrote the Sun's James H. Jackson. "The running, gunning Texas. In fact, the opposite was true. Texas Western walked the ball up court, ran. We were more white- oriented than any of the other teams in the Final. Four (Duke and Utah were the others)," said Texas Western guard Willie. Worsley. "We played the most intelligent, the most boring, the most. No. 1- ranked Kentucky, meanwhile, was the run- and- gun team. Rupp's Runts. featuring future NBA coach Pat Riley, future ESPN broadcaster Larry Conley. Louie Dampier, were small, quick and athletic. And, like all of coach. Adolph Rupp's teams, they ran at every opportunity. That night, to the surprise of almost everyone, Texas Western's defense and. Kentucky. The Wildcats, whose only previous loss. Tennessee (on the same day Seattle beat Texas Western), shot. But even as the jubilant Miners celebrated a new set of myths was emerging. Rupp's lingering bitterness helped paint the Miners as urban street thugs. Northern cities to win Haskins a. Writing a decade later in his book, "Sports in America", James Michener. American sports. He called the Texas Western players "loose- jointed. Hopelessly outclassed (by Rupp's pristine Kentucky program).". That, again, was nearly opposite the reality. Of Texas Western's seven black players - - the Miners also had four whites. Hispanic, none of whom played that night - - four graduated. The other. three came within a semester of their degrees and have not suffered because. David Lattin is an executive with a Houston liquor distributor. Orsten Artis became a detective sergeant in Gary, Ind., and Bobby Joe Hill. El Paso Natural Gas Co. Meanwhile, though it was never mentioned until decades later, by the. Kentucky's five starters, including Dampier and Riley. The game began with a message. Informed by Haskins that Rupp had vowed five. Texas Western center David Lattin had a. On the Miners' second possession, he took a pass from Bobby Joe Hill and. Haskins had suggested, slammed a forceful dunk over Kentucky's Riley. Lattin) said, `Take that you white honky,'" recalled Riley. It was a. violent game. I don't mean there were any fights - - but they were desperate. The Miners nursed the lead, pulling ahead to stay when Hill converted. Kentucky's guards. Those two layups gave the Miners. They never trailed again. Rupp) jumped up and called timeout, (and) as they were coming off the. Eddie. Mullens, then Texas Western's sports- information director. He said) `You. stupid sons of bitches!' He just couldn't take it.". His only defeat in an NCAA title game haunted Rupp. He) carried the. memory of that game to his grave," wrote his biographer, Russell Rice. Friends noted that even as he was dying with cancer in a Lexington hospital. He always blamed the loss on a flu bug, on inept shooting, on the referees. Texas Western somehow had. Haskins fumed at his counterpart's reaction. Later that year, when he and. Rupp crossed paths at a sports banquet in Ohio, the younger coach nearly. I had been listening to all this damn crap out of him," said Haskins. I didn't say something to him about it. But I didn't."It was the presence of Rupp, with his four national championships, his. He and his all- white Kentucky program were not only the epitome of college. Haskins and Texas Western. It was as if history demanded that for change finally to occur, a great hero. Rupp and Haskins fit those roles perfectly. In 1. 96. 6, two years after the passage of the Civil Rights Act, SEC. For several years Kentucky president John W. Oswald, realizing changing times and the school's border- state geography. Rupp to recruit a black. According to longtime Kentucky assistant Harry Lancaster's autobiography. Rupp, after his first meeting with Oswald, told Lancaster, "Harry, that son. What am I going to. Still, Rupp held out. His reputation was such that even those black. Kentuckians Butch Beard and Wes Unseld - -. It wasn't until December of 1. Rupp team first dressed a black. Tom Payne. Two years later, Payne had left, and Kentucky was. By then, even deep- South SEC schools like Auburn and. Mississippi had several blacks on their teams. Curiously, while Oswald had been prodding Rupp, Texas Western president. Joseph Ray tried to move Haskins in the opposite direction. Ray suggested. Haskins start at least one white player. Haskins contends he doesn't recall the incident, but Ray spoke of their. Texas Western, now. University of Texas at El Paso. Whether it happened or not, five. Miners. A pool- shooting hustler from Enid, Okla., Haskins was a pragmatist on. While blacks couldn't play at most Southern and Southwestern. Haskins welcomed them at Texas Western, recruiting. New York City, Detroit and Gary, Ind. The fact that he was doing something historic by playing five blacks, that. Don's mind," said his assistant, Moe Iba. Hell, he'd. have played five kids from Mars if they were his best five players.". In the years immediately after Texas Western's title, the integration of. Between 1. 96. 6 and 1. At Northern colleges, where the unwritten rule for coaches had been, "Two. Three on the road. And four when behind", things changed. Blacks now were recruited as reserves as well as starters. Athletes who had. The bigger change, of course, came in the South. In the 1. 96. 6- 6. Southern conference, even the SEC, had integrated basketball teams. It was quite clear after March 1. Southern basketball teams would. Charles Martin. Haskins coached until 1. Final Four. In the last. Rupp's 1,0. 66 games at Kentucky, in March of 1. Florida State. Kentucky was all- white again. Florida State started five. No one will remember him without remembering us," said Texas Western's. Harry Flournoy. "And I guess there is a certain justice to that.".
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