Dan Koeck for The New York Times . COLLEGE PARK, Md., March 19 -- Texas Western, overlooked in preseason ratings last December, became the collegiate basketball champion for the first time by whipping long-time powerful Kentucky, 72-65, tonight in the final of the National Collegiate Athletic Association . Haskins contends he doesn't recall the incident, but Ray spoke of their Oklahoma City, which came into this game averaging 99.2 points per game, raced away to an 11-2 lead and led 20-9 with 13:33 left in the opening half. After the game, he refused to congratulate or shake hands with the players. Watch the 1966 NCAA Championship game now and you'll 2 transfer Max Abmas commits to Texas. He did his best to always reiterate that skin color was never an issue when he put his Miners on the floor with the highly favored Wildcats. Texas Western edged Fresno State 75-73 on Friday night, Dec. 17, 1965 with an injured Bobby Joe Hill watching from the sidelines. UTEP outrebounded South Dakota 65-35. The Miners, now 25-1 on the season, rallied from a 42-36 halftime deficit and were tied 69-69 with Cincinnati at the end of regulation. On March 19, 1966, fans packed Cole Field House in College Park, Maryland, to watch the matchup between Kentucky and Texas Western. The Miners improved to 20-0 on the season and coach Don Haskins got his 100th career victory against only 25 losses. As the 1960s were an explosion of unrest, Pat Riley said college basketball at the time was"the toy department of human affairs when it compared to what was going on in society.". Hill led the Miners with 18 points. For the first time that night, on the edge of the Mason-Dixon Line, a major Orsten Artis had 15, Nevil Shed and David Lattin had 13 points each. The Miners were playing and winning their third road game in four outings on this Saturday night in south Texas. snapped. Florida State started five number of blacks on college teams jumped from 2.9 to 5.7. 19, 1966, Texas Western College and the University of Kentucky met in the men's college basketball championship game. "(Rupp) jumped up and called timeout, (and) as they were coming off the In the 60s, many people believed black men would not be able to handle the pressure of playing at a collegiate level. Texas Western's Streak Is Over : NPR TWC went on to lead 40-19 at the half on the way to improving to 10-0 on the season. Kentucky," wrote the Sun's James H. Jackson. Seattle University held off the final Miner onslaught to defeat Texas Western 74-72 Saturday night, March 5, 1966, to end the undefeated season in front of 11,557 fans in Seattle. It wasn't until December of 1970 that a Rupp team first dressed a black The "borrowed" alligator is then placed in Professor Quinn's Geology office. ", 1966: TWC rallies to rout Oklahoma City, 89-74. [1] The Miners only lost one game, a road loss to Seattle by two points. I told him you should write a book.. And, of course, the Miner defense was in full fury, holding South Dakota to just 23.8 percent shooting. The squad also had four Anglo-Americans (Jerry Armstrong, Louis Baudoin, Dick Meyers, and Togo Railey and one Mexican-American Dave Palacio). He called the Texas Western players "loose-jointed Star of the West. One of the reasons were still talking about it is something Pat Riley said one time, Lattin said. It had been a year since the voting rights marches from Selma to. Iowa narrowly avoided an upset at the hands of Arkansas as Gerry Jones got a tip in at the buzzer for the victory. UTEP Library Research Guides: UTEP History: Timeline The further we got away from the game, the more it was talked about.. Texas Western, 19-0, and Kentucky, 20-0, were the only two undefeated teams in the nation at this point. Bobby Joe Hill had 18, Willie Worsley 12 and David Lattin had 11. Learn how your comment data is processed. Texas Western's journey to the 1966 NCAA championship was depicted in the 2006 film Glory Road. Your email address will not be published. In 1966 his team won the NCAA tournament over the Wildcats of the University of Kentucky, coached by Adolph Rupp. Who did the Texas Western Miners lose to Seattle or Tulsa? "`They can do everything with "It was a thrill for meI'm kind of a young punkand to play a game with Mr. Rupp is quite an honor, let alone win it," Haskins, 36, told reporters after the game. "I wasn't out to be a pioneer when we played Kentucky," Haskins told The Los Angeles Times later in his career. He cut to the middle of the court, went high just in front of the top of the circle and, on the dead run, drained the game winner. Texas Western took an early lead and never relinquished it on its way to a national championship. The Team - University of Texas at El Paso Throughout the season, the Texas Western players faced racial discrimination and bullying. Later in his career, he signed 7-foot-2 Black center Tom Payne. Curiously, while Oswald had been prodding Rupp, Texas Western president Rapoport said former Georgetown coach John Thompson recalled Texas Western-Kentucky wasnt a big deal in the black community. "Isay it with love becauseyou couldn't tell the 12th person from the No. "The beating was sound as well as thrilling," Frank Deford wrote in a "Sports Illustrated" story at the end of March 1966. Arizona State cut the lead to 62-61 with five minutes remaining. 1966. It was a Landmark Night. David Lattin had nine points, four rebounds before fouling out with still 9:33 left to play in the game. Texas Western, an independent from remote El Paso, was little known The bigger change, of course, came in the South. ". The Miners, on the strength of their 86-68 win over No. Three were from New York; two from El Paso; and two from Gary, Indiana. Whether it happened or not, five The 1965-66 Texas Western Miners basketball team represented Texas Western College, now known as the University of Texas El Paso (UTEP). It should have been done a long time ago as far as the commitments to all the blacks being successful. It was March 19, 1966, the night a team with five black starters made history by winning a national championship. Dave Lattin played center, and his grandson plays Saturday for Oklahoma. After the NCAA championship, Haskins received more than 40,000 pieces of hate mail for starting five Black players, he latertold theL.A. Times. quickly. The team was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2007 It still matters because race is still prevalent in the American eye.. Texas Western, playing its third game in six days, traveling from Tucson to Albuquerque and back to Memorial Gym, edged Arizona State 69-67 Monday night, Feb. 14, 1966. Friends noted that even as he was dying with cancer in a Lexington hospital Lattin had 24 points, 12 in each half, and 13 rebounds despite fouling out with 7:44 left in the game to lead the Miners to their fourth win of the season. For the next four years he was at Texas Western, the woman would pick up Worsley every Sunday from campus and take him to her house for dinner. The team was coached by Hall of Famer Don Haskins. Rupp, who retired in 1972 with a 876-190 record, won four national championships and one NIT title. On hisside of the track, literally right by the track, there was a basketball goal. The Miner defense was again strong, holding the Wildcats to just 36.4 percent shooting from the field. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Orsten Artis had 14 points, seven rebounds and Willie Worsley had 14 points and Harry Flournoy had seven rebounds. And yet, that game did more to bring a country together than those young players knew at the time. 1 Kentucky. "Rod Hundley, the former West Virginia and Lakers star, had the funny But before Haskins arrived in El Paso for the 1961season, the college had already been recruiting Black players. When you do something for someone else, its a legacy that lasts forever.. What happened to the 1966 Texas Western basketball team? "We have to cross the aisle. "Hell no. His only defeat in an NCAA title game haunted Rupp. But does the film ("Glory Road" is being released by Disney, the parent company of . The team won the national championship in 1966, becoming the first team with an all-black starting lineup to do so. He was also certain his team would secure the championship. 1966: AP rates TWC ninth in poll; Miners Defeat Tulsa. On the Miners' second possession, he took a pass from Bobby Joe Hill and, player, Tom Payne. It was one of those Southern states that had through the years enforced widespread segregation. Antonio Brown Tweets Pic Of Himself In A Baltimore Ravens Uniform. In fact, "No longer couldthe excuse be used that Blacks were not smart enough, were undisciplined, could not work under pressure,could not follow directions and were not equipped to function on our own," Flournoy, a Texas Western starting five from Gary, Ind., wrotein his biography for the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. They are TWC also led by seven points in the final half but Colorado State refused to go away. And three years before Rupp told reporters five Black players couldn't beat five white players, the Alabama National Guard forced Gov. They cruised on to take a 40-26 halftime lead. It was like they just sat there, 'What are we going to write about?'". "We played the most intelligent, the most boring, the most those racist myths. "The running, gunning Texas But it was on the boards that the Miners truly dominated this game. Coach Don Haskins, second from left, and Texas Western players celebrate after winning the 1966 NCAA basketball . Writing a decade later in his book, "Sports in America", James Michener The Miners, coming off a 21-day break for semester exams, picked up where they left off in steamrolling the Sun Devils. It was the second big upset of the day. The Miners held Tulsa to just 37.7 percent shooting from the field. Oklahoma City opened with a flurry but Texas Western finished with a flurry. In an arena filled with white cheerleaders, referees, and officials, it seemed impossible that an all-black team just won the NCAA title. ragamuffins. Technical and creative licensing issues aside, the movie is important because it exposes the story of the team that endured racism and changed the face of college basketball to a wider audience, paying homage to an accomplishment that would radically alter the face of NCAA hoops. We were successful in kicking their booty., After Texas Westerns 72-65 victory over Kentucky, there was virtually no mention in the media about race. Wallace, who a year later at Vanderbilt became the first black basketball of Rupp's 1,066 games at Kentucky, in March of 1972, his team lost to Hill made one more free throw in the closing seconds and Cincinnati's heave from past midcourt was not close. Bobby Joe Hill led the Miners with 20 points. Orsten Artis led the Miners with 22 points. Linda Brown From Historic Brown v. Board Case Passes Away, Did Somebody Say Sweep? Those words, though, he never once felton the court in that game. Utah's Jerry Chambers was the Final Four's Most Outstanding Player and the tournament's leading scorer with 143 points. Until that moment, at the height of the civil-rights era, no major-college team had ever started five blacks in an NCAA championship game. Artis made seven-of-eight shots from the field and four-for-four from the free throw line. The Miners, who have already been selected for the NCAA Tournament, have only one regular season game left, a Saturday night date at the University of Seattle. The crowd is white. David Lattin led the Miners with 29 points. Ten players in laughably short pants move slowly through 40 minutes of 11 important details you might not know about UTEP's historic - NCAA I know we didnt approach the game thinking about race, and I dont think the Kentucky team approached it as a racial game either., Texas Western player: Don Haskins was prejudiced. Miner coach Don Haskins substituted liberally and used 10 players in the game. That just didn't happen in those days of college basketball. Lattin and roommate Bobby Joe Hill sitting on their beds. All-white leagues like the Atlantic Coast Conference, Southwestern Conference, and Southeastern Conference became integrated within the next two years. Worsleywas a 5-6 basketball phenom, an only child raised by a single mother who cleaned the floors and bathrooms of white people's houses and workeda second job at a Chinese restaurant. Follow and read more from Jon Solomon on Facebook and Twitter. the basketball but sign it. The Miners then turned on the gas, cutting the deficit to 10 points with 6:58 to go. Don Haskins - Wikipedia Kentucky was all-white again. Texas Western met that Saturday night, March 19, 1966, in the University of Throughout the season, the Texas Western players faced racial discrimination and bullying. TWC improved to 11-0 on the season, leaving the Miners and the University of Kentucky as the only two undefeated teams in the nation perhaps a bit foreshadowing. 7 Related Question Answers Found. 2023, A&E Television Networks, LLC. Nevil Shed led Texas Western with 23 points. Essentially, the final game pitted Kentucky's offense against Texas Western's defense, and it was the defense that held up.". Orsten Artis had 16, Bobby Joe Hill 14, Willie Cager 12, David Lattin 10 and Harry Flournoy 10. until Texas Western coach Don Haskins did it earlier that season, no 1965: Texas Western shocks Iowa in Sun Meet final. superior rebounding stifled Kentucky. Kentucky was a prohibitive favorite in the 1966 national championship game: think Sonny Liston versus Cassius Clay in Miami in 1964, Mike Tyson against Buster Douglass in Tokyo in 1990 and 40th Street Black versusBootney FarnsworthinLets Do It Again. A Championship in 1966 Was a Step for Integration The Miners advanced to play Kansas Saturday night, March 12, 1966, in the Midwest Regional finals. A 1996 New York Times article noted that Stan Isaacs of Newsday was a notable exception when he wrote this of Texas Western: All of the first seven are Negroes. Then he walked out of my room.". A crowd of 7,800, featuring many Miner fans, watched the game in the Lubbock Municipal Auditorium. But it was not to be. '", "The Miners, who don't worry much about defense but try to pour the ball 1 person. David Lattin led Texas Western to a comfortable 74-63 win over Weber State Tuesday night, Dec. 14, in front of 3,875 fans in Memorial Gym. The team was presented with keys to the city of El Paso. Texas Western held on to outlast UTAH 85-78 Friday night in the NCAA semifinals in front of 14,253 fans in Cole Field House in College Park, Md. This guy could jump out of the gym. They won their games by an average of 15.2 points. Bobby Joe Hill had 20 points and Orsten Artis added 18. player in the Southeastern Conference. The score was tied at 72-72 with two minutes to play. Haskins coached until 1999, never reaching another Final Four.

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