Lattin isn'ttalking about a team of white Kentucky players. "The players were just out there, doing what we were doing. He had never been on a plane. That was exciting for him to do that, Armstrong said. Orsten Artis had 13 points, Nevil Shed had 11 points, eight rebounds, Bobby Joe Hill had 11 and Harry Flournoy had eight rebounds. Texas Western won 72-65 in the title game. It looks more like Heading into the 1966 NCAA semifinals -- this was before the corporate and catchy Final Four -- the prevailing opinion was that the second semifinal between Kentucky and Duke would decide the national champion. The team won the national championship in 1966, becoming the first team with an all-black starting lineup to do so. A pool-shooting hustler from Enid, Okla., Haskins was a pragmatist on That was about it. Did The Flock Sign Him Or Does He Have A New Trolling Target. David Lattin added 11 points and Bobby Joe Hill had 10. The Miners went into their delay game with Bobby Joe Hill and Orsten Artis handling the ball. Theydid it againstKentucky's all-white squad. "No one from Kentucky ever said anything racist. TWC led just 29-22 at the half but shot 60 percent from the field in the final 20 minutes and outscored Nevada 57-27 in front of 3,600 fans. "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. Don Haskins, 78; basketball coach was first to win NCAA title with 5 section: | slug: significance-of-texas-westerns-1966-ncaa-title-not-realized-at-first | sport: collegebasketball | route: article_single.us | Claiborne, who was Dukes first black basketball player and became a business professor at Texas Southern. David Lattin had 16 points, 15 rebounds. Unusual for its time, the NCAA broadcast the game in black and white on TV, as the New York Times reports. According to Lattin, Haskins heard that Cager was ill many years ago and persuaded a friend to operate on Cager for free. A white woman from Queens saw his confusion. Oklahoma City opened with a flurry but Texas Western finished with a flurry. True Story Of Glory Road: Texas Western Shocks Kentucky In 1966 The year after winning the title, the school became the University of Texas-El Paso (UTEP). quickly. For the first time that night, on the edge of the Mason-Dixon Line, a major Native people lived in what is now Texas more than 10,000 years ago, as evidenced by the discovery of the remains of prehistoric Leanderthal Lady.In 1519, the arrival of the first Spanish conquistadors in the region of North America now known as Texas found the region occupied by numerous Native American tribes. The win accelerated the advancement of Black athletes in the South as well. On the other side of the track sat another goal. 2 transfer Max Abmas commits to Texas. According to longtime Kentucky assistant Harry Lancaster's autobiography, In College Park, Maryland onMarch 19, 1966,underdog Texas Western College defeats Kentucky, 72-65, in the NCAA mens college basketball finalthefirst NCAA title for an all-Black starting five. It was the second big upset of the day. Bobby Joe Hill had 18, Willie Worsley 12 and David Lattin had 11. That shouldnt be significant one way or the other, except that many people make it noteworthy with snickers about the ethnic makeup of the team.. 1965: Texas Western shocks Iowa in Sun Meet final. "Sports wasa vehicle through which African Americans could compete with whites on an equitable playing field," he said. Watch the 1966 NCAA Championship game now and you'll Game Writeup - by Gordon S. White, Jr.,New York Times. "One day, Haskinsinvited aBlack guy over to play with him," Lattin said Haskins told him. Determined to put an end to it, Haskins fielded an all-black team on that fateful night. Browse 69 texas western 1966 photos and images available, or start a new search to explore more photos and images. At Northern colleges, where the unwritten rule for coaches had been, "Two Texas Western made 17 of 25 second-half shots to race away from West Texas State Thursday night, Feb. 24, 1966, in front of a sellout crowd of 3,700 in Canyon, Texas. [1] The Miners only lost one game, a road loss to Seattle by two points. player in the Southeastern Conference. "They didn't know what to write. The name Texas derives from tysha, a word in the Caddoan language of the . major-college team had ever started five blacks in ANY game. How about that? Nevil Shed had 16 points, 12 rebounds. The Miners shot 50.8 percent from the field and held the Aggies to just 34.1 percent. They quickly realized it would not be an ordinary game of basketball when five white Wildcats and five black Miners stepped on the court. "I wasn't out to be a pioneer when we played Kentucky," Haskins told The Los Angeles Times later in his career. 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. "(Lattin) said, `Take that you white honky,'" recalled Riley. 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. Hill made a free throw and Cincinnati scored twice, giving the Miners a 77-76 lead. Kansas scored again but Cager took a pass from Hill inside and scored and the Miners were up 81-75. At the games end, Rupp was defeated and humiliated by the loss, reports the Washington Post. 1966: Seattle wins, 74-72, to end Miner string. Bobby Joe Hill led the Miners with 24 points. David Lattin led the Miners with 29 points. Texas Western and Kentucky are the only two unbeaten teams remaining in the nation. quintet can do more things with a basketball than a monkey on a 50-foot ESPN Classic - Texas Western's 1966 title left lasting legacy quasi-professionals imported from Northern cities to win Haskins a Texas Western edged Fresno State 75-73 on Friday night, Dec. 17, 1965 with an injured Bobby Joe Hill watching from the sidelines. Star of the West. of a bitch is ordering me to get some niggers in here. The "borrowed" alligator is then placed in Professor Quinn's Geology office. He always blamed the loss on a flu bug, on inept shooting, on the referees, Its not really a book, its more like a pamphlet, Lattin said. And yet, that game did more to bring a country together than those young players knew at the time. That win accelerated the advancement of black athletes in the South. Then he walked out of my room." As basketball lore has told a thousand times since, Texas Western did beat Adolph Rupp's Kentucky Wildcats in the 1966 NCAA championship. The Shadow League is a narrative company. Texas Western defeats Kentucky in NCAA final - History For weeks Don Haskins had splitting headachesfrightful, bursting pains that seemed to cleave his brain. "I call it a watershed moment in college athletics. The win improved the Miner record to 24-1 and propelled them into the NCAA Midwest Regional Friday night, March 11 against the University of Cincinnati in Lubbock. "Hell no. The team was coached by Hall of Famer Don Haskins. Joseph Ray tried to move Haskins in the opposite direction. Haskins fumed at his counterpart's reaction. Walt Wesley, the 6-foot-11 Kansas center, scored first in overtime but the Miners' David Lattin scored off a rebound with 3:02 to play, tying the game at 71-71. Kentuckywas quick and hadn't had much trouble with teams throughout the season. 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. outside the Southwest despite its 27-1 record and its No.3 ranking. All Rights Reserved. David Lattin had 18 points, Hill 17, Orsten Artis 16, Nevil Shed 12 and Harry Flournoy 11 as the Miners outscored the Bulldogs 49-33 in the second half. Shed had 11 and Harry Flournoy had 10 points, 10 rebounds. Basketball is long gone from Cole, which was built for boxing, became one of the most storied basketball arenas, and now is transitioning into a football indoor practice facility. The Miners shot just 30.3 percent from the field but outrebounded the Rams 48-31. He didnt treat African-American guys differently than white guys.. Orsten Artis led the Miners with 22 points. Later in his career, he signed 7-foot-2 Black center Tom Payne. He was so good. Kentuckys well-regarded coach, Adolph Rupp, was known for being racist. What If: Duke Had Played Texas Western In 1966 Instead Of Kentucky? Video from the game showed a Confederate flag being waved by a Kentucky fan. No.1-ranked Kentucky, meanwhile, was the run-and-gun team. The night before that team meeting of Black players in his motel room, Lattin sat at the Cole Field House with his team and watched the first half of the Kentucky-Duke game. Ten players in laughably short pants move slowly through 40 minutes of Riley had never heard of Texas Western, so he was shocked when the Wildcats lost. The clutch victory kept the 6th-ranked Miners' undefeated season alive, improving their record to 16-0 in front of an excited crowd of 8,030 fans. Texas Western, 19-0, and Kentucky, 20-0, were the only two undefeated teams in the nation at this point. Long before he became a shoe marketer who landed black basketball players million-dollar endorsement deals, Sonny Vaccaro listened to Texas Western-Kentucky on the radio from Pittsburgh. The team was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2007 I didnt say I dislike these guys. Now-President of the Miami Heat, Riley explained, I just went immediately, quickly through there, said what I had to say and left them to have their moment. "For that moment in (19)66, it was simply about winning a national championship. The victory, according to sportswriters, analysts and prognosticators was a watershed event because it encouraged other predominantly white schools to recruit African-American players, ending years of shameful and evil segregation. BHM 2019: The Story of Texas Western's Historic 1966 National Title - SLAM and a great villain must meet. Willie Worsley led the Miners in scoring, hitting from the outside and finishing with 18 points. 1965: Miners take second win over Fresno State. "The only other thing he said was, 'It's up to you.' memory of that game to his grave," wrote his biographer, Russell Rice. Brawl Erupts In Handshake Line After High School Baseball Game Over Broom Taunt, Former NBA Player Dante Exum Gets Body-Slammed And Dropped In Brawl During Euroleague Playoffs. The 196566 Texas Western basketball team faced many issues due to racism. The crowd is white. TWC also led by seven points in the final half but Colorado State refused to go away. Texas Western smothered Tulsa defensively on Monday night, Jan. 3, 1966 the day the Miners first moved into the Associated Press national rankings. "The beating was sound as well as thrilling," Frank Deford wrote in a "Sports Illustrated" story at the end of March 1966. Texas Western vs. Kentucky: 1966 National Championship | FULL GAME This was a landmark night and although the 1954 Brown vs Board of Education decision and Civil Rights Act of 1964 outlawed racial segregation in the public school system, it was still common to find all-white college sports teams, particularly in the South. What am I going to Their The Miners nursed the lead, pulling ahead to stay when Hill converted cheated by using ineligible players. Texas Western, ranked 6th in the nation, ripped New Mexico State 104-78 in front of a standing room only crowd of 5,201 in Memorial Gym on Tuesday night, Feb. 1, 1966. It wasn't a racial issue at the time. Keep acting nonchalant. blacks continued to start for the Miners. The two teams finished regulation tied at 67-67. Texas Western met that Saturday night, March 19, 1966, in the University of He loved us.". ", This page was last edited on 26 March 2023, at 11:13. 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. "It's just one of those things that sticks out to me about that game.". "It was quite clear after March 1966 that Southern basketball teams would I covered Texas Western's win over Kentucky. Here's how I saw history. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. It'slike a Jackie Robinson moment,"said Derrick Gragg, the NCAA's senior vice president for inclusion, education and community engagement. Kentucky was all-white again. Hill led the Miners in scoring with 15 points. They werent some unheard of team that came out of nowhere, as Haskins had led them to two previous NCAA Tournaments. The Texas Western Miners did make history, with an all-black starting five winning the national title in 1966. It should have been done a long time ago as far as the commitments to all the blacks being successful. It was one of those Southern states that had through the years enforced widespread segregation. UTEP outrebounded South Dakota 65-35. Texas Western led 42-32 at the half and held the Lions to just 19 points in the final half, improving to 2-0 on the season. It wasn't until December of 1970 that a Rupp team first dressed a black Overview Texas was annexed by the United States in 1845 and became the 28th state. 1965-66 Texas Western Miners men's basketball team READ MORE: Linda Brown From Historic Brown v. Board Case Passes Away. Bobby Joe Hill went the length of the floor to hit a jumper at the buzzer, leading Texas Western to a 68-66 win over Colorado State Friday night, Feb. 4, 1966, in Fort Collins, Colo. Haskins replied, Same way I do white guys.. Seattle, Wash. -Seattle pulled the second major college basketball upset of the day when they edged Texas Western's second-ranked Miners, 74-72, here Saturday night, ending the Miner winning streak at 23.Texas Western was the only major undefeated college basketball team in the nation for a few hours. On Mar. "We didn't see Black and white. Through the years, before his death in 2008, Haskins repeatedlysaid he didn't play an all-Black starting five to make a social statement. 1966: TWC squeaks by CSU, 68-66, for 16th straight. Tulsa, which came into this game with a 10-1 record, kept the game close early on. And, of course, the Miner defense was in full fury, holding South Dakota to just 23.8 percent shooting. I wasnt out to be a pioneer when we played Kentucky, Texas Western coach Don Haskins told the Los Angeles Times years later. W. Stewart in the Baltimore Sun that weekend. But that wasnt the same thing as President (Lyndon) Johnson), Cager said. Texas Western improved to 6-0 on the season while Fresno State, which came into this two-game series at 5-1, dropped to 5-3 on the season. Thats when people started talking about it, Lattin said. "I was simply playing the best players on the team, and they happened to be Black.". It was discouraging, but you had to consider the source.. "(He said) `You The Wildcats were the favorite to win, despite the Miners 23-0 season. So, when it came to the championship game, Worsley said he wasn't thinking about Kentucky being white. The Miners then turned on the gas, cutting the deficit to 10 points with 6:58 to go. 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. The 1965-66 Texas Western Miners basketball team was headed by Hall of Fame head coach Don Haskins and represented Texas Western College, now the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP). Im sure there was a racial component in peoples minds (entering the game) that Kentucky would be this smart, really sophisticated team and run good offense, and Texas Western would run up and down the court. 1 ranked Kentucky team 72-65. pic.twitter.com/Lmk67DtL3o. 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 . 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. stupid sons of bitches!' It was what I had done all year.. Texas Western, ranked 6th in the nation, extended its unbeaten streak to 13-0 making the Miners one of only two unbeaten teams in the nation and, unknowingly, keeping them on a collision course with 13-0 Kentucky in the national championship game. Two years later, Payne had left, and Kentucky was In a 1991 Sports Illustrated article commemorating the 25th anniversary of the game, author Curry Kirkpatrick described Haskins screaming at one of his black players, Bobby Joe Hill, and sitting him out of practice the day before the 1966 NCAA semifinals. Riley referred to the night as the Emancipation Proclamation of 1966.. Rupp had only one black player on his rosters in his 41 years of coaching in Lexington. "Hell, he'd Afterward, he realized he hadnt shaken hands with his worthy opponents. Orsten Artis made 11-of-12 free throws and led the Miners with 19 points. In fact, the nucleus had been on campus for a while, winning 18 games the year before while qualifying for the NIT in 1965. But it was not enough for the Jayhawks. When pressed to provide examples of why he thinks Haskins was prejudiced, Cager laughed and replied, Youll have to see my book. Cager said he is releasing a book in a couple weeks. It was totally different from my perspective. MINERS WIN, 72-65. Just about treating people kindly. [5] and inspired the book and film Glory Road. Battle of Fort Sumter. Cager later made two free throws to give Texas Western a 76-72 lead. Hill and Shed led the Miners for the entire game, each scoring 20 points and neither playing a great deal in the final half. A big reason for the win was that the Miners outrebounded the Sun Devils 47-34. "And I guess there is a certain justice to that. In fact, This is the most important college game ever played? They cruised on to take a 40-26 halftime lead. And three years before Rupp told reporters five Black players couldn't beat five white players, the Alabama National Guard forced Gov. Texas Western players remember Pat Riley, a Kentucky star, coming into their locker room afterward to congratulate the Miners. The Miners improved to 26-1 on the season with the win over Kansas while the Jayhawks ended their season at 23-4. "`Nigger ball' they used to call it. Texas Western, an independent from remote El Paso, was little known The Miners, coming off a 21-day break for semester exams, picked up where they left off in steamrolling the Sun Devils. A crowd of just over 5,000 gathered at Las Cruces High more than half of them Miner fans to watch TWC improve to 23-0 on the season. They came from the inner cities of Detroit and Houston, and from rural areas in Missouri and Kansas. Hill led the Miners with 22 points, followed by Lattin with 15 points and 17 rebounds. The Miners never trailed and led this game 45-21 at the half on their way to setting up a meeting with Nevada in Wednesday night's championship game. Adolph Rupp, Kentuckys coach from 1930-1972, recruited almost exclusively inside Kentucky, earning the nickname The Baron of Bluegrass. Like many other coaches of the era, Rupp did not recruit African American players. If we could have just gone over and shook their hands. What happened to the 1966 Texas Western basketball team? were reluctant to play for him. In 1955, Texas Western was the first state college in Texas to integrate its undergraduate classes. Now hes saying this again? The win was the Miner's fifth of the season without a loss at Memorial Gym Friday night. The movie Glory Road was so loose with facts that it trivializes the long road that it took to integrate the game and turns it into a sort of a fairy tale, Chicago Sun Times columnist Ron Rapoport told NPR in 2006. probably never crossed Don's mind," said his assistant, Moe Iba. Texas Western College, now UTEP, defeated the University of Kentucky. Kansas held for the last shot but turned it over. Two years before Texas Western went on a 37-minute stretch hitting 26 of 27 shots in that NCAA championship game, Martin Luther King had given hisI Have A Dream speech. "and He was just coaching the only way he knew how. A rematch between the two teams was played at 8 p.m. on Saturday, the following day, in Memorial Gym. meeting in an interview for the oral-history project at Texas Western, now