Even now, nearly a decade after his last appearance along the Front Range, some half expect Don Haskins to get off the UTEP bus and shuffle into area arenas. He would wear his trademark plaid lumberjack shirt, greet the personnel at the host school, make sure to hug their wives, then change into his uniform – a sport coat, crisp white shirt and clip-on necktie.
“The game couldn’t start until Don took the tie off,” said Kevin McKinney, a longtime Wyoming staffer. “He’s as genuine a human being as I ever met. In this business, sometimes people are not too genuine.”
Today’s movie release of “Glory Road,” chronicling Haskins’ 1966 NCAA championship victory with Texas Western – now UTEP – with an all-black starting lineup against Kentucky’s all-white roster, delivers the saga of a coach long revered throughout the Front Range.
“I’m happy that they made it,” former Colorado State coach Jim Williams said. “It was an interesting game. Kentucky had the reputation and Don went in without the reputation – but we knew him in the West.”
Texas Western barely escaped a brand-new Moby Gym – later renamed Moby Arena – with a 68-66 victory in its championship season.
“The game was tied and one of Haskins’ players told him to give the ball to Bobby Joe Hill and let him go,” Williams said. “And so he did.”
Friendship with opposing coaches as well as referees transcended rivalries back then.
“He would call the night before every time he came into town to play me,” Williams said.
Over a pregame coffee in Haskins’ office in the late 1970s, Haskins and Williams bet who could get ejected first. They picked the wrong referee, however. It didn’t take long for Irv Brown – now a local radio talk-show host – to catch on.
“I told them, ‘If I’m staying, you’re staying,”‘ Brown said. “They understood it was theater. They got after each other and got after the fans.”
New Mexico sports information director Greg Remington recalled the theatrical aspects of a face-mask promotion the Lobos had in the 1980s. Haskins entered The Pit wearing a Lobo mask, much to the delight of the crowd.
“He’s a guy they loved to hate here, but they loved him more than hated him,” Remington said.
A big man, Haskins acquired the nickname “The Bear” as he prowled and growled on the sidelines baiting the referees.
He won his 600th game in Laramie in the early 1990s; ex-Cowboys coach Benny Dees presented him with a game ball. With Haskins’ health an issue, then-CSU coach Stew Morrill wanted to make a presentation before Haskins’ last appearance in Fort Collins in 1998. Upon being told of the plan, Haskins threatened not to show up. The CSU staff sent a bottle of whiskey to his hotel to make sure he did.
Haskins’ teams won 719 games and he took UTEP to 14 NCAA Tournaments. His last NCAA bid came in 1992, when the Miners stunned top-seeded Kansas to advance to the Sweet 16. He was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1997.
Changing jobs could have led to a higher profile, but Haskins found a home in Texas. Brown recalled Haskins accepting the University of Detroit job after the NCAA championship only to scurry back to El Paso four days later.
“He is a pickup truck and pack-of-beer guy,” Brown said.
Despite the Hollywood focus on the 1966 title game, there was remarkably little written on the subject at the time. Internet reprints of game coverage from the El Paso Times and Sports Illustrated carry no mention of racial themes.
Haskins always downplayed the game’s significance, insisting he simply put his five best players on the floor. While the SEC was all-white at the time, most other major conferences had become integrated.
“If I had to do it again, I’d start four black guys and one white guy,” Haskins said on Brown’s radio show Thursday. “Too much has been made of it.”
Staff writer Natalie Meisler can be reached at 303-820-1295 or nmeisler@denverpost.com.
