Don Haskins

Don Haskins (http://www.sunbowl.org/donhaskins.jpg)

No, my hero isn’t elegant. He isn’t all that well-spoken. He hates attention. He probably hates that I’m even writing this about him. He doesn’t think he’s done anything special, and that’s one of the things that makes him so great.

Donald Lee Haskins was born on March 14, 1930. He grew up in Enid, Oklahoma. It is there where he played high school basketball and earned all-state status, and was thought to be all-American by many. After high school, he went on to play at Oklahoma A&M (now Oklahoma State) for legendary coach Henry Iba. Haskins first job in coaching came in 1955 when he became the head coach for both guys and girls varsity basketball. He worked at a few different Texas high schools before moving up to head coach at Texas Western College (now University of Texas at El Paso) in 1961.

His first few years, they had some pretty good teams and enjoyed the success. His coaching style was just like Iba’s, and he even had Iba’s son Moe as an assistant. He implemented an all out, full court press all the time. Haskins didn’t believe in holding back, and he demanded his players give their all the entire game or they wouldn’t play at all. He rode them hard at practice. If somebody were to coach a team today like he did then, that coach would automatically be named the new coach for the state penitentiary and he would be spending the rest of his life there. He was strict too, not just about basketball. He didn’t allow players to have moustaches or tattoos. There were multiple times when recruits arrived with facial hair of some sort, and it was gone the very first day because if it wasn’t, they were. Haskins was hated by his players. That is, until they graduated and realized that he armed them with what they needed in life.

It wasn’t until the 1965-1966 season that he really made a name for himself outside of El Paso. Contrary to the movie made about that season (Glory Road) which says that the first time he ever started five black players was the NCAA championship game against the all-white Kentucky team coached by Hall of Famer Adolph Rupp, it really happened earlier in that season. The truth is no one knows exactly what game it was, especially Haskins. To him, none of that mattered. He put the best players he had on the court; it didn’t matter if they were white or black. When they beat Kentucky in that game, the nation was shocked and many were in a state of outrage. Reports came out that his players were exploited and that they weren’t real students. Sports Illustrated specifically came to El Paso and did a report claiming these things. Haskins was furious to say the least. To this day he still hasn’t read that magazine after that issue. He tried to convince his athletic director to sue the magazine and failed. As he puts it in his book Glory Road:

"I deeply, deeply regret that I didn’t file one [a law suit] for myself, but I thought the additional attention was unfair to my players, my school, and my city. This was a mistake and perhaps the biggest regret of my life. I have never forgiven the magazine. Not to this very day. That magazine hurt my players and their parents. And it was wrong."

The 1966 Texas Western team (http://static.userland.com/images/ballin/TexasWestern.jpg)

Obviously, Haskins put his players before himself, and everyone else, too, for that matter. It seemed he never put himself first. As for whether his players weren’t real students, you can decide for yourself with the list of players from the 1966 team and what they went on to do just as it is stated in Glory Road:

"-David Lattin, public relations executive, Houston, Texas

-Bobby Joe Hill, retired executive, El Paso Natural Gas Co., El Paso, Texas. Died 2002

-Harry Flournoy, route sales representative, Bimbo Bakeries USA, El Segundo, California

-Dick Myers, vice president planning and logistics, Coach Leather Inc., New York City

-Nevil Shed, coordinator of student programs for the University Center, University of Texas, San Antonio, Texas

-Willie Worsley, dean of students (retired), Boys Choir of Harlem, New York City, and currently head basketball coach at Spring Valley High School, Spring Valley, New York

-Orsten Artis, lead detective (retired), Gary, Indiana, police department

-Willie Cager, teacher and high school basketball coach (retired), Tornillo, Texas

-Jerry Armstrong, teacher and basketball coach (retired), at multiple high schools in Missouri

-Togo Railey, dual master’s degree, ex-basketball coach, assistant principal (retired), Port Neches-Groves, Texas

-Louis Baudoin, master’s degree in education, high school teacher and coach (retired), Albuquerque, New Mexico

-David Palacio, executive vice president/CFO Univision Music, Los Angeles"

Notice the t-shirt. (http://www.enidnews.com/homepage/local_slideshow_287004216?position=3)

As a whole, schools today don’t have all of their players being that successful, and neither did most schools then.

If I could end up half of the man that Don Haskins is, I would be happy. He was a successful college coach for thirty-eight years. He stayed at one school the entire time excluding the one day in the 1970’s when he agreed to be the head coach at the University of Detroit. He arrived in Detroit and decided it just wasn’t right. He turned right around and headed back to El Paso never to do anything like that again.

For Haskins' poise, integrity, beliefs, skill as a coach, modesty, sense of humor, and any other things you can think of, I respect him. I look up to him as a role model. The way he lived his life, so utterly naïve about the subjects of race, so disciplined, so unwilling to back down, not to mention his great sense of humor, how he managed to maintain all of these traits is beyond me. Aside from these things, Haskins' wife, four sons, and his three grandchildren all would attest to the fact that he was a great family man, even though his job kept him away much of the time.

So despite the fact that he always wore his clip-on tie (well when he walked out of the locker room for a game at least), likes to have a drink every now and then, and in his younger days was a bit of a gambler and a pool shark, the legendary Don Haskins is my hero. He is an inspiration to me. By his example, I hope to accomplish things I never would have dreamed of doing otherwise. For this I thank him. Lastly, I would like to apologize to him for putting him in the spotlight again despite knowing he doesn’t necessarily enjoy it.