Don Haskins on Racism Essay

The final buzzer rang off in Marylands Cole Field House basketball court. Many watched a game of Texas Western miners and Kentucky Wildcats on troop 19th, 1966, and yet close didnt realize they just witnessed sports ethics redefine itself. It was a championship, an all or nonhing statement for the players of Texas Western. The coach of the Miners, Don Haskins, had just won the NCAA title with quint African American starters. They won a mere sports game, but it would prove to be much more than that.A molar of integration, Haskins revolutionized college basketball by the way he indentified a player, by skill and not wring. The 1960s was a time of many cultural controversies that aspired to what America is today. It was not only about Vietnam, the hippie escapades, or the current eight-track of the Beatles. The decade has been dubbed the urbane rights era. Culture was starting to see African American integration from the help of civil rights leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks.How of all time not all heroes argon recognized immediately, and Don Haskins, whether he planned it or not, helped pave the way to equality in sports. in the beginning Haskins started to coach at Texas Western, the college recruited and played African Americans when it was typical for teams to have full-white roster and oppose integration into basketball (Schecter, 1998). No one imagined the day when vanadium sables would start at a pre-dominantly white college. Many whites in truth did not want to have African Americans on their team at all in venerate that it would cause integration through all civil aspects.Frank. Fritzpatrick, author of And the Walls Came Tumbling Down, concurs, When Negroes and whites meet on the athletic fields on a basis of complete equality, it is only natural that this sense of equality carries into the routine living of these people (1999). Once they got on the court, the blacks were still held back and treated unfairly. One of the seven black Miner players, Harry Flournoy, stated All the best players on the team were black, but there was this unvoiced rule that no more than three blacks could play at once.It was rough, but thats the way it was (Schecter, 1998). However, once Haskins came to Texas Western he followed its footsteps of recruiting black players he sought out only the best players while ignoring the color of the players skin. Gathering players around the country, Haskins found skilled African Americans such as David Lattin, Harry Flournoy, and the five opposite players of 1966 title game. Fitzpatrick explains they wound up being the core players for a basketball backwater team from El Paso that would drag the all-white team from pedigreed Kentucky to crack (1999).For four years, Haskins coached the Miners and played black players. With the fifth season being wildly successful, Haskins struck awe in white crowds as he started all black players in the championship. I remember walking out that ni ght listening to the Kentucky fans saying, We have to get some of them, todays Maryland coach Gary Williams said. Thats what they called the black players them but they had to admit that they could play. Haskins changed the game of basketball when he started those five black players.Whether he knew that it was going to change civil rights from then on, he played them to prove Kentucky tutor Adolph Rupp wrong. Coach Haskins told us that Rupp has said in a press conference before the game that five black players couldnt defeat five white players. Coach Haskins decided only the African American players would play that night, said Litten. (Championing Divsersity, 2006). Contrary to the public eye, Haskins stated I wasnt trying to make a statement, he often said about beating Kentucky. I was trying to win a game. However, Feinstein argues, of business he was trying to make a statement. But Haskins had made it long before that night. Hed made it when he got to Texas Western in 1961 and began recruiting black players from everywhere (2008). Some believe that night did not move Americans until it was brought up years later. Lattin just wanted to win a title, but neither he nor Haskins could have guessed it would help alter history.It never seemed to cross their minds until approached later as addressed in this theme article, it wasnt a big, overwhelming event until years later when people looked back and said it was the sports tantamount(predicate) of the board of education decision. The racial connotations and overtones werent really played out all that much at the time but I still think it was one of the most notable games I ever covered, said photographer Rick Clarkson. (Championing Diversity, 2006). With there being truth in what Clarkson said, it did not tackle until the events movie, Glory Road, for integration to ensue in the NCAA.Haskins and the Miners pushed the motion ever further that expose night. If you want to get down to the facts, we were mo re white-oriented than any of the other teams. We played the most intelligent, the most boring, and the most disciplined game of them all (Fitzpatrick, 1999). No one could have said it better then the Miners Willie Worsley. They deserved the title. Haskins set out to be a basketball coach, not a hero. He recruited the best players he could find, knowing others would object their presence, but didnt care. Haskins wanted to win.