Don Haskins (1930-2008)
Don Haskins, the man who led the Miners of Texas Western College over the Kentucky Wildcats for the Men’s NCAA Basketball Championship in 1966, has passed away. Both my parents knew this man in their many associations with that school. My father’s admiration for Haskins and what he accomplished was especially great. They were friends and colleagues at TWC (which soon after the championship year became the University of Texas at El Paso) and my father spoke glowingly of Haskins for the rest of his life. I myself recall sitting on the ruins of an unfinished temple on the island of Naxos in 1995 while reading a long newspaper article on Haskins and the injustice of his then-absence from one of the basketball halls of fame. It was a strange but beautiful experience to be so far away from home, yet reading about someone who had been a household name to me since before my memory.
Whenever the history of the civil rights movement in America is written, it should include somewhere in its pages some reference to what Don Haskins accomplished in an America still struggling to desegregate itself not so long ago.
Thank you, Bear, for enriching my family’s life and making Texas proud.
