RIP Don Haskins

[imjustagirl]

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/news/story?id=3574739

Spending my formative years in Kentucky meant I heard a lot of talk about Haskins. RIP.

 

[Dickens Cider]

RIP to a visionary.

 

[Piotr Rasputin]

RIP to someone who in his greatest moment, made that SOB Adolph Rupp look real bad.

 

[Simon_Cowbell]

Wow, that's a biggie.

 

[Blitz]

Not the greatest coach in the world.
But, likely at least in the top 50 percent of all-time college coaches with regard to knowledge of the game, techniques, etc.

But he had big, big stones, it would seem, for making his inroads toward total integration.
RIP, Bear

 

[Football_Bat]

Hey AP writer, that's spelled Adolph Rupp.

 

[Football_Bat]

They fixed it. Finally.

 

[slappy4428]

Damn... great coach, great person

 

[JakeandElwood]

RIP to a man who changed college basketball.

 

[Elliotte Friedman]

Remember Bob Knight pulling off Haskins' clip-on tie after an NCAA Tournament game. That was pretty funny.

Did an interview once with Tim Hardaway after Haskins left UTEP. Hardaway said he'd been begging Haskins to quit for years because the school didn't show the respect the coach deserved.

RIP

 

[Sam Mills 51]

Don Haskins never got the credit he deserved for being a visionary and showing the courage unfortunately necessary for doing what he did at the time.

He put Texas Western/UTEP on the map, and then stayed when it would have been easy to go to a bigger school for more money.

RIP, Bear. Thank you.

 

[SnoopyBoy]

Texas Western/UTEP is the only school from Texas to win the NCAA men's tournament, thanks to Haskins and Jim Valvano. RIP

 

[Starman]

Certainly Haskins was an influential and significant figure, and a legend at TWU/UTEP, but I always thought the deal about "breaking the color line" has been a little bit overdone -- Phil Woolpert at USF a decade earlier won back-to-back NCAA titles playing four or five black players (although I don't think ever all at once), and I'm pretty sure the great Cincinnati teams from 1958-62 played a lot of black guys (primarily Oscar Robertson), so it's not like blacks hadn't been allowed on the court before.

But to stick it right in the face of UK (more so than Rupp individually) and all-white southern basketball kicked open the doors for good. Supposedly Bear Bryant saw that game, as well as Michigan State's juggernaut football teams of the mid-60s (heavily stocked with black players from the South), and said, "holy ****, if we don't start recruiting black players, we might as well hang it up."

 

[Armchair_QB]

Certainly Haskins was an influential and significant figure, and a legend at TWU/UTEP, but I always thought the deal about "breaking the color line" has been a little bit overdone -- Phil Woolpert at USF a decade earlier won back-to-back NCAA titles playing four or five black players, and I'm pretty sure the great Cincinnati teams from 1958-62 played a lot of black guys (primarily Oscar Robertson), so it's not like blacks hadn't been allowed on the court before.

But to stick it right in the face of UK (more so than Rupp individually) and all-white southern basketball kicked open the doors for good. Supposedly Bear Bryant saw that game, as well as Michigan State's juggernaut football teams of the mid-60s (heavily stocked with black players from the South), and said, "holy ****, if we don't start recruiting black players, we might as well hang it up."

Legend has it that is was Sam Cunningham running all over Bama when he was at USC that convinced Bear he needed to integrate.

 

[Gutter]

Additionally, Loyola-Chicago had four black starters when it won the 1963 title by beating Cincinnati, which had three black starters. Similar to Texas Western/UTEP, Loyola is the only Illinois team to win a national title.

But, yes, the context of Texas Western vs. Kentucky is what makes that game most memorable.

 

[Irish_Italian_Stallion]

Damn!

Love to hear stories from my uncle and other old scribes who covered the old WAC about Haskins taking them out drinking after games and thoroughly outlapping the lot of them.

Besides the things he is known best for, it was also cool that he stayed at UTEP when he could have gone dozens of other places after 1966.

RIP Bear

 

[forever_town]

And in your Maryland connection, that seminal game was played at Cole Field House.

RIP to a great coach and a greater human being.

 

[awriter]

Damn!

Love to hear stories from my uncle and other old scribes who covered the old WAC about Haskins taking them out drinking after games and thoroughly outlapping the lot of them.

Besides the things he is known best for, it was also cool that he stayed at UTEP when he could have gone dozens of other places after 1966.

RIP Bear

The Haskins stories are absolutely legendary. He will be missed.

 

[mpcincal]

Certainly Haskins was an influential and significant figure, and a legend at TWU/UTEP, but I always thought the deal about "breaking the color line" has been a little bit overdone -- Phil Woolpert at USF a decade earlier won back-to-back NCAA titles playing four or five black players, and I'm pretty sure the great Cincinnati teams from 1958-62 played a lot of black guys (primarily Oscar Robertson), so it's not like blacks hadn't been allowed on the court before.

But to stick it right in the face of UK (more so than Rupp individually) and all-white southern basketball kicked open the doors for good. Supposedly Bear Bryant saw that game, as well as Michigan State's juggernaut football teams of the mid-60s (heavily stocked with black players from the South), and said, "holy ****, if we don't start recruiting black players, we might as well hang it up."

Legend has it that is was Sam Cunningham running all over Bama when he was at USC that convinced Bear he needed to integrate.

Actually, the way I remember the story is that Bryant scheduled USC because he knew Cunningham would run wild against them, and that would be the impetus the coach needed to convince the school hierarchy and the boosters that he had to be allowed to recruit blacks.

 

[Cadet]

:'( :'( :'(

I have so much more to say, but I can't articulate it right now. RIP.