Longtime UTEP coach Haskins braved hate, opened doors

Texas Western beat Kentucky to win the 1966 national title.

Texas Western started five blacks.

Kentucky started five whites.

And the win started a revolution of sorts, but essentially stalled Haskins' career. In other words, his friends were correct. He had won a national title at 36, and yet the job offers didn't come. Instead, all he got was hate mail, negative (and untrue) articles from the media and a campus full of NCAA investigators because, you know, there was no way all those blacks were really attending classes (even though 10 of the 12 players from that championship team earned their degrees).

"He won the national title and didn't get a job offer," Wetzel said by phone late Sunday, still noticeably shaken by the news. "Can you imagine if somebody won the NCAA championship at UTEP now? They'd give him the Lakers job and $15 million a year. But you know how many job offers he got? None."

But do you know how many scholarship offers he created for blacks in the south?

Thousands, according to Nolan Richardson.

"That spring (after the national title in 1966) there were no blacks in the SEC, ACC or Southwest Conference, but right after that (those schools) started recruiting them, and in a hurry," Wetzel said. "(Haskins) told me a story one time that five years (after the national title) he was reading the paper and there was a picture of the All-Southwest Conference team, and they were all black. Just five years later. And Nolan Richardson told me one time that (Haskins) got thousands of black kids scholarships because (the other schools) were scared they were going to lose (if they didn't take the black players). So he forced their hands."

Still, it took decades for the proper notoriety to come. Haskins wasn't elected to the Hall of Fame until 1997, Wetzel's book didn't publish until 2005 and the film by the same name wasn't released until the following year. By then, Haskins had long been retired after compiling a career record of 719-354 in 38 seasons, all of them at Texas Western/UTEP.

"He won a lot of games and had a lot of success but gave up so much personally in terms of wealth, fame and professional opportunities, and he knew it," Wetzel said. "He said 'I know the risks (in starting five blacks) but I'm doing what's right, and that took a lot of courage. I'm 35 with two kids and I don't know if I could do that. Would I give up my career and say I'm going to stay at a smaller place forever just on principle? I don't know. ... But this guy had courage and to me there are not a lot of things basketball coaches have done that are more important than what he did."