My life as a Home Engineer: Greatest Game Ever Played

Don Haskins, was the coach who hastened the full integration of college basketball when he started five black players for Texas Western College against an all-white University of Kentucky team and won the 1966 national NCAA championship. Up until that time it was unheard of. It was believed that blacks couldn't be good or at least better than whites at anything and that included sports. Not only did Haskins let the black players start that game but he only played his black players for the ENTIRE game a first in NCAA history. The Miners won 72-65, and shortly after that many schools began recruiting black players.

"When they won the national championship against the University of Kentucky, that changed college basketball," Former coach Eddie Sutton said. "At that time, there weren't many teams in the South or Southwest that had African-Americans playing. There was a change in the recruiting of the black athlete. It really changed after that. They've had a great impact on the game."

"I wasn't out to be a pioneer when we played Kentucky," Haskins told The Times later in his career. "I was simply playing the best players on the team, and they happened to be black."

Haskins' decision inspired hate mail at the time -- tens of thousands of letters, he said -- but his players didn't learn of that level of opposition until later.

"We were walking around with the medal indicating we were the 1966 NCAA champions," said Nevil Shed, one of seven African American players on the team. "He was walking around with another brand on him for allowing these players to play. Remember, society wasn't ready for that."

Despite the widely acknowledged effect of Haskins' historic decision to go with an all-black starting lineup in the championship game, he never made much claim to his role in making an important social statement.

When asked about what shaped his attitudes about race, Haskins often mentioned his youth in Enid, where he played one-on-one against a young black player named Herman Carr.Haskins puzzled over the inequities.

When the pair took a water break, Carr had to use a separate fountain for "coloreds only." And Haskins got all the publicity and scholarship offers while Carr -- a better player in Haskins' estimation -- ended up joining the Army.

Don Haskins died on September 7, 2008.