Glory Road

Yesterday I finished Glory Road, the autobiography of Hall of Fame Texas Western/UTEP college basketball coach Don Haskins. Haskins had a long and storied coaching career, but he is most well known for something that happened very early in his career - winning the 1966 national championship. Now, that wouldn't necessarily be particularly noteworthy, except for the composition of Haskin's team. Texas Western was the first team to start 5 African-American players, and the first to win a national championship with 5 black starters.

A couple things stuck out to me in this book. First of all, I really like Don Haskins, at least as he's presented in this book. He comes across as ridiculously grounded, practical, and down to earth. He's also a bit ornery, to say the least. Now, obviously I get a pretty one-sided view from his telling of the story, but he really seems to me like a coach who did it "the right way", and was truly concerned and interested in his players. I can't help but respect a guy who is a Hall of Famer and probably could have gone just about anywhere he wanted to throughout his career, and yet spent his entire career in relative obscurity in El Paso, Texas. He also shares my healthy level of cynicism for the NCAA (in fact, he's probably more cynical, which doesn't surprise me given his personality and the front seat view he had all these years), and I find that appealing as well.

Secondly, reading Haskins' account of his team and that 1966 season, I really had to bristle at some of my memories of watching the movie version that Disney made. Now, I expect movie makers to take a few liberties with stories for the sake of the drama of the movie, but it doesn't necessarily bother me any less when they do. In the movie, prior to the national title game, Haskins announces to his team that he's only going to play the 7 black players, and basically that he's doing it to let them prove a point, to make their mark. I had a feeling watching the movie that that was bogus, and the book confirmed that in spades. First of all, the 1966 championship game was not the first time Haskins started all African-Americans. And secondly, while I believe Haskins was more conscious of the social ramification than he would like to let on, it seems pretty clear to me that he was really only trying to win basketball games, and that it wouldn't have occurred to him to do anything but start his best players. Due to his own background, the various stereotypes regarding black players just didn't ring true. I really think doing the scene that way was just lazy movie-making, because it was much easier to bring the drama to a climax that way then it actually played out.

Further, I was very fascinated to learn just how bad the fallout was for Haskins and Texas Western after that title game. We look back on it now as this great, enduring, watershed moment in college basketball history, and it certainly is. However, it wasn't all glory for Haskins and Texas Western, and Haskins said that for years he wished that they hadn't won the championship because of all the problems it brought. There was hate mail and a backlash from the basketball establishment. Sports Illustrated wrote an article talking about how Haskins exploited African-American players who had no business being in school and couldn't make the grades. Haskins listed where all the players from that team are today, let's just say it makes that assertion pretty laughable. Like most all of Haskins' players throughout his career, that championship team graduated. I think that will make me pause a little bit the next time I read (or prepare to write myself) that kind of accusation. I'm not saying that it's not a fair accusation in many cases, I'm just thinking now that it's the easy story and merits more investigation.

Anyhow, next in my readings will be Tobacco Road, by Alwyn Featherson, which chronicles the history of the big-time college basketball rivalries in the state of North Carolina between Duke, UNC, NC State, and Wake Forest.