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Zips AD enriched by historic coach
By Patrick McManamon
Beacon Journal sports columnist
Published on Wednesday, Sep 17, 2008
Some people have handshakes with history, that occasional occurrence when the memorable happens to cross a person's path.
Mack Rhoades, the University of Akron's athletic director, shook hands with history almost every day he worked at his former job as associate athletic director at the University of Texas at El Paso.
That's where he got to know Don Haskins, a man whose legacy has gone under-noticed, in part because Haskins probably would not want anyone to say he had a legacy.
As Rhoades said, ''He was the greatest man who never knew it.''
Haskins died last week of congestive heart failure, but what he did should live forever. He was the first basketball coach to truly break the color barrier.
Haskins obliterated it, in fact, when he started five African-Americans for the first time when tiny Texas Western beat Kentucky to win the 1966 NCAA basketball championship.
Haskins was commemorated in the movie Glory Road, but Rhoades said his story was bigger than one game.
''He started five African-American players the entire year,'' Rhoades said. ''And for him, it wasn't about making a statement. It was about him playing his best players.''
He did it simply because it was the right thing for the team, which is pretty much what coaching is all about.
To hear Rhoades, Haskins was gruff, rough and Texas tough. His practices were legendary and demanding.
''Any player who played for him would tell you they didn't enjoy it,'' Rhoades said.
But he also had a warm side that came out to those who knew him. It's probably not a coincidence that one of his biggest admirers and best friends is Bob Knight.
Rhoades remembered that the trainer of one of Haskins' UTEP teams once went to Haskins and told him his players were worn out; he was working them too hard.
The next day, Haskins saw something he didn't like early in practice and threw out the entire team.
He knew what he was doing; the team didn't.
As the players left, Haskins looked at the trainer and said: ''There's their day off.''
Rhoades also saw the warm side when he was called to a meeting with Haskins that always took place in the
coach's pickup truck.
''You knew you had made it when you got to ride with coach in his truck,'' Rhoades said.
Once, the UTEP president wanted to meet with Haskins.
The two rode around the desert and went into the mountains, where Haskins did his coyote call. Before the president knew it, coyotes were running toward them.
''I would ride with him for hours and I would just listen,'' Rhoades said. ''In all the years I spent listening to him, not one time did I ever hear about anything that he did that was good. It was always about all his screw-ups.
''It was always about him teaching you a lesson.''
These were not fast rides, though. Haskins took his time.
''Everybody knew it was coach,'' Rhoades said. ''And everybody would laugh. We'd be riding in a 50 [mph] zone and he'd be going 25. People would just be zooming around. The most dangerous thing I ever did at UTEP was drive around in the pickup truck with coach Haskins.''
Rhoades remembered the time Haskins diagramed defenses, while driving, with some quarters on his console. The next time Rhoades got in the truck, he made sure to take the quarters off the console.
Haskins was an amazing story teller, a scratch golfer and a pool shark who once beat Willie Mosconi in a game. Rhoades remembered the time Haskins walked into an establishment and put his money on the pool table.
The young men told him they were playing for money, twice.
Haskins waited, then ran the table eight games in a row.
''They never even got a shot,'' Rhoades said.
He won $200, but as he walked out he gave it back to his ''opponents'' and said: ''Never judge your opponent by the way they look.''
Clearly, he took that same philosophy to the court with his players.
He judged them by the way they played, not the color of their skin. And he received a lot of hate mail because of it.
That never mattered to Haskins. Nor did it matter to him that a movie was made about the season, though he did wonder who Russell Crowe was the first time he heard Crowe might play him in the film.
''He absolutely did not like any type of fuss being made over him whatsoever,'' Rhoades said. ''That was the kind of man that he was. He absolutely downplayed everything, even something that significant.
''He said he was doing what any coach would have done: play the best five players.''
When the movie came out, Haskins took the money he was paid for it.
But he did not keep it.
''He split it evenly amongst every coach, trainer, manager, player and anyone who worked for that team,'' Rhoades said.
Haskins made sure everyone got an equal share.
Patrick McManamon can be reached at pmcmanamon@thebeaconjournal.com. Read his blog at http://www.ohiomm.com/blogs/mcmanamon/.
Some people have handshakes with history, that occasional occurrence when the memorable happens to cross a person's path.
Get the full article here.
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