[Congressional Bills 109th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H. Res. 668 Engrossed in House (EH)]


H. Res. 668

                 In the House of Representatives, U.S.,

                                                     February 28, 2006.
Whereas Don Haskins was a high school basketball star at Enid High School in 
        Enid, Oklahoma, a college standout at Oklahoma A&M (now Oklahoma State) 
        under his mentor, Coach Hank Iba, and a successful Texas high school 
        basketball coach, amassing a 157-41 win-loss record coaching Benjamin, 
        Hedley, and Dumas High Schools;
Whereas in 1961 Don Haskins became the coach of the men's basketball team at 
        Texas Western College, which was later renamed the University of Texas 
        at El Paso;
Whereas early in the 1965-1966 basketball season Don Haskins told Texas Western 
        president Joseph Ray, ``The way our boys line up now, my six best boys 
        are black. If I leave two or three of them out because they're black, 
        they'll know it. [And] the white boys will know it.'';
Whereas the 1966 Texas Western team of Bobby Joe Hill (Detroit, Michigan), 
        Orsten Artis (Gary, Indiana), Togo Railey (El Paso, Texas), Willie 
        Worsley (New York, New York), David Palacio (El Paso, Texas), Dick Myers 
        (Peabody, Kansas), Harry Flournoy (Gary, Indiana), Louis Baudoin 
        (Albuquerque, New Mexico), Nevil Shed (New York, New York), Jerry 
        Armstrong (Eagleville, Missouri), Willie Cager (New York, New York), and 
        David ``Big Daddy'' Lattin (Houston, Texas) finished the basketball 
        season 28-1;
Whereas on March 19, 1966, Coach Don Haskins' all-black starting line-up, the 
        first such line-up to ever appear in a major championship contest, 
        defeated the heavily-favored University of Kentucky to win the NCAA 
        Basketball Championship, an event defined by many as the ``Brown v. 
        Board of Education of athletics'';
Whereas the Miners' victory accelerated the pace of racial integration in 
        college athletics and contributed to the expansion of the civil rights 
        movement into the realm of sports;
Whereas when recounting his historic impact on diversity in college sports, Don 
        Haskins said, ``I just played my best guys, like any coach would do.''; 
        and
Whereas over the course of his career Don Haskins also coached the Miners to 32 
        winning seasons, seven Western Athletic Conference championships, four 
        Western Athletic Conference tournament titles, and 21 post-season 
        appearances, creating a proud tradition of college basketball success 
        and community spirit in El Paso that persists to this day and winning 
        entry into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1997: Now, 
        therefore, be it
    Resolved, That the House of Representatives celebrates the 40th anniversary 
of Texas Western's 1966 NCAA Basketball Championship and recognizes the 
groundbreaking impact of the title game victory on diversity in sports and civil 
rights in America.
            Attest:

                                                                          Clerk.