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







109th CONGRESS
  2d Session
H. RES. 668

     Celebrating the 40th anniversary of Texas Western's 1966 NCAA 
 Basketball Championship and recognizing the groundbreaking impact of 
   the title game victory on diversity in sports and civil rights in 
                                America.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                            February 1, 2006

 Mr. Reyes (for himself, Mr. Barton of Texas, Mr. Bonilla, Mr. Cole of 
  Oklahoma, Mr. Conaway, Mr. Conyers, Mr. Cuellar, Mr. Culberson, Mr. 
Cummings, Mr. Doggett, Mr. Edwards, Mr. Evans, Mr. Ford, Mr. Gonzalez, 
   Ms. Granger, Mr. Graves, Mr. Al Green of Texas, Mr. Gene Green of 
 Texas, Mr. Grijalva, Mr. Hall, Mr. Hastings of Florida, Mr. Hinojosa, 
 Ms. Jackson-Lee of Texas, Mr. Jefferson, Ms. Eddie Bernice Johnson of 
   Texas, Ms. Kilpatrick of Michigan, Mr. Lucas, Mr. McDermott, Ms. 
 McKinney, Mr. Meeks of New York, Mr. Moran of Kansas, Mr. Ortiz, Mr. 
 Rangel, Mr. Ruppersberger, Ms. Schakowsky, Mr. Serrano, Mr. Smith of 
   Texas, Mr. Snyder, and Mr. Thompson of Mississippi) submitted the 
following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Education 
                           and the Workforce

_______________________________________________________________________

                               RESOLUTION


 
     Celebrating the 40th anniversary of Texas Western's 1966 NCAA 
 Basketball Championship and recognizing the groundbreaking impact of 
   the title game victory on diversity in sports and civil rights in 
                                America.

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.'';
Whereas over the course of his career Don Haskins also coached the Miners to 33 
        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; and
Whereas Walt Disney Pictures released on January 13, 2006, Glory Road, depicting 
        the historic 1966 Championship season and paying tribute to the personal 
        courage and conviction exhibited by Coach Haskins: 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.
                                 <all>