109 HRES 668 IH: 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. U.S. House of Representatives 2006-02-01 text/xml EN Pursuant to Title 17 Section 105 of the United States Code, this file is not subject to copyright protection and is in the public domain.

109th CONGRESS 2d Session

H. RES. 668

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

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.