USA – Legendary college coach Haskins passes away at 78

EL PASO (NCAA) - Don Haskins, the Texas Western College coach that shook up the sports world 42 years ago by starting five black players in an NCAA Championship final triumph over an all-white Kentucky Wildcats team, died on Sunday.

He was 78 years old.

Haskins passed away at his home in El Paso, Texas, after struggling with congestive heart failure.

A Disney movie called "Glory Road" that was based on the coach's autobiography was released in 2006.

After deciding to start five black men against Kentucky during the height of the Civil Rights Movement, Haskins received hate mail. His team had won the game 72-65.

He was considered a true pioneer in the game, though he said that was never his intention.

"I was simply playing the best players on the team and they happened to be black," he later said in an interview with the Los Angeles Times.

Haskins played college basketball under the legendary Hank Iba at Oklahoma A&M (now Oklahoma State) and graduated in 1953.

Haskins, who served as an assistant coach to Iba with the 1972 USA Olympic team that lost in a controversial final to the Soviet Union, was elected to the Naismeth Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1997.

He retired as coach of UTEP (formerly known as Texas Western), the team he had coached for 38 seasons, in 1999.

FIBA