Don Haskins
FameRank: 6

"Donald Lee Haskins", nicknamed "The Bear", was an United States/American collegiate Player (game)/player and basketball Coach (sport)/coach. He played for three years under coach Henry Iba at Oklahoma State Cowboys basketball/Oklahoma A&M (now Oklahoma State University). He was the head coach at UTEP Miners men's basketball/Texas Western College (renamed the University of Texas at El Paso in 1967) from 1961 to 1999, including the 1966 season when his team won the 1966 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament/NCAA Tournament over the Wildcats of the Kentucky Wildcats men's basketball/University of Kentucky, coached by Adolph Rupp.

In his time at Texas Western/UTEP, he compiled a 719–353 record, suffering only five losing seasons. He won 14 Western Athletic Conference championships and four WAC tournament titles, had fourteen NCAA tournament berths and made seven trips to the National Invitation Tournament/NIT. Haskins led UTEP to 17 20-plus-win seasons and served as an assistant Olympic team coach in 1972.[http://www.hoophall.com/hall-of-famers/tag/donald-l-don-haskins Official Website of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame - Hall of Famers]

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I walk now and try to take care of myself, but I wished I had done some things a lot earlier. People need to take care of themselves and they need to start it at an early age.

I'm glad they got it done. I'm happy for the players; I'm happy for the fans, even the ones who weren't around at the time.

They made it a big deal after the Kentucky game. That particular night, believe me, I'm not thinking about that. We got home, and all of that was a total shock to me.

This is pretty exciting after 40 years.

I remember a lot of name calling. If I didn't turn around, they didn't get to turn around. Whatever was said was said to deaf ears.

I spent 18 months, off and on, with the script writer. I might as well have not spent one second with him.

I see five black guys on the first-team All-SWC team.

The worst time of my life was the next two weeks that we won the championship and thousands of hate letters started coming in. And it really didn't dawn on me what this was all about until that time.