UTEP has had more outstanding athletes than there are stars in the skies. Or so it seems. So it was no surprise that the group that will be inducted into the school’s Athletic Hall of Fame this fall is as eye dazzling as previous ones. They include Obadele Thompson, Jack Curtice, Soma Dutta, Jim Forbes and Thad Steele.
The induction dinner will be held at the Larry K. Durham Center Hall of Champions on Friday, Oct. 28, then the five inductees will be presented during Saturday’s game against Southern Miss.
You’ll be reading more about all the inductees as time goes on but, by, coincidence, I had come across a piece about Jim Forbes while doing research when this year’s inductees were announced.
As oldtimers will remember, Forbes was involved in one of the most bizarre endings in the history of Olympic basketball in 1972. Don Haskins had been picked as an assistant coach by his college mentor, Hank Iba, and Forbes had been chosen as a player.
Much has been written about the game and there have been different accounts of how the game was lost, but following, without excuses or arguments, is how it all truly happened:
Jim Forbes part of Olympics history
In the championship game, Doug Collins of the United States scored a free throw to put the United States ahead of the Soviet Union 50-49 with only three seconds remaining in the contest. The Soviets inbounded the ball on their side of the court and the buzzer sounded ending the game. However, officials held a conference and decided there had been a mixup with the clock. It was reset at three seconds.
This time the Russian who inbounded the ball threw it the length of the court. He threw it so hard it hit the backboard and bounced out of bounds. The game was apparently over but officials held another conference and ruled since no one had touched the ball the clock had to be reset at three seconds again and the Russians given the ball again.
The Russian inbounder threw the ball the length of the court again and this time the Soviets’ 6-feet-9 Alexander Belov, who was being guarded by 6-feet-7 Forbes and 6-feet-2 Kevin Joyce, grabbed the ball and put it in the basket. The Soviet Union won 51-50 and took home the gold medal.
“Plain robbery,” growled Don Haskins. – Source: The Miners, El Paso’s Greatest Sports Heroes and Olympics accounts.
SOME FOLKS have asked me if I’ve ever written a book about anything besides sports. Well, yes. I was fascinated by the true stories of two pretty young sisters who came to El Paso from a little village in Mexico searching the American Dream. One died in the process but the other made it. The book got some good reviews but my favorite appeared in Keep on Bookin’, an Internet site, because it explains it well:
“Latina Mistress by R.F. Sanchez (Floricanto Press). Veteran sportswriter Ray Sanchez’s first novel since The Gods of Racing in the early 1980s is a tale of a young family spanning nations, cultures and generations. Although Sanchez is admired by El Paso readers for his sports columns that have appeared in a variety of local publications, he is also a surprisingly gifted storyteller who can paint vivid and familiar pictures of the border culture. Those who think they are familiar with his style will be surprised by his very serious handling of such issues as bigotry, cross-cultural marriage and sexual matters. Filled with local references from landmarks to favorite restaurants, the novel proves that Sanchez’s writing talents span more than a love for UTEP and the Dallas Cowboys and encompass a unique (and often melancholy) nature of the area.”
I’m blushing.
8 Aug