by Ray Sanchez 06.29.14
UTEP basketball won’t be the same ever again.
Kathleen Moore won’t be there.
Mrs. Moore, who lived to be 101 years old, seldom missed a Miners basketball game since her late husband, Ross Moore, became a trainer. Ross helped head coach Don Haskins keep his players healthy and on the road to incredible success, culminated by a national championship in 1966.
It was so comforting to her husband and Haskins, and eventually to UTEP fans, to see Kathleen Moore in the stands. It just felt doggone good to know she was there cheering the Miners on.
Mrs. Moore passed away on June 18. It’s as if a lovely piece of Miners basketball is gone, too. But not the memories of her
HER HUSBAND lives on in our memory, too. Haskins thought the world of Ross and credited him for much of the Miners’ success.
Ross was more than a trainer. He was a mother hen to the players. In his autobiography, “Haskins: The Bear Facts,” Haskins told how Ross would often tame him down when he got too rough on his players and would even take them away from him to console them.
Ross was the complete opposite during basketball games. Not only did Ross get on the officials, he would urge Haskins to do the same. Haskins wrote that Ross actually got more technical fouls than he did. It was all part of what produced so much success.
Kathleen Moore’s death marks the end of a wonderful era but not the end of the Moores. Kathleen’s daughter, Marilyn Cromeans, still has a front row seat at UTEP games.
EL PASO LOST another of its beloved sports-minded citizens this month.
Don O’Neill, a successful banker by trade and a solid family man, contributed much to sports in El Paso. He was a longtime member of the UTEP Miner Athletic Club, worked as an official in the Western Athletic Conference for years and served as president of the El Paso Athletic Hall of Fame. He was inducted into the latter in 1990. He passed away June 12 at the age of 80.
I’ll always remember him as a polite, kind man who fit the word “gentleman” to a T.
TRIVIA QUESTION: In the history of horse racing, there has been only one jockey to have ridden two different horses to a Triple Crown. Can you name him and the horses he rode? Answer at end.
NANCY HAMILTON, El Paso author/historian, well remembers former Wimbledon champ Dick Savitt. She writes:
“In 1945 the El Paso school district was small enough that all the students competing in Texas Interscholastic League contests went in one bus and I was among them for journalism, On the way home, we had all the tennis champions plus the first winner of slide rule competition, Mary Laub of Austin High. The tennis winners were Savitt for boys’ singles, Mary Cunningham from Austin for girls’ singles and two teams from El Paso High School in doubles, Barger and Chew for boys and Lerner and Novick for girls. I’ve always been interested in Savitt as a great champion and I’m glad you are bringing attention to him.”
AND TOM MCKAY, president of the El Paso Boxing Hall of Fame, wrote after El Paso Heavyweight David Rodriguez knocked out No. 8 contender Owen Beck:
“Say now, If only David hadn’t nearly got killed two years ago, he would likely be a world champion. Having his throat cut a centimeter from dying, it must be tough attempting a comeback.”
ANSWER to trivia question: Eddie Arcaro, who won the Triple Crown in 1941 with Whirlaway and won the Triple Crown in 1948 with Citation.