Latest example: Harry Flournoy, the rebound artist on the team, will be inducted into the Indiana Athletic Hall of Fame in Indianapolis on March 25.
The ’66 Miners made history in 1966 because they were the first team to start five black players in the finals of the national tournament. What’s more, the only two substitutes during the game were also black. And they not only won the championship but did it by beating the most powerful basketball dynasty in the country at that time, the University of Kentucky Wildcats coached by Adolph Rupp.
ALL SEVEN of the Texas Western players turned out to be solid citizens. Flournoy was no exception. In fact, he was one of the most endearing to me because of the way he came to El Paso. Following is how it happened, and I quote from my book, “Basketball’s Biggest Upset:”
“When Harry Flournoy Jr. was walking home from Emerson High School in Gary, Indiana, he noticed a car moving slowly on the street alongside him. Flournoy kept on walking and the car just kept moving alongside. Flournoy glanced over and saw the man wave. Flournoy tried to ignore him.
“Finally, Flournoy reached his house. The stranger parked and out of the car stepped Don Haskins.
“TEXAS WESERN’S basketball coach wasn’t about to let his man get away. Haskins introduced himself to Flournoy and wrangled an invitation into the house. He had been touted on Flournoy by a former schoolmate of Haskins at Oklahoma State, Jack Hobbs, who had been impressed with Flournoy’s rebounding ability.
“Haskins sat and spoke at length about the advantages of coming to Texas Western College. It was a small school and Flournoy would get to play a lot …
“It impressed the young high school senior but what finally convinced him that he might like to play for Haskins was the way Haskins treated his mother, Amy. ‘My mother asked him if he’d like some apple pie,’ Flournoy says. ‘He said yes. He sat there and ate a big serving and told my mother what a great pie it was. I liked that a lot.’”
THEN AND there Haskins had his man. Like I wrote in the book, “How can anyone not admire a person who likes his mom’s apple pie?”
Flournoy became a starter for the Miners and was such a good rebounder that Eddie Mullens, sports information director of the Miners at the time and who was a master of similes, once wrote that “Harry takes everything off the boards except the paint.”
After the Miners won the national title the cover of Sports Illustrated showed Flournoy and Pat Riley, a member of the Kentucky team and future Hall of Fame coach, high in the air.
Riley was to kid later that “It was the only time I ever made the cover of Sports Illustrated and it showed me being out-rebounded.”
HOW DID Flournoy become such a great rebounder? He had powerful legs which he had developed as a cross country runner in high school. Because of his leaping ability and sense of being in the right place at the right time, he even had more rebounds than the big man on the team, David Lattin. And Flournoy got so many rebounds and easy put-backs that he also wound up with the best shooting percentage on the team – an even.500.
He is currently living in California, having retired from the bakery business after 30 years. Now he travels throughout the country conducting speaking engagements.
JOE GOMEZ, one of UTEP’s greatest El Paso supporters, plans to attend Flournoy’a induction into the Indiana Athletic Hall of Fame ceremonies in Indianapolis on March 25.
“Someone should be there to represent UTEP,” he says.
That’s typical Joe Gomez, always there for the Miners.