Posts Tagged ‘Texas Western College’

8 Jul

Remembering the 1966 Miners on Facebook

Posted by EL PASO SPORTS in El Paso Sports, Ray Sanchez. Tagged: , , , , , , , , .

by Ray Sanchez 07.05.15

There’s an exciting new network on Facebook. And when I say exciting, I mean exciting.

It’s called “Texas Western (UTEP) Road to Glory” where anyone can go and re-live and comment on the Miners who changed basketball with a victory over University of Kentucky in 1966.

To say the network is a big hit would be an understatement. Scores of fans who lived through that wonderful year have already commented and even posted photos of the Miners. In fact, one person, Ellington Ellis, even put up a video of the championship game.

Following are some of the comments from present and former El Pasoans I found especially interesting:

 

Raúl Enrique Burciaga, now living in Albuquerque — I saw every home game that season thanks to my sister Margarita and her husband, who had season tickets. Plus, I watched every game that was televised and heard the games broadcast by radio only. I was 10 years old but I remember the entire season so vividly. I had a basketball signed by several of the players just a few days before they went to the Final Four. Later my niece, who was assistant location manager for “Glory Road”, was able to get the rest of the players’ signatures including Coach (Don) Haskins and most of the actors who portrayed the players. I will forever be a Miner Basketball fan.

 

Brian Phillips — Some of y’all know this, but when I was attending UTEP I worked for AM 690 KHEY (before the format flip) and I was asked to cover the press conference where Haskins formally announced his retirement. Back then, I knew of the TWC team but nothing more than that. Well, fast forward nearly 20 years later, I cannot be more proud to call myself a UTEP Miner and to have walked the same halls as those amazing guys. Once a Miner, Always a Miner!

 

Eddie Mullens — If The Shadow (Nevil Shed) had been as large then as today, he would have been dangerous … I still get a chuckle each time I think about how excited, clapping his hands, running in front of the TWC bench when he had a great play but running down the opposite sideline with his head down when he didn’t do well.

 

Ellington Ellis – I love this man (Shed)!  Full of humility and love … No wonder God chose him for this game.

 

Richard Glancey — I’ve always said, “when he (Shed) came to TWC, he was so skinny he could hide behind a telephone pole.” Retired, he did a tremendous job at UTSA. I used to see him at UTSA basketball games.

 

Charles Hill — Shed could hide behind a telephone pole and according to Haskins, he couldn’t guard a telephone pole.

 

Margarita Kanavy of El Paso posted a photo (shown here) from the movie Glory Road which showed haskinspumpingasHaskins pumping gas, which led Charles Hill to comment that “Coach said he would have said more lines if he knew what they were paying for his one line.”

 

AND SO IT GOES on Facebook. What fun.

 

TRIVIA QUESTION: In 1963, The Dodgers swept the Yankees using only four pitchers.  Can you name them? Answer at end.

 

SPEAKING OF Charles Hill, he’s turned into quite an asset to sports in El Paso. He’s a statistician at UTEP football and basketball games, serves on the board of directors of the El Paso Athletic Hall of Fame and the UTEP Athletic Hall of Fame and has written a book on sports.

He says he got the idea of a book after he read my latest book, “The Good, the Bad and the Funny of El Paso Sports History.”

My book included high school champions from El Paso only in the major sports so he decided to research state high school champions from El Paso in all sports. You can see the book now on KVIA-TV.com. For more information contact Hill at 590-4024 or email him at chill@elp.rr.com

 

ANSWER to trivia question: Sandy Koufax, Don Drysdale, Johnny Podres and Ron Perranoski.

 

11 Mar

Haskins Told The Real Story Behind ‘Glory Road’

Posted by EL PASO SPORTS in El Paso Sports. Tagged: , , , .

coachhaskinsWith movies about El Paso sports in the news, I find that there are still misconceptions about how the movie “Glory Road” about the 1966 national champion Texas Western Miners came about. Some think it was based on the book of the same name.
Not so. That book came out after the movie in an effort to cash in on it.
I was going through some old files and found a story by El Paso Inc. columnist Sam Kobren. He interviewed Don Haskins, who coached the 1966 Miners, shortly before Haskins’ death and Haskins told exactly how the movie happened. The story never appeared in any sports section or any other sports news outlet so few sports minded folks read it.
To set the record straight, I’m reprinting here the story – the real story – of how the movie “Glory Road” really came about. If I get credit, so be it.
 
“By Sam Kobren
“… Two things remain to be told before the book is closed on ‘Glory’ Road,’ the movie. How did Walt Disney Pictures happen to get the rights to produce it and who was responsible for calling Don Haskins’ interest to it?
“And more than that, who convinced Haskins to listen to Disney’s pitch after a half dozen or more studios and scriptwriters had bugged him over a period of four or five years and all had been turned down by The Bear?
“That’s the best chapter of the story.
“… No one was able to do that until Christopher Cleveland, a well known Hollywood scriptwriter, managed to wrangle an interview with Haskins. It evolved one Sunday morning when Haskins got a call from Ray Sanchez, a longtime El Paso sports writer and columnist for El Paso Inc…
 
“SANCHEZ WAS having breakfast with Cleveland at the Camino Real Hotel. Cleveland had read Ray’s book, ‘Basketball’s Biggest Upset…’
“Cleveland was inspired by the story and thought it would make a good movie. He persuaded Sanchez to call Haskins and ask him to the hotel to discuss it with him.
“Haskins was not interested and told Sanchez to forget about it. He had just turned down a major studio’s offer and was fed up with scriptwriters and producers. None of them were willing to do it his way – the way it really happened …
“Sanchez persisted. He said he was impressed with Cleveland and convinced Haskins to at least come down and give him 15 minutes.
 
“IT DIDN’T take that long…. He (Cleveland) proposed doing the movie for Disney but admitted he couldn’t guarantee the studio wouldn’t make some changes. Haskins was swayed by Cleveland’s integrity …He felt Disney’s reputation would ensure the movie would be more family oriented and kids would be able to see it.
“No crime, no sex, no drugs.
“…Several months later a deal was struck with Disney. And as they say, the rest is history.
“That meeting at the Camino Real was the first step that clinched the deal with Disney.
“’Ray Sanchez was totally responsible for Glory Road being produced and shown as close to the way it really happened as Hollywood would allow,’ Haskins said.”
End of story.
 
ALL I CAN SAY to Haskins’ last sentence is “Wow.”
I worked as a consultant on the movie, was given a bit part in it, all the actors were provided with a copy of my book “Basketball’s Biggest Upset” and I even helped some with the screen play. I also made a little nest egg for my retirement by selling the rights to my book to several other studios before Disney came along.
Still some members of my family and some friends, including Haskins, don’t think I got enough credit for the movie. I wasn’t invited to the Hollywood and New York premieres or the meeting of the team at the White House. Haskins didn’t make those events, either, because he was so ill. No doubt he would have invited me.
It’s okay. Nothing helps me sleep more soundly at night than Haskins’ compliment.

2 Jul

OLD LETTERS SHOW DOBBS’ LOYALTY TO MINERS

Posted by EL PASO SPORTS in El Paso Sports, Ray Sanchez. Tagged: , , , , , , .

Mike Dobbs, son of former UTEP football coach Bobby Dobbs, was cleaning out his desk and going through some old boxes at his home in California recently when he found some things that belonged to his late father.

One was his father’s playbook that guided the Miners to some of their greatest victories in the 1960s. Oh, how some coaches would love to get their hands on that.

He also found letters his father wrote when he turned down an offer to coach Army and decided to stay at what was then Texas Western College.

Mike writes, “What struck me so deeply about reading these (3) letters, all dated April 21, 1966, was dad’s profound loyalty to Texas Western College, his sense of moral obligation to TWC and the City of El Paso and his need to have a clear conscious by not leaving Texas Western College.”

MIKE ADDS that he also got chills reading a letter his father wrote to Vince Lombardi explaining his decision to stay with the Miners.

His father wrote, “ … we were in the middle of spring practice, and all my coaches wanted to go with me. The program here (at Texas Western) could have been hurt severely, and for this reason I could not leave with a clear conscious. In any event, I made the decision the way I thought was right.  I feel that my decision will be vindicated, and I will never look back or second guess.”

Bobby Dobbs turned the Miners’ losing program completely around in 1965, going 8-3 and beating TCU in the Sun Bowl. He was 6-4 in 1966 then went 7-2-1 in 1967 with a win over Mississippi in the Sun Bowl. He retired as coach of the Miners in 1972 and never coached again. He passed away in 1986.

The letters that his son found add to the wonderful legacy Bobby Dobbs left at UTEP.

TRIVIA QUESTION: Can you name two players who have hit three homeruns in a World Series game? Answer at end.

SANTA TERESA Country Club members keep wondering what’s to become of their golf course and other facilities. Will the club be sold? Will things get worse or better?

I ran into owner/operator Greg Collins at lunch the other day. He seemed genuinely upbeat. “Things are getting better, things are getting better,” he repeated with a smile but without elaborating.

Members are keeping their fingers crossed that some day the club will be restored to the jewel of a facility it once was.

DAVID LATTIN, to no one’s surprise, has been inducted into the UTEP Athletic Hall of Fame along with four other Miner stars. Big and strong, he was the axle of the 1966 Miners team that won the NCAA basketball championship.

I was also especially glad to see Andy Everest among the inductees. He was one of the first football stars I covered after joining the El Paso Herald-Post as a rookie sports writer.

Everest sort of took a back seat to the Miners’ outstanding backs, Fred Wendt and Pug Gabrel, of that highly successful1947-51 era. But like Lattin in basketball, he was the big man of the football team. He played center on offense and opened those big holes for the runners to go through. And he was a fearsome linebacker on defense.

Other inductees this year are Gary Brewster (basketball), James Munyala (track) and Kim Turner (track).

All five will be inducted as the 11th class of the UTEP Athletics Hall of Fame on Friday, Oct. 5, 2012, at UTEP. For more information contact the Miner Athletic Club at (915) 747-8759 or mac@utep.edu.

ANSWER TO trivia question: Babe Ruth did it twice (in 1926 and 1928) and Reggie Jackson did it once in 1977.