Haskins Is Snubbed For Induction

Once again the Basketball Hall of Fame selection committee has passed over Texas-El Paso coach Don Haskins. And his friends in the coaching business are irate.

“Don’s problem is he doesn’t have any Armani,” Utah Coach Rick Majerus said. “He has a salsa spot where there should be a polo pony. He wears a clip-on tie. But anyone who’s ever played for him or has ever been around him knows what Don Haskins has meant to this sport. His teams have become the standard by which a lot of guys, including myself, have judged their own teams.”

Haskins is eighth on the all-time victory list with 670. But he may have changed the face of college basketball when he became the first coach to win an NCAA championship with five black starters. His Texas Western team beat Adolph Rupp’s all-white Kentucky team for the title in 1966.

“He had courage enough to put the people on the floor that he thought were the best people,” Georgetown Coach John Thompson said. “I think that had a great effect on a lot of thinking in the game.”

Haskins, 65, is recovering from heart bypass surgery in El Paso and will miss the rest of the season. He didn’t make a fuss, but it’s clear he is tired of the process.

“I do not want to sound bitter, which I am certainly not,” he said. “But please do not nominate me for the Hall of Fame again.”