Honoring the Team that Changed Basketball Forever - The UTEP Miners

If I will be given the chance to time travel, it would be on a Saturday night of March 19, 1966. At the University of Maryland's Cole Field House. The event? Its the NCAA Championship. You'd probably think whats special with that? Its just a basketball game. But it look closely at it, it is the most important game that ever played.

Ten players in short shorts in a unexplained slow-phased game of 40 minutes of basketball. There's not much drama, not much of spectacular plays, very little passion, you'll see more athletic players in high school than these set of guys.

But take a look of it closely. The crowd is white. So are the referees. So are the officials, the cheerleaders, coaches, almost everybody there is white. But then, history comes into the picture. Five negro players, started for the University of Texas Western Miners. The first in ANY basketball game.

On that era, black people doesn't have civil rights, whatsoever. But the Miners' coach Don Haskins have another thing on mind. He wants to put a stop and a beginning to everything. He wants to end racial discrimination to all "colored" people as if they are television sets, if you know what I mean. He wants to start a new culture in the sport. So in the 1966 NCAA Championship game against Kentucky, he just played his 7 negro players all throughout the game. The powerhouse Kentucky was stunned. They have been beaten by this unknown team until then. Then, the rest they say is history. After that game, black players does have a place in the basketball court. Its not about the color of the skin that is important but the skills and passion for the game is. So I can't help but wonder, why us Filipinos planning to ban foreigners to play in college? Do they need to time travel too? JMP