Monday, February 20, 2012

Glory Road

" 3,2,1, and Texas Western has won the 1966 NCAA Championship" The little school down in El Paso, Texas who had very little chance of even getting a win in division one let alone beating power house Kentucky with their brutal coach Adolf Rupp. However Coach Don Haskins a high school girl basketball coach realized he needed to find players that could play and play together as a team even if it was with an all black line up. Starting an all black line up in a National Championship game was unheard of but Coach Haskins was out to make a point that blacks could play the sport. I think that the recruiting of the seven black players to Texas Western made America realize that black players were just the same as whites and had the ability to entertain the crowd just as well. That starting five Bobby Joe Hill, David Latin, Nevil Shed, Harry Floury,and Orsten Artis proved that Texas Western did not care about color or race but wanted to show the nation that Texas Western had accepted blacks.

Even though Texas Western when through so much with dealing with racism and not being able to be accepted in the south lit a fire under the team to propel them to national championship status. If I was in the position of Don Haskins I would be proud to have black players and be different from the rest of the south and the nation. Even if it might be difficult to cope with the racism and hatred  towards blacks.

This movie is up there with some of the greatest sports stories and upsets of all time. A nation that did not even know where Texas Western was and gave little support to them in the 1966 NCAA championship vs Kentucky. I believe that this little school in El Paso, Texas believed that their team could be good and knew that they could do big thing in Division I.

Over all this Texas Western team had the heart to win that David vs Goliath game vs Kentucky and wanted to go out an prove that blacks where just the same as whites. I would hope that the little school and in El Paso backed their team. The black community backed up the team from Texas Western even a group of students in Kentucky did and wanted them to succeed. I think this story is one of the most inspiring sports stories of all time.


1 comment:

  1. The first thing is that you dont want to give away the ending of the movie, so you may want to take away the first sentence and the other part where is says they played kentucky. You did a good job summarizing the movies entirety. Just an idea, you could add specific scenes to further explain the means of racism.. Lastly your closing statement was good because readers know what your viewpoint is!

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