The 1966 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament is one of the most important turning points in Men's Basketball history. The significance of this particular tournament is not apparent until the Championship game, where the 3rd seeded Texas Western team faces the top ranked Kentucky team, led by one of the most successful college basketball coaches ever, Adolph Rupp. Don Haskins, the coach of Texas Western, decided to start 5 African American players for the championship game against the 5 white players of Kentucky. This had never been done before in a regular basketball game, moreless the National Championship game. This event appears to have set the gears in motion to begin desegregation in college basketball, and eventually the desegregation of all types of athletics. It took 65 years since the creation of the game before African Americans were considered equal on the court with white people. Unfortunately, society is not like the sporting world and it is going to take a great deal more time before we see events such as the 1966 Men’s Basketball Tournament take place in society and evoke changes just as this event did, but I think this was a good start.
Just as a side note, there is a movie about this particular event called “Glory Road” which does a good job as showing the struggles of African American basketball players in the 1966 society.)
Mike Sandoval
KIN 332I Section 3
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