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over 2 million served
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Julia Gorin

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Conservatives Are From Mars, Liberals Are From San Francisco
by Burt Prelutsky
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America Alone
by Mark Steyn
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This Glory Road needs to be REPAVED!
Not exactly history…
[by Patrick Hurley] 1/16/06

The new movie out, Glory Road, is a story of the 1966 NCAA Basketball Champions from Texas Western University. They beat the Kentucky Wildcats 72-65 for the title. I choose my words carefully here. It is a story of that game; but not the HONEST story. Once again, the media rewrites history and because it sounds wonderful, everyone jumps on their typewriter.

The reason for this movie is because it was the first time an all-black starting five, (Texas Western) lined up to play an all-white starting five. (Kentucky) To add a little spice to the stew, the head coach of Kentucky, Adolph Rupp, was supposedly a racist who was not fond of black people or players. According to my memory of that event, that is all true. But, history should stop there in projecting the racial importance of the game. It was two years too late if you want to be technically honest about it.

In 1963, Loyola of Chicago started four blacks against the two-time defending champion, Cincinnati Bearcats and upset the title holders in overtime. Incredible victory, sure; but because they didn’t have that FIFTH black starter what are they? Chopped watermelon? What is the movie, Glory Road saying to us? That one more black guy changes the historical destiny of this country forever? Cincinnati had three black starters when they beat a primarily WHITE Ohio State team two times running. That team from Ohio had two caucasian stars who later did pretty well in the NBA, Jerry Lucas and John Havlicek. The last time I looked they were both in the Hall of Fame. Cincinnati did not have any Hall of Famers on their championship team. But, their three black starters that no one had ever heard of outplayed the four white starters of Ohio State, including Lucas and Havlicek.

The point here is that college basketball had been much more racially tolerant than the movie or the historical revisits would have us believe. Even as far back as 1955, Bill Russell, (yes, he was black!) and, K.C. Jones (he was black, too!) led the University of San Francisco to two straight national championships. A year after their second one, some fellow named Wilt Chamberlain led Kansas to the final game and lost in triple overtime, 57-56. I think he had a pretty good pro career, too. Bill Russell and friends were eleven YEARS before the Texas Western team. So, why is the 1966 championship game getting so much racial credit?

You got me.

I have a feeling that someone is getting a little giddy over the numbers here. Five against five. White against black. A racist coach who was a legend. Hey, I have an idea, “Let’s ignore the REALITY of the game back then and REWRITE it! Who is to know? Most of the people back then who knew the facts back then are probably either dead or senile!”

Well, I’m not.

I was a junior in high school that spring and I loved Kentucky because I was a left-handed shooting guard and they had one named Louis Dampier. I had a debate tournament the day of the game and I missed watching it. I heard the final score as I was boarding our school bus for the trip home. I was devastated. Kissing my debate partner, Patti Krimm in the back seat as we waited for the driver and his date to finish their business on the front porch made up for my sorrow.

Did I like Kentucky because they had five white players? Nope. I never even thought about it. Was I upset because they got beat by five black players? Again, no. It was never brought up before the game and rarely mentioned after it, either. The better team won and it was not because they were black, white, purple or mauve. It was because they were a better team which usually keyed the NCAA championship and its results. I was not aware that racial history was being made until this week when the publicity for the movie came out.

This has happened before. In, Remember the Titans, we were all led to believe the hogwash that the white and black players had trouble blending together on that team. Nope. According to all the interviews with former players their consensus on that concept was a pretty unanimous, “Huh?” And, it was not a head coach who came over from the black high school, either. He was an ASSISTANT coach. But, Hollywood has a rewrite that just sounds better, I guess.

If black people or any other minority culture is going to be proud of its accomplishments they are better served by an honest retelling of the story, not a sensational one. It is demeaning to any race when the truth is broken for the sake of making a real achievement more dramatic just to make everyone believe it really happened the way we wish it had. Texas Western should be very proud of its championship no matter who played in that game and what color they were. Even if Adolph Rupp was not a racist, it would have been a sweet victory anyway. What is to be gained by misrepresenting the real flavor of that game? We all loved basketball back then and we did not count the number of colors at the tip off.

Glory Road will have its fine moments. I just wish it had the courage to tell the truth and make it a cinematic slam dunk that even Michael Jordan would be proud of. As I remember, no one cared if he was black or white, either. Despite his color, when he took off from the free throw lane we all screamed in unison, “I LOVE this Game!”

Just like we did in….1966. -one-

copyright 2005 Patrick Hurley

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