During the just completed NCAA Tournament (congratulations, Villanova), all the tributes being paid to the Texas Western team which beat Kentucky in the NCAA finals 50 years ago have made it difficult not to remember the 1966 tournament. Much has been made of the Miners being the first team to win the NCAA Tournament with an all-African American starting lineup.
I remember that game well, although it’s not because of the racial significance. I don’t recall any reference to race before, during or after that game. It wasn’t significant to me because 1) the two high schools that I supported in those days, Russellville and Auburn, had long been integrated, because 2) Western Kentucky had a marvelous team that included black superstars Clem Haskins, Dwight Smith and Greg Smith, and because 3) a number of national finalist teams had featured black stars, such as Oscar Robertson at Cincinnati, Bill Russell at San Francisco, Wilt Chamberlain at Kansas, Les Hunter of Loyola, and Walt Hazzard of UCLA.
I also remember that Kentucky coach Adolph Rupp had accepted an NCAA Tournament berth in an earlier year after SEC champion Mississippi State refused to go because the Bulldogs might have to play an integrated team.
The reason that game was so significant to me was that I adored Rupp’s Runts. That year was the first time I had ever seen UK play in person. I was at Memorial Coliseum when the Cats entertained Vanderbilt. It’s hard to believe with the sad state of the conference now, but the SEC was one of the best leagues in the country in those days, and UK was ranked first in the nation and the Coach Roy Skinner’s Commodores—featuring All-American center Clyde Lee, who had prepped at David Lipscomb High School, and Snake Grace of Hopkinsville—were ranked second.
I thought the starting lineup of Pat Riley, Louie Dampier, Larry Conley, Tommy Kron and Thad Jaracz was the nation’s best, and that reserves Bob Talent, Jim Lemaster and Cliff Berger gave them depth.
A stirring win over Duke came in a semifinal that we all considered the national championship game. We knew nothing about Texas Western, had never heard of them. So Rupp winning his fifth national championship seemed inevitable.
I remember thinking early in that season how important it was for UK to win that championship. UCLA had won in 1964 and ’65, shocking us all because we didn’t think schools west of the Mississippi played good basketball. But we all knew that Coach Johnny Wooden had signed the nation’s best high school player in a 7-2 center from Power Memorial High School in New York City. Freshmen were ineligible then, but I believed that with Lew Alcindor at center the Bruins would win the next three years. UK needed that fifth championship to be tied with UCLA for the most national titles after the 1969 season.
We knew nothing about a red-headed kid named Bill Walton in 1966, nor did we know that Alcindor would change his name to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar after escaping from Pawley Pavillion. I later saw Alcindor play in person as a pro and didn’t think it was fair for mortals to have to guard him. Walton may have been an even better college player than Alcindor, so the UCLA streak grew to 10 when Wooden coached his last game in the finals against UK and Coach Joe B. Hall in 1975.
In those days, winning national championships was the most important thing. Now the emphasis is on the coach being able to say how many NBA players he has coached in college.
So I remember the pain in watching the Runts lose to Texas Western in that championship game. I remember wishing the two seniors, Conley and the late Kron, were healthy instead of contending with flu-like sysmptoms. I watched in my parents’ living room with my mother (who had taught me to love basketball) and with Raymond Davis, a senior at UK who was a former Russellville basketball player.
It hurt. But I recall no racial prejudice in Russellville about the Miners’ starting lineup. In fact, I don’t remember any animosity toward what is now Western’s Conference USA opponent, Texas El Paso, the former Texas Western.
I do recall vividly, though, how much it hurt to see Rupp’s Runts routed a half century ago.