Steve Haskins reflects on The Bear’s legacy 10 years after death of basketball icon
Friday marked the tenth anniversary of the death of basketball legend Don Haskins, often credited with helping change the game forever.
“I think about him every day. Every time I have a tough decision to make, I think about what my dad would tell me,” said Steve Haskins, the son of the legendary UTEP coach, “I know it would be no nonsense and from the heart.”
Haskins is survived by his children and his wife Mary. The family carries on the basketball tradition to this very day. “I take my mom to every game. We haven’t missed a game,” Steve said, “It would have to be something unique for us to miss a game.”
Mary, Don’s partner in life for more than 60 years, is doing great, Steve said. “She’s always been happy. She has an unbelievable disposition and outlook on life and it’s good to be around,” he said.
The 1966 NCAA Championship game is a defining moment in basketball history. Haskins started five African American players for UTEP, then known as Texas Western, and won a national title against an all white Kentucky team, changing the racial dynamic in sports forever.
“A university, a mid-level school, did some amazing things because it had a great coach and a great community that supported him,” Steve said, recalling the watershed moment in sports history. “He allowed African American players a chance to play and to go to college.”
Haskins’ legacy was immortalized in the 2006 film Glory Road, with actor Josh Lucas portraying “The Bear.”
Haskins was enshrined into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1997 as a basketball coach. In 2007, the entire 1966 Texas Western team was inducted by the same hall of fame.
Steve told ABC-7 his father loved El Paso: “This city is a special place, for our family and for my father.”
“He loved to be able to peddle around in his truck, and whoever he might get in the truck and go for a ride, and listen to their stories, or more than anything, give them advice,” Steve said, “He was always great at giving you the straight up. I sure miss that.”
