The movie I'm most interested in seeing is supposed to come out sometime this summer, Trick and I have talked about in PMs... can't remember its title, but it's about the legendary basketball coach at UTEP (where I went to college), Don "The Bear" Haskins... Josh Hartnett will apparently play the Bear...
My understanding is that it will focus on the 1966 season, when Texas Western (which changed its name to the University of Texas at El Paso a coupla years later) shocked the world by winning the NCAA championship... the finals, held at Cole Field House on the University of Maryland campus, had Haskins starting an all-black starting 5 against Adolph Rupp's powerhouse Kentucky team, which was still segregated... not a single black ballplayer on the roster...
Some folks think that game was a catalyst for "legitimizing" black basketball players as bonafide prospects for major college programs, but that kind of talk always made Haskins uncomfortable... he always said that it just happened that the best 5 players on his team were black that year...
I'm anxious to see the film because I knew the Bear, casually, I played golf with him a couple-three times back in the early 70s... in fact, that's how I first came to be called "Bear", I was just about a groupie for the guy, always talking about him, and after a time my dorm mates got a little annoyed, and took to callin' me "Bear, Jr.", in an attempt to insult me...
Didn't work, I LIKED the nickname... and as I grew older, I came to look kinda like a bear, LOL... big ol' chest, big ol' neck, just a big torso in general, but rather short arms and legs... throw in a full (if neatly trimmed) beard, for that requisite "wooly" look... the "silver" part in my online name is part homage to my Boys, part a reflection of the color my hair and beard have taken on over the years...
