Texas Western 1966 Art Print, The Starting Five NCAA, Vintage Basketball Wall Art

Five. Texas Western started five black players in the national final against Kentucky, whose coach Adolph Rupp did not recruit black players at all. It had never been done in a title game.

Texas Western won seventy two to sixty five. Don Haskins, their coach, said afterwards and for the rest of his life that he had simply played the best players he had and that they happened to be black.

The programmes that had stayed segregated began recruiting within a few years. Kentucky signed its first black player in 1969.

Stories worth passing on, not just remembering.