Reliving the road to glory

Given the number of African Americans playing professional and college basketball today, it's almost impossible to imagine a time when a player's skin color could keep him off the court.

But that was true as recently as the '60s, when major college programs, especially in the South, fielded predominately white squads and kept black athletes on the bench.

Change came from an unlikely source: Don Haskins, a young white coach at a small El Paso mining college who started an all-black squad in the 1966 NCAA Finals and defeated an all-white Kentucky team for the national championship.

"This changed the nation, it changed the sport," says Jerry Bruckheimer, producer of "Glory Road," a film that opened Friday (and recounts Haskins' unlikely feat at Texas Western University, which later became the University of Texas-El Paso.

Josh Lucas, who plays Haskins in "Glory Road" and is from Arkansas, wasn't familiar with the story of the Miners, who overcame deeply ingrained racial stereotypes, as well as threats to their physical safety, to make history.

Lucas said the now-retired Haskins, who was nicknamed "the Bear" and inducted into the National Basketball Hall of Fame in 1997, left an impression, and Lucas wasn't the only actor to feel it.

Also falling under Haskins' watchful gaze was Lucas' co-star Derek Luke, who plays Miners guard Bobby Joe Hill. Luke ("Antwone Fisher," "Friday Night Lights") had never played competitive basketball, so he learned under the tutelage of consultant Mike Fisher and University of Southern California coach Tim Floyd, a former Haskins assistant who also coached the Chicago Bulls.

"That old boot-camp process," Luke says. "It was two weeks, but it felt like six months."

Luke said some "interesting guests" turned up, including Haskins and Miami Heat coach Pat Riley, who played on the 1966 Kentucky team.

Although learning basketball was hard, dealing with the racism of the day was much tougher on Luke, who recalled a scene involving racial epithets written on the walls of the players' motel room.

Luke said he, like many young African Americans, understands that his parents and grandparents leveled the playing field. But he said there is still prejudice in America.

"To me, there's still a separation, there's a segregation, there's a 'You don't go to that neighborhood,' " Luke says.

"I knew in my heart, because I saw it in my family, not to be a racist. My dad didn't (just) have white people he knew. He had white friends ... so I think, for me, whether it's Hollywood or the NBA, that there is a responsibility to (rewrite) all those unsaid rules."

Bruckheimer said "Glory Road" could be considered "edu-tainment," in explaining a vital piece of basketball history.

"You want to show the African-American kids the sacrifices that Don Haskins made, the seven players who played made, so they can play a sport they love in vast numbers," Bruckheimer noted that he felt a duty to stay faithful because Haskins and many other key figures are still alive.