Here’s to The Bear, and a guy who admired him

By Ron Kantowski

Tuesday, Sept. 9, 2008 | 11:15 p.m.

NOW:

My uncle was a successful college basketball coach in the NAIA, which stands for the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics. But what it really means is if you are a coach and you find a player in an Indiana steel mill, you can recruit him, even if he's 25 years old and attended three junior colleges.

My uncle and Don Haskins. the legendary Texas Western/UTEP basketball coach who died Sunday after a long illness, both recruited players out of Indiana steel mills. They believed in hard-nosed defense, that offense was a necessary evil and in playing your best five players, whether they were black, white, brown or green -- the latter describing players from Back East who weren't used to putting green chile on their hamburgers.

For those and other reasons, they became friends.

One year, Haskins was the guest coach at my uncle's summer basketball camp. What that meant is he would show up on the first day, to say hello to the kids, and on the last day, to hand out the trophies. He spent the middle days fishing the Gila River near Silver City, N.M., or riding around town in an old pickup truck, stopping only to drink a beer or tell a story. Other than the fishing part, The Bear and my uncle could have been brothers.

My uncle was a tough and decent man who didn't have heroes or idols; didn't talk very much about those he admired.

But he talked a lot about Don Haskins.

THEN:

I remember watching North Carolina State practice a day before the 1985 NCAA Tournament got under way in Albuquerque, on the same floor where Jim Valvano's Wolfpack had won the national championship on Lorenzo Charles' dunk two years before. Actually, practice is too strong a word. The NC State players shot some layups and then the party began. The Pit sounded like New Orleans on Mardi Gras. I kept waiting for Al Hirt to show up with his trumpet.

About 15 minutes after the Wolfpack left the floor and they cleaned up the last of the confetti, the Texas-El Paso Miners came onto the court, followed by their coach. He was wearing cowboy boots. And a scowl.

And then The Pit didn't sound like New Orleans anymore. It sounded like the Boot Hill cemetery on the edge of town. Only you couldn't hear the wind blow.

The only sound was Don Haskins, coaching basketball, in a low voice that bordered on a whisper.