QUOTES BY DON HASKINS
THE HALL OF FAME AND LEGACY
“You know, when they were first trying to get me in here, it wasn’t that big a deal. I didn’t feel I belonged. But now that I’m here, it is. It is a very big deal. I am very, very honored.”
“This is a great, great honor. But our national championship had some social significance that might outweigh anything that would ever happen to me.”
“I wouldn’t be in here today without Eddie. I told him two or three times just to drop it, not to nominate me anymore. But he wouldn’t ever listen to me.”
“I wonder if all the people here know how much hard work went into this.”
“I’m not even comparable. That’s like being compared to the greatest of all time in my eyes.”
MARY, MENTORS AND THE BEGINNING
“I owe so much to my wife, Mary. She’s always been so supportive, never complained. In fact, she was the one who encouraged me to go into coaching.”
“George McCarty was the man who helped me get this job…. Something like that just wouldn’t happen today.”
“Ben Collins was the football coach and athletic director and he was behind me all the way. Dr. Joe Ray was the president and all he asked me was whether or not I could control the athletes in the dorm—not if I could coach basketball.”
“Mr. Iba was giving us a little chalk-talk about 11:30 one night…. I must have dozed off, and he threw an eraser at me and hit me right between the eyes.”
“Benjamin might not be very big. But it was a pretty good place for an old boy to start a career.”
“I remember talking to Eddie Mullens through one of those old crank phones….”
BUILDING TEXAS WESTERN
“I really walked into some pretty good players. Nolan was here, Willie Brown was here, Bobby Joe Hill was already here and Bobby Lesley…had been with me at Hedley.”
“I had a recruiting budget of $5,000 at that time. And I spent nearly every penny of it trying to get Jim Barnes. I certainly put all my eggs in one basket.”
“(Barnes) got four of the cheapest fouls I’ve ever seen. The last one he got was the only legitimate foul.”
“Bobby Joe really struggled. And that’s because I wouldn’t let him do what he could do…. And if I hadn’t let him go, we would never have won the national championship in 1966.”
THE 1966 CHAMPIONSHIP
“Nine minutes into that game they finally got their first field goal. We were up 34-4…. (Nevil) Shed had 18 in the first half. He was just a great player.”
“The national championship was played in Lubbock between us and Kansas. That was the best team we played.”
“It was one of the finest defensive games we’ve played all season. It was the defense…. our team defense was excellent.”
“We played as well as we could play. But you would have thought it was an awful year. I found out what it’s like being 22-6 after winning the national championship.”
THE BEAR IN HIS OWN WORDS
“Have you ever seen anything worse than that? Our defense was about as pathetic as it gets.”
“We got happy and we’re not good enough to get happy.”
“The reason I’m getting this done now is I can’t see. My players are tired of getting chewed out…. I see something wrong and chew somebody out and it’s the wrong guy.”
“You know, there’s so much yapping on the court today…. Tim’s guys didn’t say a word. That shows some discipline.”
“Our problem isn’t my age or my health. It stems from those NCAA sanctions that limited us to two scholarships for two years.”
PLAYERS, MILESTONES AND EL PASO
“What a great player he was…. I didn’t have to call timeouts when I had him, because I had a coach on the floor.”
— on Nate Archibald
“It means a lot to me. I’ve had an awful lot of good players over the years. And I’m happy for our players tonight.”
— after his 700th victory
“I told them I was making $23,000 in El Paso…. I wrote down $80,000…and they said OK.”
— on leaving for Detroit and then returning to El Paso
“I’m going to be around—I love UTEP. Come by and have a beer and taco with me.”