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In the early to mid-1960s, during the heart of racial unrest in America, many college teams never recruited Black athletes. That was especially true in the powerhouse Southeastern and Southwest conferences.

But what transpired during the NCAA basketball tournament in 1966 drastically altered the sports landscape. In ensuing years, schools that had long shunned Black athletes were pursuing them with vigor.

The game that helped trigger that pursuit was when little-known Texas Western in El Paso and its all-Black starting lineup won the national championship by defeating legendary coach Adolph Rupp’s all-white Kentucky Wildcats, 72-65.

It was the first time a team won a championship game with an all-Black starting five.

The 2006 movie "Glory Road" documented the team's journey under coach Don Haskins.

Along for that journey during the 1965-66 season was Louis “Flip” Baudoin, a white reserve guard/forward who helped lead Sandia High School to a state tournament championship his senior year of 1962.

Baudoin, 81, now lives in Corrales and is one of six close-knit players from that Miners team alive today, along with Willie Worsley, Nevil Shed and David Lattin, Togo Railey and David Palacio.

Baudoin was in El Paso this week for the showing of Glory Road at Texas Western’s (now the University of Texas at El Paso) old gym. It's part of a citywide remembrance of that Miners title 60 years ago.

“Back then we were right on the cusp of a lot of racial stuff,” Baudoin said during an interview at the Journal last week. “James Meredith, the Freedom Riders, the changes in the country. Everyone was angry.

“And here we bring a team that nobody wants to see. We played with such unbelievable discipline. Teams thought that Black players were circus players and that's all they could do. They were expecting a lot different than what they got. We shut people down.”

Among those who downplayed the abilities of the Black players was Rupp.

Start to the season

The Miners, one of 49 independents in Division I at the time, were coming off a 16-9 season and not ranked to open the ’65-66 campaign. New Mexico was tied for 20th in the United Press International poll and got as high as 13th that season.

Texas Western opened with nine straight victories but still hadn't been ranked. But after an 86-68 thrashing of fourth-ranked Iowa (“We just cleaned their clocks,” Baudoin said) to move to 10-0, the Miners jumped to ninth in the AP top 10 and to 11th by UPI.

The Miners were 17-0 when they paid a visit to the Lobos' Johnson Gym in early February. New Mexico held a 20-point lead with 14:03 remaining in the game yet the visitors rallied to win in overtime, 67-64.

Texas Western finished the regular season 23-1 and ranked third, not losing until the season finale.

“We lost at Seattle by two points (74-72) after beating them by 18 points earlier in the year,” Baudoin said.

Worsley, contacted at his residence in New York, saw value in that defeat.

“It was a blessing in disguise,” he said. “Coach kept us focused and got our heads out of the sky.”

Baudoin, a 6-foot-7 redshirt junior, averaged 2.5 points in 16 games during the ’65-66 season.

The tournament

There were only 22 teams in March Madness (or whatever it was called) then, with 10 getting byes in the first round. But the Miners didn't get one and faced Oklahoma City in its opener, winning 89-64.

It sure got tougher after that.

In the Midwest Regional semifinal, Texas Western beat Missouri Valley champ Cincinnati 78-76 in overtime, followed by an 81-80 triumph over Big Eight winner Kansas in double overtime.

In the Final Four, the Miners advanced past WAC champ Utah 85-78 to set up the showdown with Kentucky (27-1) at the University of Maryland’s Cole Field House.

And that’s when Rupp provided the Miners with loads of motivation when he said no team of Black players could beat his white Wildcats.

Said Baudoin: “Rupp said a lot of things that were not really nice. Some of the things he said I couldn’t repeat. But at that point, the Black members of my team didn’t care, period!”

Railey, also a reserve on that Miners squad, said: “Haskins told our Black players that and used that as cannon fodder. We ran them out of the gym.”

Back-to-back steals by celebrated Miners guard Bobby Jo Hill and a resounding dunk by Lattin early on propelled Texas Western, which was an underdog of 4 to 6 points.

The aftermath

Coaches usually get fan mail after such a victory. No such luck for Haskins, who received plenty of racist hate mail.

Said Rainey: “Haskins tried to keep it hush-hush. But he received at least six mailbags of hate mail that I know of — and it didn’t yet stop.”

More than 20 years later, Haskins was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. In 2007, his entire 1966 title team was inducted.

Baudoin, who didn’t play in the title game, returned to New Mexico following the ’65-66 season as he had already graduated college and had a wife and child. He spent 33 years as an educator and coach at sa���ʴ�ý������ҳ��� Academy.