And the Walls Came Tumbling Down: Kentucky, Texas Western, and the Game That Changed American Sports

Ironically, "And the Walls Came Tumbling Down: Kentucky, Texas Western, and the Game That Changed American Sports," preserves a stereotypical view of the game that presumably challenged a prevailing stereotype. The controversial figure in this story has always been Adolph Rupp, coach of the Kentucky Wildcats, whose "Rupp's Runts" were the last all-white team to play for the championship in the NCAA mens basketball title game. Fitzpatrick makes Rupp the iconic figure of white racism. Indeed, before the game, Rupp told the press that a team of five black players could not beat a team of five white players. However, certainly Rupp was not alone in that holding that stupid position. While it would not be surprising that Rupp, as a older Southern white man, would be a racist, his attempts to recruit future pros Wes Unseld and Butch Beard would seem to suggest he might have been something short of a card carrying member of the Klan. Yet Rupp is demonized throughout the book, while his players, most notably Pat Riley and Louie Dampier, are forced into the role of apologists. Unfortunately, Rupp's legacy pretty much ended with this game, while Riley and Dampier both got to prove their willingness to play not only against but with blacks in professional basketball.I had spent years booing Don Haskins and the Miners in the Pit in Albuquerque for years before I found out that UTEP had once been Texas Western and how won the NCAA title in 1966. The final score was 72-65, but as they often say, the game was never really that close. Fitzpatrick does assemble all the stories and quotes needed to give you a sense for what happened and how it was seen as important. The collision course between the two teams, the programs, the two coaches, the two ways of thinking, is crystal clear from start to finish. However, despite its importance, primarily in opening up the SEC to black basketball players and other athletes, this game certainly did not impact on the national championships for the rest of the decade. After all, the argument could be made that the only reason Texas Western won in 1966 was because freshman were not eligible to play and two-time defending national champion U.C.L.A. had the best player in the country, Lew Alcindor, playing on their freshman team. U.C.L.A. would win the next seven NCAA titles and all of John Wooden's 10 title teams were won by integrated teams. I have to believe, that even if Texas Western had lost, that the value of black players would have been lost on the rest of the country. As interesting as the story about this pivotal game happens to be, the story about the story is equally fascinating. While it was obvious to everyone who watched the game that a team of black players beat a team of white players, the sports media managed to cover the game without dealing with the racial aspects of the encounter. The aftermath of this story abounds with more irony. Kentucky did not recruit a black player until 1969, at whi

This book was very inspirational to me. Before 1966 there was a myth that five African-American couldn't play on the basketball court together without having one white person on the court to keep things in order. This championship game of 1966 with five African-American's starting as well as winning the game busted integration wide open. If minorities as a whole can apply the same techniques to academics that they apply athletics, we as a race will be able to tear down many racial barriers whether we have affirmative action or not. Just look at the blacks that are in big time positions that are not athletes. Kenneth Chenault/CEO American Express, Frankie Raines/CEO of Fannie Mae, etc.

This is the best book available on the monumental historic 1966 NCAA men's basketball championship of Texas Western, the first team to start 5 blacks in the Final Four. It is very well researched, with an extensive bibliography. The civil rights impact is well dealt with, as are the racial attitudes of several of the major players. The Kentucky coach, Adolph Rupp, is treated fairly and the reader is left to make his own decision about his character. This is tricky to handle, because his attitudes had to be presented on a backdrop of his times and environment.I have two minor criticisms of the book, which prevent me from awarding it 5 stars. The first is that the racial attitudes of Don Haskins, the Texas Western coach, were not clearly portrayed. We are left with the impression that he cared about the game more than anything, and we know that he was a little bit country, but we never really find out whether he harbored any prejudices. Second, while the race issue is well dealt with by Fitzpatrick, he does not deal in depth with the problem with gentlemen's agreements. This refers, for example, to the rule of thumb "2 at home, 3 on the road, 4 when behind" that apparently many coaches used to define their quota for black players. A discussion of this, including who knew about these agreements and how widespread was their impact, would definitely have been in order in this book which is trying to place that basketball game in its spot in history.

This is a nice, easy read about a milestone game in college basketball history. It certainly dispelled some of the myths I had about the contest. Fitzpatrick talked to all sorts of people and checked many resources, leaving the reader impressed.

Frank Fitzpatrick has undertaken and successfully written a much needed book that should set the record straight forever about Texas Western College in El Paso and the much revered Don Haskins in 1966. "And The Walls Came Tumbling Down" is well-researched, beautifully structured and concisely written as pure as journalism can offer. Hey - if you were a part of the memorable experience like I was in El Paso as a 10-year-old youngster in 1966, you remember all the fine print and details. Fitzpatrick does make one serious error. He writes in Chapter 10 that Texas Western was not invited back the following season in 1967 to the NCAA. Wrong. The Miners went to the tournament's western regional and fell a game shy of playing a UCLA team led by a sophomore named Lew Alcinder. It would have been a pleasure to read Fitzpatrick's hypothesis about the dream meeting - Texas Western's David Lattin and a transfer from New York that year named Phil Harris versus Alcinder. Could you have imagined? Thank God the Philadelphia journalist came along and put some sacred cows like Sports Illustrated and its James Olsen series in 1968 and the thoroughly disgusting James Michener's analysis of the Miners in his "Sports in America" book where they rightfully belong - in the trash can. "The real story of Texas Western's championship team is far different from the myth that has grown around it," Fitzpatrick writes. YEA! Fitzpatrick deserves more than a pat on the back for accurately describing El Paso and what we thought of our heroes. He should be hugged. He accurately writes there wasn't the faintest hint of exploitation or racism toward black athletes. Fitzpatrick successfully portrays who those Miners were. They were winners. They were El Paso. Ultimately, they were us. We couldn't have been prouder. We embraced what that team accomplished and will always. Fitzpatrick even captured the bedlam at El Paso International Airport when our heroes arrived home. I cried reading it like I did then. The memory tingles now. It should forever thanks to a magnificent book like this one.