Coach who inspired UA’s Richardson dies at 78

A man who never coached at the University of Arkansas but was credited with inspiring a big portion of Nolan Richardson’s “40 minutes of hell” on the basketball court has died.

Don Haskins, 78, “hastened the full integration of college basketball when he started five black players for Texas Western College against an all-white University of Kentucky team and won the 1966 national NCAA championship,” according to the Los Angeles Times.

Richardson played for Haskins for two years at the college, which eventually became University of Texas, El Paso. In the LA Times piece, Richardson says Haskins in part inspired Richardson’s emphasis on defense and conditioning that became the “40 minutes of hell” style of play when Richardson coached at Arkansas.

The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette also posted this write-up on Haskins’ passing, with comments from former UA basketball coach Eddie Sutton as well (it’s part of the newspaper’s “Off the Wire” feature; scroll down to the bottom for the Haskins portion).

Filed under: Arkansas Basketball, SEC Basketball by Greg Harton. Posted on: September 8, 2008 at 8:28 am