- In 1966, Texas Western coach Don Haskins led the first all-black starting line-up for a college basketball team to the NCAA national championship.
- In 1965, the coach of the high school girl basketball team Don Haskins is invited by the Texas Western Miners to be their coach. Despite the lack of budget, Haskins sees the chance to dispute the NCAA and moves with his wife and children to the college dormitory. He recruits seven talented and rejected black players to play with five Caucasian players and formed a legendary team that won the 1966 national championship against the powerful Kentucky.—Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
- 40 years ago, Don Haskins went on the recruiting trail to find the best talent in the land, black or white. 7 blacks and 5 whites made up the legendary 1965-66 Texas Western Miners. They were mocked and ridiculed for their showboating and flaunting of black players on the court. Yet, in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds, Haskins and his Miners came together as a team united to reach the National Championship game against powerhouse Kentucky.—[email protected]
- In 1965, Don Haskins was the coach of a High School Basketball team in Fort Worth Texas. He lives with his wife Mary (Emily Deschanel) and 3 kids. Don was a player himself and had to give up the game when he blew out his knee when he was in college.
In 1972, newly appointed men's basketball coach Don Haskins (Josh Lucas) from Texas Western College in El Paso, lacking necessary financial resources, makes an effort to recruit the best players in the country regardless of race to form a team that can compete for a national championship. Don is determined to play against the best and even agrees to move his family into a room next to the men's dorm, as the college cannot afford to give him a proper house. The court has a crooked floor and pigeons reside in the roof.
Football is the only sport with any real funding, and Don has next to no budget for recruiting any players for basketball. Don attends many high school games to try and recruit for his college team, but all the good players refuse to play for Texas Western, as the college has no history of winning anything. Don recruits some African Americans like Bobby Joe Hill (Derek Luke), who are warming benches since they are considered to be low intelligence and not trainable. Ross Moore (Red West) is the team manager. Ross warns Don that there are no African Americans playing division 1 basketball anywhere in the South. Don even recruits his players from as far away as New York, spending his own money for the trips. He gets players like Nevil Shed (Al Shearer), David Lattin, Harry Flournoy, Willie Worsley (Sam Jones III) and Willie Cager (Damaine Radcliff).
Some of the young men he drafts possess skill, but are raw in talent when it comes to organized teamwork focusing on defense and ball distribution. Majority of the team is composed of African American players, which does not go well with many members of the academic community in Texas Western. Race relations in American are still on edge, especially in the deep Southern states.
In the end, his Texas Western Miners team comprises seven African American and five white (like Jerry Armstrong (Austin Nichols)) athletes; a balance that raises eyebrows among university personnel. Haskins puts his players through a rigorous training program, threatening to cut anyone who doesn't work as hard as he demands, while trying to integrate his players into a single team with a common goal. Don bans girls, booze and late nights for all his players to instill discipline. The African American players resent being forced to play Don's way.
Following initial victories against mediocre local teams, Haskins quickly discovers that he has to give his African American players more free room on the court. The regular accepted rules of basketball are cramping the free flowing style of the African American players, who bring their own personality to the game. Yet the more victories his team achieves with its flamboyant style, up until this point rarely seen in college basketball, the more racial hatred mounts on his squad. This culminates in threats to his own family, the beating of a player while on the road and ultimately the ravage of his team's motel rooms by racists while they are at an away game. Cager is diagnosed with a heart condition, but he says that he has known that since high school and is desperate to play ball. Don benches him to save his life. Cager's mother meets Don and begs him to allow him to play, as these are the last games of his life.
Increasingly frightened, the team loses its last game of the regular season after the African American players stop playing with passion. Thus the Texas Western Miners finish the 1965-66 regular season with a 23-1 record, entering the 1966 NCAA tournament ranked third in the nation.
The Texas team wins a tough semi-finals against the Kansan team, in double overtime, with all the players, including Cager, playing their heart out. Going on to the NCAA finals played at College Park, Maryland, they face the top-ranked University of Kentucky under legendary coach Adolph Rupp (Jon Voight). Rupp, with a well-organized and better experienced all-white Wildcats squad firmly believes that his opponent stands no chance. Don knows that Rupp is playing his team to prove a point. On the eve of the decisive game, Haskins decides to experiment with a bold strategy, informing his team that he intends to start an all-African American lineup in the game, and also only using the two other African American players in the rotation.
In the face of seemingly insurmountable odds, Texas Western faces mounting problems with forward and team captain Harry Flournoy (Mehcad Brooks) leaving the game with an injury, and their center David Lattin (Schin A.S. Kerr) in foul trouble. In a close game, the Miners narrowly lead at half time, but finally manage to beat Kentucky 72-65 with some impressive steals, rebounding and passing techniques in the second half. The film ends with the players exiting the plane that brought them back to El Paso to the greeting of a raucous crowd.
Don led Texas team to 14 NCAA titles in his career. Rupp recruited his first African American player in Kentucky in 1972, before he stepped down as coach. The Texas win against Kentucky was widely regarded as the most important college basketball game of all times.
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