ATHLETICS
Seeking the Mother Lode
Miner sports fans eager for more golden years
By David Peregrino

   Over nine decades of sports triumphs and failures, Miner fans have morphed into their mascot.

   We are Paydirt Pete, that rugged earthmover whose leathery face chronicles an often rocky search for sports success.

1966 Basketball Championship

   It's been a frustrating few decades for the tireless prospector, who last hit a mother lode in 1966.

   Making history that year, Texas Western College (now UTEP) coach Don Haskins started five black athletes in the NCAA men’s basketball championship game, defeating an all-white Kentucky team for the national title.

A Golden Decade

   El Paso Times sports reporter Bill Knight has written extensively about Haskins and that '66 championship team, which has become a symbol for black athletes' breakthrough into college sports.

Haskins

   Says Knight: “It’s amazing. HBO, ESPN have all done specials on (Haskins’ team)...and now Disney plans to make a movie about it. I can’t think of a (college) national championship that’s been considered that special.”

   Ray Sanchez, a veteran El Paso sports writer and author of The Miners: The History of Sports at the University of Texas at El Paso and Basketball's Biggest Upset, says the national title was the highlight of the “golden decade of UTEP sports.”

   In addition to the basketball championship, the Miners were on a roll in football during the second half of the 60s. The team delivered winning seasons and triumphed in the 31st and 33rd annual Sun Bowl games.

   The decade also saw the beginning of a UTEP track and field dynasty.

    Wayne Vandenburg's runners won the NCAA cross-country championship in 1969. The track and cross-country teams carried that success through the 70s and early 80s: Ted Banks' men's track teams brought home five outdoor national titles, six national indoor titles and six cross-country national titles.

Miner successes

   But before and after those golden 60s, other Miner teams have delivered countless athletic gems to our prospector's callused hands. Too numerous to list in full, notable players and events include:

• Basketball: Charlie Brown (recruited in 1956, he was the first black athlete to play in a major sport at a major university in the Confederate South), Nate “Tiny” Archibald, Tim Hardaway, Antonio Davis, Jim Barnes, the Miner Mania of the 1980s, the upset of Kansas and a trip to the Sweet 16 in the 1992 NCAAs

UTEP Football

Football: Seth Joyner, Don Maynard, Tony Tolbert, Ken Heineman, Billy Stevens; Track and field: Suleiman Nyambui, Bob Beamon, Bert Cameron, Greg Joy, Charmaine Crooks, Javier Montez, Michael Musyoki, Kim Turner, Obadele Thompson; The university's first-ever national championship, won by the 1954 ROTC rifle team; The success of women's sports after the 1972 passage of Title IX laws.

A return to winning ways

   It's great to reminisce about these achievements, but old Paydirt is hungry for more.

   Not just a bowl berth, but a bowl win.

   A sip of Sweet 16 is great, but how about a shot of Final Four?

   Two years ago, the women's soccer team was at one point the highest-scoring team in the country. The time seems ripe for a dynasty to emerge from UTEP women's sports.

   This year, Miner athletics have the city humming with excitement.

   Coach Billy Gillispie's men's basketball team's WAC co-championship and trip to the NCAA Tournament has revived Miner Mania. On the women's side, Keitha Green's basketballers' undefeated streak during the regular season and impressive run to the semifinals of the WAC tournament brought throngs of women's basketball fans.

Price

   And fans seem thrilled about the hiring of Mike Price, the former Washington State University coach now who's tasked with building a winning football team.

El Paso pride

   UTEP President Diana Natalicio says she's eager for Miner sports success to stir up El Pasoans' pride for their hometown university.

   “Athletics offer the window on this university for most outsiders,” she says, adding that UTEP sports are a “real psychological boost” for the community.

   And much of this boost is coming from former students who believe in Miner sports' future.

   Larry K. Durham donated $5 million toward the $11 million Sports Center at the Sun Bowl that bears his name.

   And construction is underway on the $1.8 million Helen of Troy Softball Complex, thanks to the generosity of Helen of Troy CEO Jerry Rubin and his wife, Stanlee, both UTEP graduates.

   The die-hard old prospector seems to have walloped his pick into a rich vein of gold.

   “It’s so exciting,” says Sanchez.

“What a way to start the 90th year of UTEP sports.”

UTEP Fans