Former Sandia High standout and Academy teacher/coach recalls groundbreaking win over Kentucky
Bob Christ | For the Journal
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.
