Milwaukee Bucks join basketball lineage of agents of social change

With their walkout last week in Orlando, the Milwaukee Bucks joined a long lineage of basketball’s agents for social change.

I will always hold a special place in my heart, alongside the Milwaukee Bucks, for the University of Texas-El Paso’s (UTEP) basketball and football teams.

No, that’s not because either have had much success in the past…oh…thirty years or so. My love for the UTEP Miners extends far beyond their wins and losses, and far beyond my admiration for the Green Bay Packers’ outstanding running back, Aaron Jones, who not only played at UTEP, but played his high school football in El Paso as well.

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First and foremost, El Paso is my adopted hometown, despite being born in Milwaukee and living there now. Some of the notable positive attributes of El Paso include its low crime rate, temperate winters, beautiful mountain geography, excellent schools, a diverse population, and yes, as one would imagine, amazing Mexican food too. You have not lived until you have gone to Rafa’s Burritos and attempted to eat just one, single burrito con rajas (or a less spicy kind if you prefer); I’m serious…they are big.

The city also has a strong military presence, with Fort Bliss basically in the middle of the city, and White Sands Missile Range not too far to the north. This is notable because the influx of military families from other states and even other countries has further contributed to the racial diversity of the city. Some of my best friends in El Paso were members of military families and even chose to serve once they graduated from high school.

The majority of my classmates, friends, and teachers were of Mexican descent. Additionally, I also went to school with students who were African American, Japanese-American, Korean-American, Saudi-Arabian American, and even an exchange student from Germany, which I am including both because of her being from a different country, but also because I unsuccessfully attempted to ask her out with a German pick-up line my dad, who is fluent, taught me. I also had an excellent math teacher in 10th grade who was Filipino-American, and was one of my role models to become a teacher.

The point here is that my born-and-raised white self, from an, at the time, mostly white neighborhood on the south side of Milwaukee, was blessed with the incredible, and frankly, completely life-changing opportunity to study with, play sports with, learn from, and befriend people from multiple, different racial backgrounds and cultures.

So, how, you are probably now wondering, does this relate to basketball? How does this relate to the Bucks, more specifically? Let’s hop in the old time machine and go back to March 19, 1966.

Any self-respecting college basketball fan should be able to tell you at least something about the place that UTEP, or as it was known at the time, Texas Western College, holds in basketball lore, as well as, and more importantly, in the United States’ ongoing fight for racial justice.

The national championship that the Miners were able to hoist after their 72-65 defeat over the all-white Kentucky Wildcats is historic both in that it is not just UTEP’s, but the entire state of Texas’ only Division I Men’s Basketball NCAA Championship.

However, that 1966 championship’s basketball significance pales in comparison to the journey and struggle of the men that made it happen, and what that struggle meant in the fight for civil rights that was raging during that decade (and sadly, still is).

Orsten Artis, Willie Cager, Harry Flournroy, Bobby Joe Hill, David Lattin, Nevil Shed, and Willie Worsley were the seven African-American players on the Miners. Five of them started in the championship game.

As Frank Fitzpatrick wrote in a piece for ESPN Classic:

"“Until that moment, at the height of the civil-rights era, no major-college team had ever started five blacks in an NCAA championship game. In fact, until Texas Western coach Don Haskins did it earlier that season, no major-college team had ever started five blacks in ANY game.”"

Immediately after this seminal moment for the sport, basketball became increasingly more racially integrated, even in the South, although Kentucky, under their head coach who led the team from 1930 through 1972, did not even dress a black player until 1970, two years before he retired.

However strongly the late, great Don Haskins, coach of the Miners from 1961 through 1999, denied it while he was alive, the act of starting an all-African-American lineup and playing only African-American players in the whole game (two subs), was more than him playing his seven best players, although that is what the “Bear” maintained.

It was most definitely a statement against segregation, and it ensured that even had the Miners lost to Kentucky by 40, they still would have won. Unfortunately, a loss on the scoreboard most likely would have confirmed the prevailing misconception of the time that an all-African-American team, or in the Miners’ case, an African-American majority team, couldn’t achieve success in the sport.

Thankfully, history, as they say, is often written by the victor, and I believe it is safe to say, with no offense intended toward any of the Kentucky players (including notable basketball figures Pat Riley and Louie Dampier) who were simply playing the game they loved, that the “good guys” won that day in 1966.

To put that team in a modern context brings us to the Milwaukee Bucks and recent events.

The abhorrent violence in Kenosha, WI that the Bucks took a stand against through their now well-documented walkout serves as a chilling reminder that the injustice of the mid-1960s is still, unfortunately, alive and well in the U.S.

Whereas Texas Western’s playing of only African-American players in the championship game was orchestrated by Haskins, an Oklahoma-born, white coach, the Bucks’ move comes with a different distinction. With strong contributions from point guard George Hill, wing Sterling Brown, and assistant coach Darvin Ham, and further support from Giannis Antetokounmpo, the Bucks’ decision was unquestionably led by the team’s black players and coaches, before then being strongly supported by the rest of their teammates.

For all of the disappointment in the similarities between the 1960s and the modern day when it comes to race relations, this case of black voices being listened to, respected, supported by a unified front, and then sparking truly meaningful action is representative of the essential elements needed for more permanent change and an end to racial injustice.

George Hill took a leadership role upon himself as the first to act, and history will recognize him, Brown, and Ham as key characters in this moment when, unlike the Miners, who made their statement on the scoreboard in 1966, a basketball team decided to collectively take a stand by refusing to take to the court.

In 1966, the nation needed to see that the very future of basketball depended upon African-Americans, and Don Haskins and his Mighty Miners contributed greatly to that. In 2020, Hill, Brown, Ham and the Bucks players and coaches seem to have decided that the nation needs to see that its very future depends upon government, citizens, and policemen and women taking immediate, difficult, and absolutely critical steps towards eradicating racism.

Just like the beautiful game of basketball, society at large must join in a true team effort in order to flourish and survive. The Bucks stood together to make their point, and now it’s up to everyone else to unite to bring about much wider change and an end to racial injustice.