Early Coaching Career
After college and a stint with the Amateur Athletic Union’s Artesia Travelers, Haskins began coaching, successfully leading some Texas small-town high schools (Benjamin, Hedley and Dumas) basketball teams from 1955 to 1961. He took a pay cut for a chance to be a college coach, accepting a job offer at Texas Western College (now the University of Texas at El Paso) in 1961.
In the 1950s, prior to Haskins' arrival, Texas Western recruited and played African American players, in a time when it was still common to find all-white college sports teams, particularly in the South. When Haskins arrived in El Paso, he inherited three black players from his coaching predecessor (one of those players, El Paso native Nolan Richardson, would go on to win a national title as the head coach at Arkansas).
His first Miner team had an 18-6 record, in his second year he posted a 19-7 mark and made the first of his 14 NCAA Tournament appearances. The Miners again reached the NCAA Tournament in 1963 and 1964 and played in the NIT in 1965. On numerous occasions, Haskins stated that he believed his 1964 team could have won the NCAA Tournament had All-American Jim "Bad News" Barnes not fouled out after playing only 8 minutes in a 64–60 loss to Kansas State in the Tournament.
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