Freshmen led Miners after junior collegian quit
Bill Knight
18th in a 25-part series written in 1986 by Bill Knight in commemoration of Don Haskins' first 25 years as UTEP's head basketball coach.
"In a way, he certainly made us better persons. We were young, we were from different parts of the country. But when we got here, we didn't have anything given to us."
- Roshern Amie
Don Haskins had just finished his first losing season. And he had little more than freshmen awaiting him Oct. 15, 1977.
"I thought he was a crazy man," said Roshern Amie, one of the freshmen. "We were all young, so he knew we needed extra work.
"On Oct. 15th we started practice around 12:30," said Amie, now a teacher, football and basketball coach at Terrace Hills Junior High. "We worked until about 5, then we'd come back at 7 and work until about 9:30. We had two-a-days for about the first 10 days."
Even with all the work, 1977-78 turned into a second losing season for Haskins. His kiddie corps finished 10-16, winning only two of 14 Western Athletic Conference games. And the Bear knew it would be tough.
Haskins said, "We lost some good players. The only senior we had was Calvin Hale, so we tried to go with freshmen. I'd just never coached a team that had lost before. I'll tell you one thing. It wasn't because all those guys didn't try so hard. We'd come in from a road trip, lose a couple of close ones and they'd want to go right to the Special Events Center and practice on Sunday afternoon."
Still, the Miners might have been able to survive had one particular junior college player stayed around for the season. But Haskins did not want it that way.
"We recruited a great junior college player," Haskins said, declining to identify the player. "We practiced about seven or eight days and he decided his mother needed a new coat, asked me about getting her one. It didn't take him long to figure out he was indispensable.
"I told him he probably needed to quit school, go to work, get his mother that coat," Haskins added. "We needed a little experience; we needed an older guy; and he was a great scorer."
The Miners lost several close games, including two-point losses to BYU and Utah. But, finally, near the end of the season, they broke a barrier. They won their first WAC game in the Special Events Center.
"I remember that well," Amie said. "We beat Arizona Sate (63-51). That entire year was really a learning experience for us."
A little freshman (who left after that season) by the name of Earl Fuller led UTEP in scoring with a 10.5 average. Amie and his friend Anthony Burns averaged 9.2 points per game each, with Burns averaging 9.3 rebounds a game. Tim Crenshaw also played well, and often, on that team.
It was difficult. It was a struggle. And it wasn't the end of the losing.