Afternoon Baseball

ESPN.com -- Scoop Jackson

He may not write about football or baseball much, and he may not be Ralph Wiley, but Scoop Jackson's got some pretty good things to say. Here, he's talking about the 1966 Texas Western (now UTEP) that beat Adolf Rupp's Kentucky team, the basketball symbol of segregation if there was one (not to pick on Kentucky -- they were just more successful and thus, a bigger symbol). Worse, Rupp stood as a symbol of the entire SEC in all sports. Scoop helps put this event in context, and thus bring out the true impact. While he may overreach a bit on the cultural and basketball affect launched by the Miners' victory, that is far better than understating it.

I first read about the Miners in the great collection of Best American Sports Writing: 1992, a fantastic book that I've referenced when discusssing steroids.
People forget how cyclical almost everything is, and worse, idealize things to their own liking after the fact -- a lack of perspective that's almost human nature. It came out in a lot of analysis after John Paul II died, (which I tried to make sense of), whenever baseball and steroids is discussed, and continues to be demonstrated post-9/11 and post-Katrina (that post is actually from the day before Katrina hit).
With the Miners story, there has always been the danger that people would forget the differences in the racial situation back then, and that maybe Rupp was a loving guy to all, or that Texas Western's victory wasn't such a big deal. Without this movie, the dustbin of history may have been the next stopping point for the 1966 Miners' legacy.

But in this case, we're lucky that news recycles itself.
As such, topics that were all the rage in sports in 1992 -- the forgotten legacy of Roger Maris, trying to find the real Michael Jordan behind the persona, the debate over the help that steroids provide, and yes, the story of the 1966 NCAA champions, just to name a few -- have all re-entered the public consciousness in the years since.
I'm glad I read about the Miners and their remarkable story nearly 14 years ago -- and was able to do so without the inevitable distortion and condensing that a movie version must impart. Although I'm sure you can find the 1992 book with that article at a library. I wish I had the book here with me, I'd list the author and title of the piece.
But see the movie, if you like these type of biopics. It seems to be a pretty decent film, and it's the best chance most of us will have to learn about that special team.