He was a man who stood strong and nudged the moral dial of a nation in the right direction and he did it all with a bouncing ball.

To Mary Haskins, he was always the man she met somewhere around 1950, someone she remembers as being "pretty special" and her partner and husband for 56 years.

And, to Brent and Steve Haskins, he was dad — a man who could be strict and who became a friend over hitting golf balls together.

Don Haskins was all those things and so much more, leaving an enormous legacy on this border city and on the game of college basketball — still a presence 10 years after his passing.

Brent, one of four sons Don and Mary Haskins raised, shook his head and said softly, "Wow, I can't believe it's been 10 years."

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Steve said, "I was at Rosa's Cantina the other day and they had the Don Haskins Special. It was meatloaf. Dad was a meat guy."

Brent and Steve still live in El Paso. Their brother David lives in Arkansas and their brother Mark passed away in 1994. Brent, Steve and David were there with their father when he passed away on Sept. 7, 2008.

Was the coach a strict father?

"Yes ... yes," Brent said.

Smiling, Steve added, "When he caught us."

Don Haskins was a man who had a million stories, a marvelous story teller. And he was a man who inspired stories.

"I remember in 1971 they asked me if I wanted to caddy for Lee Trevino over at El Paso Country Club," Brent Haskins said. "That was the year he won the U.S. Open, the British Open and the Canadian Open. He was my hero. So, naturally, I said yes.

"He didn't say much to me until we got to the back nine," Brent Haskins said. "Then he said, tell me the truth, are you so skinny because your fat daddy eats all the food in the refrigerator."

Brent said when he got home later, dad had a question.

"What did Trevino say about me," he demanded.

"Nothing, Dad."

"What the hell did Trevino say?"

"I told him and I've never heard him laugh so hard."

After a pause, Brent added, "My dad had a great sense of humor and he really liked to help people."

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Steve Haskins said, "Look at that story of him helping that family he found stranded out by Van Horn. He got their car fixed, put them up in a hotel, gave them some money and sent them on their way and never told a soul ... not even Mom.

"Most people would have been proud of that and told someone," Steve Haskins said. "The only way anyone found out is the mayor of Van Horn called the office to thank him and Tim Floyd answered. That was pretty amazing."

Of course, most people knew him as The Bear, this fierce competitor, this menacing force on the sidelines. And, especially now thanks to the movie "Glory Road," people know him as the man who coached Texas Western to the NCAA championship over Kentucky. The man who started five African-American players against the all-white Kentucky squad.

Haskins played only seven players in that game — all African Americans. He would forever say, "I was only playing my best players."

But, after that, southern universities began to recruit African American athletes. And, following that, African American students began to attend those same southern universities. It was a wonderful and long overdue chain reaction.

Mary Gorman and Don Haskins fell in love somewhere around 1950 and married in 1952 when they finished school at Oklahoma A&M (now State). Haskins played a couple of years of AAU basketball after college and then began his coaching journey as head coach of Benjamin High School in west Texas in 1955.

Haskins coached for the next six years in small town Texas — Benjamin in 1955-56, Hedley from 1956-1960 and Dumas in 1960-61 — before coming to El Paso as the head coach at Texas Western.

"I didn't mind living in those places," Mary Haskins said with her ever-present smile. "There were so many nice people and I was just so happy Don had a job coaching. We had our four boys and we were happy."

When they moved to El Paso, they lived in the dormitory. It was part of Haskins' job to control the dormitory.

"That was my favorite place to live," Mary Haskins said. "I loved it there. Something was always going on. Everyone was so nice. There were the custodians and the yard people and the cafeteria and all the boys who lived there. We loved living in the dorm."

They made one move and then one more in 1968 when they settled into their current west side home.

"We'd wander around some and my dad always worried a little about us because he got so much hate mail for playing black players," Steve Haskins said. "It started even before he won it all in '66 but it really got heavy then. He probably got 50,000 pieces of hate mail. It was always a non-issue for him."

Don Haskins once described that mail as "filling up huge trash cans. Most of it was illiterate but some of it wasn't. I didn't read much of it and I didn't pay attention to any of it."

"The bottom line," said Steve, who was a long time professional golfer, "was he did it his way. And he is still the most competitive person I've ever known. I got that from him. He taught me that you can always work a little harder, that you can always get a little better."

And, of course, there were so many memories and so many more stories.

Both Brent and Steve remembered their dad's free throw shooting over at Arizona State in the early 1970s.

"He was a great free throw shooter," Steve said. "He made 250 in a row four or five different times."

Brent said, "He'd make 'em until his arm got tired."

Steve said, "They were playing at Arizona State and one of our guys went in and got hammered and there was no call. The play went to the other end of the court. There was a ball rack at the end of our bench and Dad went, got two balls, went out on the floor and made two free throws. The play came back down and he got a technical foul.

"He just told the ref he was taking the two free throws they should have gotten," he said, laughing at the memory.

Brent remembered when they all started playing golf.

"Dad was a good player," Brent said. "But that's when we all really got to be friends. We'd go out and play or go out and hit balls. We had a good time doing that."

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And they remembered their father's final days.

"He passed away on a Sunday," Steve said. "It's funny but one of his strongest days was the Friday night before. His voice was as strong as ever."

Brent said, "Togo (Railey, one of the 1966 team members) came by to see him. They were talking and Togo asked him, Coach, after all these years, why did you keep me? I wasn't a contributor. My dad said, 'Togo, I thought I could make an All-American out of you.'"

And the laughter flowed.

"He still had his sense of humor," Brent said.

After a pause, Steve said, "Sure doesn't seem like 10 years. It's gone by pretty fast."

Brent said, "We all think about him each and every day. I went by Memory Garden today. That's a good spot for Dad. I know he's happy."

Don Haskins brought 47 years of roaring laughter, intensity, passion and great basketball and an enormous amount of pride to this quiet old border town.

Now, 10 years after leaving his beloved border, his imprint, his memory is as large as ever.

Bill Knight may be reached at 546-6171; bknight@elpasotimes.com; @BillKnightept on Twitter.