Forty Minutes of Hell Read online

  Richardson would surpass Galarza’s accomplishments, being named All-City in football, basketball, and baseball. In one basketball game, Richardson sank an incredible twenty-four baskets, missing just five shots.

  The spring of Richardson’s junior year in high school, the Bowie Bears baseball team won a spot in the district playoffs. A powerful left-handed hitter, Richardson batted .450 that season. He was clearly the Bears’ best player, and still the only black kid on the squad. The playoff games would be held in Abilene, an eight-hour drive into the heart of Texas. This would be his first trip with a sports team, and Richardson was beside himself with excitement.

  A few days before their departure, Coach Nemo Herrera surprised Richardson by showing up at Ol’ Mama’s shotgun house. Herrera didn’t usually make house calls.

  Richardson wasn’t allowed to stay with his Mexican-American teammates at the hotel in Abilene, Herrera said. Playing in the games wouldn’t be a problem, but the coach was going to find Richardson a family to stay with in Abilene, a Negro family.

  Richardson was angry when Coach Herrera left. “To hell with Bowie baseball, then,” he said to the only other set of ears in the house. Ol’ Mama looked at him hard. “You’re going on the trip,” she said. “You let your bat do your talking for you. If you don’t go, this kind of stuff is going to go on forever.”

  Richardson started to speak, but Ol’ Mama cut him off, listing the enormous changes she’d seen in the world between 1885 and 1958. “Your children will one day get to stay in those hotels,” she said.

  Richardson knew what was coming next.

  “If it wasn’t for Jackie Robinson,” she added, “you wouldn’t be able to do this, or anything else.” Ol’ Mama didn’t care much about sports, but she admired the baseball pioneer and would often invoke his name as if it were sacred.

  When the Bowie Bears arrived in Abilene, the usually boisterous bus grew silent. The Bowie players filed off, with a nod or handshake offered to their black star, then disappeared into the hotel. Richardson, who was seated on the sidewalk side of the bus, memorized the face of the building. Then the bus driver took him to his accommodation with an elderly black couple, living, of course, on the other side of the tracks. Richardson says, “They were very kind and I had my own bed. Also, the lady’s cooking was terrific.”

  The bus came by the next morning, this time full of Bowie players and coaches. Richardson didn’t speak on the ride to the game.

  Richardson clubbed two home runs that day, and the Bowie Bears won. He thought that might be the end of it—he’d let his bat do the talking for sure. Instead, he came home to another lecture from Ol’ Mama, who, as usual, was waiting on the porch for him. Somehow she’d already heard the news.

  “The only way you’re going to make it is to keep going,” she said. If he were good enough in sports, she said, he’d get an athletics scholarship. “But you have to keep knocking on that door,” she said. “And when it opens a little bit—just a crack—you knock that damn door down, you hear!”

  When Richardson was sixteen, he found his own personal Jackie Robinson in Texas Western’s first black player, Charlie Brown.

  Charlie Brown was a twenty-six-year-old air force veteran when he arrived in El Paso on a basketball scholarship in the summer of 1956. (Jackie Robinson was a twenty-eight-year-old army veteran when he joined the Brooklyn Dodgers.) A native of Tyler, Texas, Brown had played a year of junior college ball in Amarillo.

  Only 6'1", Brown paced Texas Western College in scoring and rebounding in each of his three seasons, averaging 17.4 points as well as eight rebounds per game. After he poured in 29 points against New Mexico State, their longtime coach Presley Askew—who had been the University of Arkansas coach in the early 1950s—said, “Charlie Brown is the best basketball player I have ever seen.”

  When Brown first arrived in El Paso, he was met by one of Texas Western’s graduating guards, Alvis Glidewell. The bespectacled Glidewell was an intellectual kid who already professed a desire to coach. He carried the less-than-flattering nickname of “Tweetie Bird,” but was respected by his teammates for his dedication and heady play. Glidewell and Brown became best pals. Glidewell recalls, “We tried to go to a movie at the Plaza Theater, but they wouldn’t let Charlie in. But everybody liked Charlie and it wasn’t just because of basketball. Charlie was the darling of the whole school.”

  In 1958, Glidewell began coaching at El Paso’s Austin High School, where he’d witness Richardson’s final two high school seasons. “Nolan made Bowie good all by himself,” he says, “and was likely the best all-around athlete we’ve ever seen in El Paso, and not just because of basketball. He was dominating three sports.” Unbeknown to Glidewell, Richardson began keeping tabs on him as well.

  Richardson began playing with Charlie Brown while he was still attending Bowie. A local basketball fan, Saul Kleinfeld, put together a traveling team to represent his company, Union Furniture, and he recruited Richardson to be their youngest member. The rest of the team consisted of players and former players from Texas Western. Kleinfeld’s crew would often go deep into the interior of Mexico, and they continued to play together in the summers after Richardson had graduated from Bowie.

  Texas Western’s basketball coach tried to recruit Richardson to play for the Miners, but got frustrated with his indecision that spring. Richardson believed that since the Miners had no baseball team, the school was not ideal. Just before his graduation, he was offered a basketball scholarship to nearby New Mexico State University, which had both basketball and baseball. That inspired coach Nemo Herrera to honor his only black athlete. Herrera organized a collection to buy a gift for Richardson—his first suit, to be worn at commencement.

  On graduation day, Richardson donned that suit, slung the cap and gown over his shoulder, ready for the ceremonies. But Ol’ Mama insisted he put on the graduation gown so that everyone who saw him would understand that this was a high school graduate. Richardson complied, and they traveled on foot, Richardson complaining, Ol’ Mama beaming.

  The following week, Richardson changed his mind about New Mexico State, deciding that he might rather concentrate on baseball. Unsure of what to do, he asked Bert Williams for help.

  Bert Williams was an El Paso city alderman who had played basketball at Texas Western after the war. He still played summer baseball, and like anyone involved in El Paso baseball, he knew Richardson. Williams phoned a friend, the coach at the University of Arizona, a baseball mecca. The Arizona coach had done his homework; he knew exactly who Richardson was, and tempted him with talk of a future in Major League baseball.

  There was a hurdle, though. He had a 2.6 grade point average, and Arizona required a 3.0 for out-of-state kids. Williams, with the help of the Arizona coach, arranged for Richardson to attend Eastern Arizona Junior College for one season. Richardson didn’t anticipate playing basketball, despite his admiration for Charlie Brown. “Ol’ Mama wasn’t the only one,” he says. “By then I was totally enamored of Jackie Robinson, too.”

  THREE

  THE KNOWN WORLD

  In September of 1959, Richardson enrolled at Eastern Arizona, certain he’d be gone to Arizona on a baseball scholarship after one year. The basketball coach at Eastern Arizona learned of Richardson’s background, though, and convinced him to play hoops. That was a smart move. Richardson was sensational, scoring 22 points and ten rebounds per game before the baseball season even began.

  Around Christmas, Richardson married his high school sweetheart, Helen, then returned alone to Eastern Arizona. When Helen phoned to say she was pregnant, he knew that Arizona or New Mexico State could no longer be an option. He needed to go home to El Paso to be near both of their families. Harold Davis, Texas Western’s basketball coach, heard rumors of Richardson’s situation and offered him a full scholarship. Texas Western still didn’t field a baseball team, so it seemed an abrupt end to his baseball career.

  Richardson racked up a lot of points his first season at Texas W
estern. An explosive and determined wing player, he scored 21 a game as a sophomore. The team wasn’t too bad that year, either, finishing 12-12. Playing for Harold Davis was a pleasure because the coach allowed Richardson to shoot whenever he got the urge.

  Still, something about his time under Davis didn’t sit right with Richardson.

  The Miners were invited to a three-game holiday tournament at Centenary College in Shreveport, the team’s first road trip. Texas Western had won their first five games in a row going into the tournament and expectations were high. Richardson was excited because Ol’ Mama was from Louisiana, and he was hoping maybe some distant relatives could attend.

  Harold Davis called his high-scoring wing player aside a few days before the team’s scheduled departure. Davis was never threatening or aggressive with the players, and he often used his private talks to bolster their confidence, so Richardson figured it was another pep talk.

  “You can’t play this weekend,” Davis told him.

  Richardson, who’d been having a bit of trouble with an injury, yelped in protest. “My ankle’s fine, coach,” he said. He hopped side to side to demonstrate.

  His health was not the issue. The tournament at Centenary College had a rule: no Negroes.

  Richardson stayed at home, lonely and depressed, while the undefeated Texas Western team flew to Shreveport. The Miners promptly lost all three games. Richardson listened to the games on the radio, pacing back and forth and kicking his couch.

  The Shreveport Tournament snub is something Richardson talks about to this day. He was fond of Davis, but was hurt and angry that the coach did not have the backbone to do what was right.

  “I think that story really defined my dad,” says his oldest child, Madalyn. “He always said that Harold Davis should have forfeited those games.”

  After Richardson’s sophomore season in 1961, Harold Davis resigned from Texas Western. His family’s oil wells out near Big Spring, Texas, had gone crazy. Money was gushing out of the ground, plenty more than the sorry salary that a Texas mining college paid its basketball coach.

  One August afternoon, Richardson was standing outside the Miners Hall dorm in the shade of an overgrown cactus. A football player nudged Richardson and said, “Your new basketball coach is here.” It was Davis’s coaching replacement, Don Haskins, from tiny Dumas High School in the Texas panhandle.

  Haskins, red-faced and cranky from his kids’ crying, climbed out of the station wagon, his family’s U-Haul in tow. Haskins was annoyed, because he had been straining to listen to the live radio reports as he drove into town. The world’s first commercial airplane hijacking had taken place at El Paso’s airport.

  Richardson couldn’t quite remember the new coach’s name, but he stepped into the El Paso sunshine to help the man unload his station wagon.

  Haskins recalled Richardson emerging from the shade: “He had muscles popping out all over and a tiny waist and just looked like an athlete. I hadn’t seen anybody that looked like Nolan Richardson. I couldn’t wait to get him into the gym.”

  Texas Western’s athletics director had given Haskins the scouting report on his new team, focusing specifically on the two stars. Al Tolen, a white forward, had averaged nearly as much as Richardson. “The first one of them who got the ball shot it,” Haskins said. In fact, Tolen and Richardson took more shots than the rest of the team combined. Everyone Haskins talked to concurred that Richardson was a terrific talent but wouldn’t make an effort on defense. Haskins reckoned he understood the problem. “Nobody had ever asked him to guard anyone,” he said.

  When the unloading was done, Haskins got face to face with Richardson and established the terms for their next two years together.

  “I heard,” Haskins said, pointing a finger in Richardson’s face, “that you can’t guard a goddamn fencepost.”

  Like Richardson, Don Haskins chose to play at a college near his home. Haskins had a rocky playing career with the hyper-disciplined Henry Iba at Oklahoma A&M (later renamed Oklahoma State). He’d score a bunch of points one game, then wind up on the bench for his lack of defense or appearing too confident. Haskins even had some academic eligibility trouble, further irritating Mr. Iba.

  Haskins was from Enid, where he had befriended an older boy named Herman Carr. They’d pal around or go shoot hoops. Haskins admired Carr and thought it was a shame that he was not playing college ball. Carr did not have a basketball scholarship for a reason. “Herman Carr was black,” Haskins said. “Simple.” Haskins and Carr would get grief wherever they went in Enid, even in the black neighborhood. “We got ran off several times,” Haskins said. “He was just black and I was white and there wasn’t much difference between us.”

  Herman Carr was at the forefront of Haskins’s mind when he began interacting with Richardson and Willie Brown, the only black players at Texas Western that August. Haskins was captivated with Richardson’s athletic ability, and realized that his versatility might cause him to miss court time in the off-season. “I saw him run a 9.7 hundred-yard dash at Texas Western,” Haskins recalled. “He’d beat everybody without even having time to practice, and that was wearing basketball shoes.”

  Richardson never roomed on campus when he played for the Miners. He and Helen rented a house on Tularosa Street in central El Paso, using the money he made at two part-time jobs to get by. It was here that Richardson’s first three children were born—Madalyn, Nolan III (“Notes”), and Bradley. He was less than a mile away from his old neighborhood and felt more of a connection to the town of El Paso than to Texas Western College. Yet El Paso was still segregated by law, something that continued to irritate him.

  Because of his athletic prowess, there were other El Paso businessmen who coveted Richardson for their summer baseball teams. City alderman Bert Williams, who’d helped him get to Eastern Arizona, also moonlighted as a basketball referee. That summer, after a basketball game, he convinced Richardson to join his fast-pitch softball team. After a game when Richardson batted in the winning run, Williams offered to treat him to dinner at a popular Copia Street restaurant, the Oasis. It was the summer of 1961, months before Richardson would play a game for Don Haskins.

  “I can’t go in there, Bert,” Richardson said as they rolled into the Oasis parking lot.

  “Why the hell not?” Williams said, popping the car door open. Surely they’d serve an alderman and the college’s top athlete, Williams reasoned. The two men took a seat, but the waitress came over without menus or water. Williams asked for a beer, Richardson wanted a Coke. The smell of grilled hamburgers and fried potatoes floated back to their table.

  “I cannot serve him in this restaurant,” the waitress said, refusing to look at Richardson.

  Williams tried to force the issue—the owner of the restaurant was Fred Hervey, who had been El Paso’s mayor, and Williams mentioned that he knew him. The tables got quiet as a bitter stalemate ensued. Williams grabbed Richardson—who’d kept silent—by the elbow and led him to the door. “I’ll be back,” Williams warned.

  Williams was so upset by the incident that he immediately began drafting legislation to officially end the segregation of El Paso hotels, restaurants, and theaters.

  “The city was divided by railroad tracks,” Williams recalls, “but the laws were enforced more arbitrarily for Mexican-Americans, and there were places where they could eat without trouble.” The laws were nearly always enforced to keep blacks out, though.

  Bert Williams became obsessed with integrating El Paso. After rallying his fellow aldermen and revising the wording, the bill was ready. The ordinance—the first of its kind, Williams says, in Texas—passed an initial vote. It would need to pass another, and get the mayor’s approval to be turned into law. Both El Paso newspapers, the Times and the Herald-Post, published editorials condemning the progress. The mayor vetoed the ordinance, but Williams had enough votes to override him.

  “It was just by coincidence that Nolan was there that night at the Oasis,” says Williams, who was subs
equently elected mayor himself. “After I witnessed the way he was treated, such a great kid and the star of the college, I knew I had to do something.”

  Bert Williams’s heroic act made El Paso the first major city in the old Confederacy to officially desegregate. Yet Williams’s courage—he ignored numerous threats and enormous pressure—was barely reported nationally and remains nearly forgotten even in El Paso. Don Haskins took notice though. The town’s new progressive status would have a profound effect on Texas Western’s ability to recruit black athletes. Two years after Bert Williams’s legislation passed in El Paso, the United States adopted national civil rights legislation into law.

  NCAA rules at the time allowed Richardson to work while he was enrolled in college. Every Wednesday he hauled heaps of wood scrap and planks around a downtown lumberyard. That wasn’t as enjoyable as his Sunday job, parking cars at First Methodist Church, not too far from the college. The church was the one Haskins and his family attended, and the coach had arranged for the job. “I’d park cars for white folks coming into church,” Richardson says, “and hang around until it was time to retrieve the car. Some people gave me a dollar tip, and that added up.” Parking cars stands out as one of the few pleasant aspects of Richardson’s time playing for Haskins.

  The new coach’s mannerisms were perplexing to Richardson. Haskins did not curse the players individually; instead, his invectives involved challenging the collective manhood of the entire group, or included phrases that Haskins considered derogatory. Many of these phrases simply left Richardson amused. “He’d tell us to quit our damn barbershopping,” Richardson says. “He meant our gossiping.”