Coach Don Haskins died on September 7, 2008. He was 78 years old. It was the kind of event that didn't seem real. To many people, myself included, Haskins was more than just a man. He was a legend. An institution. There was a certain belief that he would simply always be there.

Haskins didn't care about politics. When the school president complained to him about how many black players he had on the team, Haskins pointed out that it was his team to run. He didn't care about the importance of football in Texas either, instead arguing for more scholarships and appropriate facilities for his players. Even in the harsh glare of the NCAA tournament media lights he defended his team, pointing out that star guard Bobby Joe Hill had gotten them to a 23-1 regular season record, regardless of the color of his skin.

But, politics never interested Coach Haskins. Nothing that might stand in his way did, from arguments among his players to threats against his own family. Things that you and I might be scared of or intimidated by, he dealt with.

There were only two things important to Haskins: his family and winning basketball games. He took care of his wife and children, and he did what he could do to win the game. That meant the best players played, regardless of color. That meant everyone was treated the same. Everyone had to earn their place.

Haskins certainly earned his among the best men ever to coach college basketball, if not for his 38 years of accomplishments, then for what he did for the sport as a man and for who he was as a human being.

They call it the most important college basketball game ever played. They call it the "Brown v. Board of Education" game. The March 1966 day that Haskins decided to start an all-black starting lineup in the NCAA championship game was the first time it had ever been done. The 72-65 final over the University of Kentucky vaulted the Texas Western Miners into history and changed the landscape of not just sports, but the entire culture of this country.

It's almost to my chagrin that it took a movie 40 years later for me to discover this legendary story. Up until that day, I had always found basketball to be boring and uninteresting. Now I am probably one of the biggest college basketball fans on the planet.

I have experienced the joy of my University of Florida Gators winning back-to-back national championships in 2006 and 2007, and my Duke Blue Devils with their own legendary tradition. Yet I wouldn't have learned a thing from Billy Donovan or Mike Krzyzewski if I hadn't first learned of, and later learned deeply from, Haskins.

I never met the man, to my sadness. Nor did I ever get around to writing him that fan letter I planned. But having read his book, having listened to him speak, having seen him coach, I learned not only what it was like to be an athlete, but also a leader and a real person. I found this story because of a movie; I stayed with it because of the man.

Haskins touched thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of lives. He did immeasurable good for the game of basketball and for the country at large. Yet Haskins could have cared less about that. Sometimes he even regretted it. Politics and fame weren't for him. All he wanted to do was be in tiny little El Paso, Texas and coach basketball. That's where he stayed, and that's pretty much all he did, up until the day he passed on.

I always told myself I would make a pilgrimage to El Paso someday. That I would visit Texas Western (now better known as UTEP), and that maybe if I was lucky I would be able to meet Coach Haskins. That I could tell him just how much what he did well before I was born had affected me and made me a better person.

I won't be able to do that now. Yet I look back on that and almost laugh, because I know that Haskins wouldn't have wanted the attention. And that is one of the many reasons we will love and miss him forever. He was, simply put, one of the greatest men I never got to know, and yet he would want to be remembered as just a damn good basketball coach.