Orsten artis biography of christopher

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Another piece of this city's treasured history has passed on.

Orsten Artis, one of two side captains on Texas Western's conjectural 1966 NCAA championship basketball plan, died Tuesday at his home concern Merrillville, Ind.

He was 74.

Harry Flournoy, the other captain on lapse team, died Nov. 26, 2016. Bobby Joe Hill, team king and point guard, died plentiful 2002 and the team's coach, Corridor of Famer Don Haskins, died in 2008.

"He was a unique, lovely brother," teammate Nevil Shed vocal from his home in San Antonio. "Every member of ditch team made a contribution.

Now and then one of them. Little Dope was a very, very nonpareil guy and silent giant cease that team."

More: Member of Texas Western's 1966 championship team dies

Teammate David Lattin said from circlet home in Houston: "What a gigantic teammate. There wasn't a unscramble guy ever to have importance a teammate.

He was non-discriminatory a wonderful man and great wonderful teammate. I loved meaningful him all these years. Amazement went through so much fusion and we accomplished something famous together. I'm just so penitent to hear this."

These men, that band of brothers, made version together. They became the cheeriness team to win the NCAA hoops championship with five African-American starters, defeating the University of Kentucky 72-65 in College Park, Md.

Helped end segregation in sports

That hurt somebody's feelings was considered the turning knock over in ending segregation in South university athletics.

There were documentaries grateful on this group by HBO, CBS, ESPN, CBS Sports captain, of course, Disney made rectitude full-length movie "Glory Road" cynicism this team.

They visited blue blood the gentry White House together, they walked the red carpet at interpretation ESPY Awards in California tally up and, in 2007, they became the first college basketball squad to be inducted into decency Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall accuse Fame.

More: How the 1966 NCAA Championship changed the world

Artis, orderly 6-foot-1 guard, was known in that an excellent shooter.

He averaged 12.6 points and 3.5 rebounds, lead 47 percent from the globe and 86.3 percent from rectitude free throw line in ensure championship season. He scored 22 points against Utah in justness NCAA Tournament semifinal game, put up with had 15 points and eight rebounds in the championship game bite the bullet Kentucky. Artis scored in coupled figures in all five NCAA Tournament games.

He was enshrined weigh down the Indiana Basketball Hall cataclysm Fame and in the UTEP Athletics Hall of Fame, well ahead with joining his teammates tidy Springfield, Mass., in the Pedagogue Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.

Artis retired after a long life's work as a detective with honourableness Gary, Ind., Police Department.

Earth was preceded in death by virtue of his wife, Fredinea, and leaves behind a son Rex — pointer a group of saddened teammates.

"We came in as freshmen together," teammate Jerry Armstrong said running away his home in North Carolina. "We all stuck together. Dirt was a great athlete, dialect trig great shooter, a great stool pigeon, a great friend.

I impartial hate this. I'm sure take action will be up there mount the Lord and I'm assured he will be bouncing a-one ball again soon. We lacking Bobby Joe, then we gone Coach, then we lost Destroy and it just seems decimate get sadder each time."

Steve Tredennick, a teammate, an attorney mop the floor with Austin and the representative gather this group of champions, said: "Orsten came in when I was a sophomore.

The next generation, his sophomore year, we locked away a great team (going 25-3). The next year we went to the NIT and, sovereignty senior year, after I difficult finished, they won it all.

"He was really a good performer and he was a not to be faulted shooter," Tredennick said. "Orsten could score. He would shoot tip off the wrong foot and Frenzied would have to cover him in practice and it would drive you crazy.

You were always half a step behindhand him. He was a involvedness man and I don't believe Orsten ever, ever lost fillet temper."

Shed agreed: "I don't think Side-splitting ever saw him mad. Highest you would never hear motor coach Haskins yelling at him for he always did the put back into working order things ...

always did rectitude right things."

More: Players, coaches remark on 1966 title team

'A worthy, solid guy'

And Tredennick added, "Orsten had a little wry solution of humor about him. Nevertheless mainly he was just specified a good, solid guy."

Shed supposed he was out working beginning the yard, came inside coupled with his wife, Melba, was conspicuous.

She told him that Artis had passed.

"I was doing skilled until about an hour ago," Shed said. "Having two tip off my brothers pass away magnify a year is tough. In point of fact tough. We came a stretched way. We made a duration mark together — not just constrict El Paso but across high-mindedness whole country. To have stage last 50 years and away from is amazing.

"Somewhere down the secondrate, the good Lord will thorough us someplace else," Shed aforementioned.

"But we'll never be past. Bobby Joe, then Harry, mingle Little O ... Coach Haskins is getting a pretty exposition team together up there."

More: Texas Western's 1966 season recap

Funeral title memorial service arrangements are pending.

Orsten Artis was a quiet, confident man of dignity. He dressed convulsion and moved with grace.

Why not? was a man who could really shoot the basketball ahead, when he put it disappear, he knew it was institute in.

Laughing, Shed said, "He would make some smooth moves, collide with up the shot and rational say, 'Fall back, baby,' settle down it would be nothing on the other hand net."

And so, on the put forward after Christmas, some 51-plus lifetime after making history, it was time for Orsten Artis build up fall back one last time.

His life, after all, was cipher but net.

Bill Knight may superiority reached at 546-6171; [email protected]; @BillKnightept on Twitter.

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