Basketball legend remembers African
American history

Y. Wright

Fort Bliss Monitor 

Basketball great Nolan Richardson told Soldiers at the garrison Black History Month observance Thursday, “We must not stop trying to accomplish the dream.”

Richardson, an accomplished college basketball coach, was raised in El Paso’s Segundo Barrio by his grandmother and grandfather who taught him “to believe,” because “your attitude is the most important thing you have.” 

Speaking on the subject of role models and heroes, he recommended that everyone have a hero who is a part of your life. Richardson, whose hero was his grandmother, said Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was one of his greatest admirations.  As he shared his personal journey and the influence of the Civil Rights Movement, he talked about the importance of communication, understanding people and working as a team.

“I am so thankful we have sports and athletics,” Richardson said.  It’s one of the “only times you have friends and buddies trying to win together. The only place that guys can cry together, they can share, they can communicate.” 

Richardson said he has lived his life on a few basic principles: Never forget where you came from because without knowing where you came from, you will never know where you are going; you only get one chance, so in everything you do, do it like you only get one chance; it always comes back to believing, what you believe and how you believe. 

Of all his accomplishments over the years, the championships and the hall of fame, Richardson said his greatest honor is having a school named after him.

“That’s what I love and that’s what I’m all about, is education.” 

Richardson summed up the observance of Black History Month as this: “If we join hands [as a nation], the dream will never die.”