EL PASO, Texas (AP) - Officials at Texas A&M-Commerce University want Walt Disney Co. and the makers of "Glory Road" to apologize for inaccurately linking their school to some of the film's most racially charged scenes.
The movie chronicled the history-making Texas Western Miners, who won the 1966 NCAA title with the first all-black starting lineup in a championship game. It included a "completely false" depiction of a game against East Texas State University, the name of Texas A&M-Commerce at the time, spokeswoman Lorraine Pace said Friday.
In the movie, East Texas fans are shown throwing drinks and popcorn and yelling racial slurs at Texas Western, now known as the University of Texas at El Paso, during a regular-season game in Commerce, Texas. A scene after the game shows a vandalized hotel room, with racial slurs written on the walls in red.
"It was just too awful for words," Pace said.
It never happened, Pace said.
According to UTEP athletic department archives, the Miners played the Lions in El Paso on Dec. 9, 1965. The Miners won 73-51. The Miners won the game in the movie, but the margin was much closer.
"These events - specifically depicted as taking place at ETSU and in the Commerce area - are completely fabricated and go beyond the realms of literary license and decency," A&M-Commerce President Keith McFarland said in a statement.
Though the Jerry Bruckheimer film debuted last month, university officials waited to verify the facts of the game before seeking an apology, Pace said.
The university has asked Disney, Bruckheimer, director James Gartner and the screenplay writers to apologize for the scenes.
Officials with Disney and Bruckheimer's film company weren't immediately available for comment.
The Texas A&M-Commerce complaint isn't the first. Before the movie's nationwide release, supporters of legendary Kentucky coach Adolph Rupp complained that the movie unfairly cast Rupp as a racist.
The Miners, coached by Don Haskins, beat Rupp's all-white Kentucky team 72-65 in the championship game. The movie was adapted from Haskins' book about the season.
Even liberal Sporting News columnist Dave Kindred took "Glory Road" to task, interviewing one of the black players from the Texas Western team who said there were no overtly racial incidents when he played for the Miners. He said he never said "Take that, honky!" to a Kentucky player after dunking saying his mother didn't raise him like that and would have had a fit if she knew how her son was being portrayed.
In an ironic twist, the NCAA Finals a few years ago featured an all-black Kentucky team led by a black head coach, Tubby Smith, who was almost upset by an underdog Utah team featuring a black guard, Andre Miller, and an otherwise all-white lineup. It makes you wonder if, had Utah won, whether the media would have made a major fuss about a white team beating an all-black team. When you look back 40 years ago, one has to question why it was news that an all-black team would beat an all-white team at basketball. Seems an all-white team beating and all-black team would be the greater upset.