Don Haskins Radio Show Returns to El Paso Airwaves

With the exception of the NFL offseason, the entire sports world is on hiatus until the coronavirus is under control. While we have had plenty of local guests on SportsTalk this week, we wanted to do something special for our listening audience. That is why we made the decision to bring the Don Haskins Radio Show back to 600 ESPN El Paso.

From the summer of 2006 through the spring of 2008, The Bear hosted his own biweekly sports talk show on KROD. The two-hour program originated at Fuddruckers West, but later moved to The State Line and finally went east to the Three Legged Monkey. Haskins' guests ranged from UTEP coaches like Mike Price and Keitha Adams to Bobby Knight, Coach K, and even broadcast legends like Curt Gowdy. He also interviewed many of his former players like Nolan Richardson, Harry Flournoy, Jim Forbes, Quinton Gates, and Tim Hardaway.

All of these shows were kept on either cassette tapes or saved digitally. When we decided to bring the Don Haskins Show back, one concern was the audio quality of the original recordings. What we soon discovered was these old shows sound as good now as they did nearly 15 years ago. After getting the blessing from the Haskins family to re-air the classic broadcasts, we knew that the 6pm hour would be the perfect time for us to replay the shows.

The "Don Haskins Hour" officially relaunched on Monday with special guest, longtime WestStar Bank Don Haskins Sun Bowl Invitational Basketball Chairman Barry Kobren. Yesterday, former WAC and Sun Belt Commissioner Karl Benson joined The Bear. Today's show will feature Yahoo sports columnist Dan Wetzel, who authored the Don Haskins Autobiography "Glory Road." Tomorrow's show includes a conversation with fellow Hall of Famer Nolan Richardson.

Since I have not listened to the majority of these shows since they originally aired, I had forgotten how incredible Coach Haskins was as a show host. Although his health was not strong at that particular time, he was always happy to be on the radio and in the public eye. The only show he did not attend was the final one with guest Tim Hardaway. The former UTEP star and NBA great had been on with us once before, and we arranged for him to fly into El Paso and join Coach Haskins on location together at Three Legged Monkey. Unfortunately, Coach was not able to be at the bar with us, but he joined in from his home while Hardaway was on location at Three Legged Monkey.

That show and all of the programs that we have saved all these years, will be replayed at 6 p.m. every weekday. In addition, we are making them available to you via podcast so you can listen to them on demand. I hope that all of you will enjoy hearing The Bear interview some of the best personalities in sports and tell so many classic stories.