UTEP Student Athlete Makes Rap of Texas Western Championship
A new rap has been written and recorded based on the book The Baron and the Bear that celebrates Texas Western's 1966 National Championship over Kentucky.
Jean-Andre Moore, a senior at UTEP and a former Miners football player, took a poem written by 82-year-old author David Kingsley Snell and wrote it into a rap song.
The book illustrates the historic win of Texas Western over Kentucky, under legendary coach Adolph Rupp, who was beaten by Don Haskins' Miners that started five African American players for the first time in NCAA basketball history.
The game changed college basketball, which is discussed throughout the book and now, also its rap song. The game gave opportunities and paved the way for black players in what had been known as a segregated sport.
Moore was a receiver for the Miners from 2015-17 and played on the scout team for the Miners for the duration of his colligate career. He started in his final outing with the Miners on "senior night."
His lyrics on the rap song reflect the poem using clever and catchy rhymes like "“Big Daddy” D / With Harry, the Willies and “O” / There was young Nevil Shed on a team that was led / By a point guard they called Bobby Joe...Sixty-six, Sixty-six, they were the team of sixty-six.”
This was the first rap song that he recorded and performed and put together a music video that went with the song as well. The video, which was shot by UTEP student Aleida Goygia, was shot at various locations around El Paso.