Witness to history

Late last week, I found out I have a connection to the new movie "Glory Road," albeit in a strained, convoluted "six degrees of Kevin Bacon" sort of way.
I have met Lutheran West boys basketball coach Phil Argento, who was there when Texas Western's all-black starting lineup bested Adolph Rupp's all-white Kentucky powerhouse in the 1966 NCAA title game. The victory by Texas Western (now Texas-El Paso) was not just a Villanova-over-Georgetown type upset; it went a long way toward erasing racial stereotypes in college basketball.
As The Plain Dealer's Eddie Dwyer wrote today, Argento was an inactive freshman member of Rupp's team in 1966. He spent the game holding equipment for a sideline cameraman.
Odds are, he isn't portrayed in the movie, which was released last weekend, and if he is, the actor playing him probably has no lines. But Argento was there.
I probably should explain how I met Argento. I was the manager for the boys basketball team at Lutheran West for three years. Back then, about 10 years ago, Argento was simply an involved parent who just happened to be a high-school hardwood legend.
In the early 1960s, Argento was one of the top high school basketball players in the state for the now-defunct West High School in Cleveland. His son, Phil Jr., was a sharpshooting guard for Lutheran West.
Phil Sr. and I seldom exchanged words. He probably couldn't pick me out of a police lineup now. But on a few occasions, we had camera duty in common. Argento would tape his son's junior varsity games while I handled the coach's tape for the varsity games.
I don't think I appreciated that I was sharing space with a rather famous basketball player until my senior year, when Argento appeared on "More Sports and Les Levine," a local cable sports talk show (it sticks out in my mind because the show aired in March 1997, the same day Kenny Lofton was traded to the Braves. More callers wanted to talk about the trade than to Argento).
Both Argento and his son went on to bigger and better things after I graduated in 1997. Phil Sr. has been the head coach at Lutheran West for, I believe, five years and has the Longhorns at 11-0 this season. He coaches Richard Semrau, one of the top high school basketball players in the region, perhaps the country.
Phil Jr. went onto to Mount Vernon Nazarene College, where he became Ohio's all-time collegiate leader in three-point shooting.
It's a newspaper story to a lot of people, but my time with the Lutheran West basketball team became more special to me in the past week. Ten years ago, I met someone who was a witness to history, now captured on celluloid.