Meadowlakes resident, former coach famous for human rights battle at Texas Western remembered

MEADOWLAKES — A renowned coach who quietly broke down the racial divide in collegiate sports is being remembered as a hero by many.

Meadowlakes resident George Courtney McCarty died Nov. 30.

To his relatives, he wasn’t just a champion for athletes and coaches, he also was a loving family man.

That’s how granddaughter Amy Cozby remembers him.

“He was a wonderful man,” she said. “He liked to smoke a pipe. I liked to fill his pipe with tobacco. I was blessed to know him as a golfer. He taught me how to fish. Up until the day he died, he remembered everything and everyone.”

McCarty is best known for hiring Don Haskins as the men’s head basketball coach at Texas Western, which is now the University of Texas-El Paso, when he was the athletic director, a position he took in 1961.