EPISD Could Name Bowie High School Gym After Hall Of Fame Coach Nolan Richardson

El Paso has two Hall of Fame coaches. The most famous, of course, is former UTEP Men’s Basketball coach, Don Haskins. The other is Coach Nolan Richardson. On Tuesday, the school district in which he taught for many years will vote on whether to name a gymnasium after him.

It’s not just any school gym the El Paso Independent School District Board of Trustees will possibly name after Richardon. It is the gym at Bowie High School, the high school from which Richardson graduated in the 1960s. A Northeast middle school is already named in honor of Richardson, but the gym at Bowie would be the real crowning glory.

Richardson played basketball for the Bowie Bears and then for the UTEP Miners under Coach Haskins. He began his coaching career at Bowie, and then went on to UTEP, the University of Tulsa and the University of Arkansas, where he won the NCAA National Championship in 1994. In 2014, Richardson was inducted in the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame and in 2008 into the College Basketball Hall of Fame.

The EPISD Board of Trustees will meet tomorrow at 6531 Boeing Dr. We hope they choose to bestow this honor on Coach Richardson. He is most deserving.