Longtime mentor, recreation director Haynes dies

Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2004 | 9:04 a.m.

When Joe Haynes was 12 hours late arriving in Las Vegas one day in the summer of 1955, his brother Marques was worried.

"Joe shows up around 6 p.m. and I asked him why he was so late," Marques Haynes said. "He said he got into town at 6 a.m. and got a job at a used car lot. Turns out he put in a full day's work there too.

"He had a strong work ethic that he passed on to the kids he coached and to his own children."

At the end of that summer, Marques Haynes, then-interim director of the old Jefferson Recreation Center, returned to the Harlem Globetrotters to continue his legendary 46-year pro basketball career, while Joe Haynes took over running the center at D Street and Jefferson Avenue, and started what would become a legendary career in city recreation and community service.

William Joseph "Joe" Haynes Sr., the first recreation director of Las Vegas' Doolittle Community Center, died Friday at a Las Vegas hospital at the age of 87.

The family said the cause was complications from Parkinson's disease. Services were Tuesday at Bunkers Mortuary Chapel.

While running Doolittle, Haynes founded the men's city basketball league and built up athletic programs for underprivileged youths in West Las Vegas.

"My father started so many programs for so many age groups at Doolittle," William J. Haynes Jr. of Nashville, Tenn., said. "He was a humble man who worked hard at his jobs, whether it was running the rec center, teaching at Booker Elementary School or working as a porter in local casinos," a job he took in his later years to stay active.

The Doolittle facility opened in 1964 and Haynes served as its director until he retired in July 1973. In addition to starting the Men's Progressive Basketball League in 1964, he coached one of its teams to the championship.

Haynes also is credited with starting an annual Thanksgiving basket drive for needy families, hosting dance events, instituting youth sports programs and raising money to send six underprivileged youths to college.

The Nevada Recreation and Park Society in 1965 recognized Haynes for his efforts to provide recreation programs for black youths during the turbulent civil rights movement of the 1960s.

After retiring from the city, Haynes worked several years as a teacher at Kermit R. Booker Elementary School, retiring in the late 1970s.

"Joe was a stalwart of the community," said former North Las Vegas City Councilman Theron Goynes, who was principal at Booker when Haynes taught fourth grade classes there.

"To him, it was 100 percent all about the kids in seeing to both their recreation and educational needs."

Born May 1, 1916, in Coweta, Okla., Joe Haynes graduated from Langston University, where he led his basketball team to the conference championship and became a member of the Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity.

In the early 1940s, he taught agriculture at three Oklahoma high schools where his classes won state fair agricultural titles. He moved to Tennessee in 1951, where he coached the Woodstock Training School to the state basketball championship and to the semifinals of the National Negro High School Basketball Championship in Chicago.

"He was a mentor to me, especially with organization and leadership skills," said Clyde Dawson, who played in several Haynes-run rec basketball tournaments and went on to direct the Doolittle Center from 1974 to 1984.

"He was an understanding man, who listened to your problems before offering advice. A lot of young people really looked up to him."

In addition to his son and brother Marques Haynes, now of Dallas, Joe Haynes is survived by three daughters, Veronica Goodwin, Veretta Smith and Martyna Hill, all of Las Vegas; another brother Wendell Haynes, of Durham, N.C.; 15 grandchildren; and 13 great-grandchildren. He was preceded in death by a son, Marcus Haynes, and a sister, Cecile Haynes.