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From The Kentucky Encyclopedia -
Adolph Frederick Rupp of the University of Kentucky
(UK) was one of the most successful coaches in college basketball history. In
a forty-two-season career as coach of the UK Wildcats (1930-72), Rupp
garnered 880 victories and 190 defeats, for a winning percentage of.822. He
led the Wildcats to twenty- eight Southeastern Conference championships, five
Sugar Bowl Tournament championships, one National Invitational Tournament
(NIT) championship, twenty-one appearances in the National Collegiate
Athletic Association (NCAA) Tournament, and four NCAA championships. In 1948
the Wildcats participated along with the Phillips Oilers in London as the
U.S. basketball entry in the Olympic Games, and defeated France for the gold
medal.
Rupp was born on September 2,
1901, on a farm in Halstead, Kansas, the fourth of six children of Heinrich
Rupp, a native of Einsiedel, Austria, and Anna (Lichti) Rupp of Kisselhof,
Germany. They had immigrated with their families to Halstead. Rupp played on
school basketball teams in both elementary school and high school and
graduated from Halstead High School in 1919. In the fall of 1919, Rupp
enrolled at the University of Kansas, where he majored in economics and
played on the Jayhawk basketball team, coached by Forrest C.
("Phog") Allen. During Rupp's three years of varsity competition,
(1921-23), he did not score a single point. During the summer of 1924, while
pursuing a graduate degree, Rupp taught and coached football and basketball
at Burr Oak High School in Kansas, backed by a strong recommendation from
Allen. After a year, he went to Iowa's Marshalltown High School to coach
football, track, wrestling, and basketball. Rupp, who had never seen a
wrestling match, bought a book on wrestling for pointers, then led his team
to the state championship.
In 1926 Rupp moved to Freeport
High School in Illinois, where he compiled a record of 66-17, won eighteen
games in 1929, and took third place in the Illinois state tournament. It was
during the four years at Freeport that Rupp completed an M.A. degree in
education, spending four summers at Columbia University Teachers College in
New York. He married Esther Smith, of Freeport, on August 29, 1931. The
couple had one son, Adolph, Jr.
In 1930, when John Mauer resigned
as coach at the University
of Kentucky, Rupp was among seventy-one applicants for the job. He
received a strong recommendation from Craig Ruby, athletic director at the
University of Illinois, whose support was crucial since most of Kentucky's
basketball and football coaches during the 1920s had been University of
Illinois products. The UK
board of trustees on May 31, 1930, appointed Rupp instructor in physical
education, in charge of varsity basketball. He assisted in football and
track. His two-year contract paid $2,300 for 1930-31 and $3,000 for 1931- 32.
Rupp's dynamic personality and his
genius for public relations made an immediate impact at the university. He
was even then described as portly in appearance, but his personality made a
still greater impression. Mauer had experienced success during his three
years as coach of the Wildcats (a record of 40-14), and Rupp adopted Mauer's
offensive system, including specific plays and practice routines. Unlike
Mauer, however, Rupp freed his players to run when the opportunity presented
itself, and unlike the former coach, he delighted the press with quotable
statements and witty anecdotes.
Rupp's first Wildcat team,
including veterans Louis McGinnis, George Yates, and All-American Carey
Spicer, sported a record of 15-3. Although the 1930-31 team won one fewer
game than Mauer's team of the previous year, Rupp's continued success dimmed
Wildcat fans' memories of the former coach. During Rupp's first five seasons,
UK compiled a record of
eighty-five victories and only eleven defeats, for a winning percentage
of.885. The team won its first Southeastern Conference (SEC) Tournament in
1933.
Rupp's success held through the
1940s and 1950s. His team won the prestigious National Invitational
Tournament in the 1945-46 season, as well as four national championships
(1947-48, 1948-49, 1950-51, and 1957-58). In the 1965-66 season, the Wildcats
came within one victory of winning still another national championship.
Rupp's unparalleled success was not without controversy, however. A
point-shaving scandal resulted in the suspension of the team for the 1952-53
season, and only on the edge of retirement did Rupp recruit a black player,
Tom Payne. Rupp's retirement itself was controversial. When the UK Athletics Board
agreed that the university policy of mandatory retirement age would apply to
Rupp, forcing the seventy-year-old coach to bow out, he told a newspaper
reporter that he might as well be taken to the Lexington Cemetery.
After five years in retirement,
Rupp died on December 10, 1977. He had lived to see the dedication in 1976 of
the 23,000-seat Rupp Arena for basketball. One of the most successful and
colorful coaches in the history of college basketball was buried in the Lexington Cemetery not
far from the arena that bears his name.
JAMES DUANE BOLIN, HUMBERT S. NELLI, Entry Authors
Selected Sources from UK Libraries:
Embry, M., & Rupp, A. (2000). Baron of the bluegrass : Winning words of wisdom by and about Adolph Rupp, legendary Kentucky basketball coach. Nashville, Tenn.: TowleHouse Pub.
GV884.R84 E42 2000, Special Collections Research Center Rice, R., & NetLibrary, Inc. (1994). Adolph Rupp : Kentucky's basketball baron. Champaign, IL: Sagamore Pub. GV885.43.K4 R530 1994, Young Library 4th Floor Laudeman, T. (1972). The Rupp years; the University of Kentucky's golden era of basketball. Louisville: Courier journal. 796.32 R878L, Special Collections Research Center |
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