Adolph Rupp
The Baron's Dream Comes True
Adolph Hupp is honored this weekend with the NCAA Final Four corning to Lexington and Rupp Arena.
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By DAVE KINDRED Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The man who made basketball a big deal in Kentucky was Adolph Frederick Rupp. His teams at the University of Kentucky won a zillion games. He took the job in 1930 on the advice of a gas station attendant and stayed on until 1972, when at age 70 he was required to retire although he said he'd as soon die on the bench, stomping his diabetic's aching foot in protest of a referee's incompetence. At 69 he said, "Retire? Why. what would 1 do? Time would hang heavy on my hands. It's the competitiveness I like  taking a bunch of boys and seeing what I can do with them. These young squirts come in as coaches at other places, and they say they're going to put an end to Rupp and Kentucky. Well, we'll see about that."
Of all the grand charms and fascinating quirks that marked Rupp unforgettable, few stood above his love of the battle. One that stood eye to eye, however, was his pioneer's pride. Once when a man asked him to speak at a luncheon in Tuscaloosa, Rupp first declined.
"But. Coach, they're going to give you a trophy as 'The Father of Southeastern Conference Basketball,' " the man said. Rupp said, "What time did you say lunch was?"
Young squirts popped up everywhere. New basketball arenas rose next to ancient football stadiums. Once upon a time, Kentucky stood alone in the South. But after Rupp, after he showed everyone how to win, the South became a legitimate force in college basketball. "What Adolph did," said CM. Newton, the Vanderbilt coach who once coached at Transylvania College down the street from Rupp's Kentucky, "is force people to get better or get gone."
Notre Dame's new young squirt of the 1960s, a feisty fellow named Johnny Dee, once belittled Rupp's zillion victories because the old curmudgeon who had won a lot in the Southeastern Conference, "would be like me taking six Canadians and starting a hockey league in Texas," Dee said. Rupp took the testimony under advisement for a second's thought before saying, "You tell that feller he can talk like that when he starts beating me at this game. Not before."
Dee once argued with referees that he wouldn't play Kentucky unless they changed to a different basketball. "I'm not playing with any ball that says, Adolph Rupp Autographed Basketball.' "
Rupp blinked. "In Kentucky," the great man said, "they all say that."
Most every basketball bouncing in the South of the 1980's is there because Adolph Rupp made the game important a long time ago. Rupp was 29, a high school coach in Freeport. Illinois, when he made a train ride to Lexington in 1930 to be interviewed for the vacant Kentucky job. He was asked why he should be hired, and he said. "Because I'm the best damned basketball coach in the nation."
Rupp's teams from the beginning were models of simplicity and fire. They took hold of the ball and ran. That's not much of an analysis of a system whose artful practitioners gained