Published in National Association of Basketbal Coaches Coaches Clinic Program, 1969, pg. 4-5.

Here's the situation. You're a basketball coach, right ?

Now, suppose you have the opportunity to get coaching assistance from a man whose teams have won more than 800 college basketball games. Would that be of interest?

You bet it would ... and, you know, you can do it. Just come to one of the 1969 N.A.B.C. Coaches Clinics and you'll meet and hear Adolph Rupp, of the University of Kentucky, expound on his basketball theories.

You have only to examine the record to know that Rupp's theories must be good. After all, who has won more games?

Of course, having the "horses" to run for you also helps, and through the years "The Baron," as Rupp is known, has been able to come up with the horses, an added tribute to his coaching ability.

Coach Rupp is the first to attribute the basketball success at the University of Kentucky to his players. "It is the work our boys get in fundementals," Rupp says, "There is no other way. The first things you have to do is curtail the individual desires of the player in the interest of team play. Then you must teach a boy how to play defense and to recognize the value of having possession of the basketball."

These are the basic principals which have guided Rupp's teams at Kentucky as they've hammered out an amazing record for almost four decades. There isn't a championship that Rupp-coached teams haven't won at some time or other. At the outset of this season, Rupp's 38th, his Wildcats had won .821 percent of their games.

Adolph Frederick Rupp came to the University of Kentucky in 1930 and immediately started the blue and white team on their remarkable winning way with a 15-3 season. In all the years Rupp has coached at Kentucky he's never had a losing team, although his 1966-67 team played only .500 ball. It was a rebuilding year in the Bluegrass country after a marvelous 32-2 season.

Now in the twi-light of his coaching career, Rupp can look back proudly over a success story that is not likely to be duplicated. Few major goals in Rupp's profession have escaped his grasp, and in his own conference, the Southeastern, it is generally acknowledged that Rupp was the major influence in upgrading basketball and attracting larger crowds to better places in which to play - and seeing better basketball.

The rest of the Southeastern Conference soon realized they couldn't afford to play a pat hand and wait for Rupp to slip back. If they were going to do anything about beating the Baron they'd better try to come up to his lofty standards.

Born in Halstead, Kansas, Rupp attended the University of Kansas where he played guard under Dr. Forrest C. "Phog" Alien. It was fitting that when Rupp chalked up his 772 victory two seasons ago to become the leader in games won among all coaches, the man he surpassed was "Phog" Alien. '

Rupp was graduated from college in 1923 knowing that basketball, a game he had learned to play and understand so well, would be his life's work. He became a high school coach, first at Marshalltown, Iowa and then at Freeport, Illinois before taking the job at Kentucky where he began to build a legend.

Along the way Rupp, one of the most colorful personalities in all sports, has not only become a masterful coach but a storyteller and teacher as well. He is in great demand for banquet appearances and coaching clinics. Last summer was typical when Rupp made an appearance in Alaska at an Armed Forces clinic and then showed up in Mexico to see how his old friend Henry P. Iba was getting along with the U.S. Olympic team. (Mr. Iba got along quite well, well enough to keep the United States undefeated in Olympic competition and bring back another gold medal for basketball). Rupp himself was an Olympic coach in 1948, and is frequently called upon for advice by foreign Olympic coaches.

Rupp has conducted coaching clinics too numerous to name, perhaps more than any other coach in the game. Army and Air Force clinic coaching assignments have taken him to Europe, Hawaii, and the Far East. In 1966, Rupp, at the request of the State Department, took his University of Kentucky team on a tour of the Middle East, playing all-comers in Greece, Israel, and Iran before winning the International University Tournament in Tel Aviv.

The name Adolph Rupp is not only feared and respected by rival coaches, but has become synonymous with great college basketball. He has had so many wonderful teams, stocked with brilliant players, that it is difficult for him to signal out any one player, or five, who were the greatest. Certainly in his heart Rupp must have a warm spot for his famous 1948 team, known as the "Fabulous Five."

Coach Adolph Rupp pauses to give some young fans his autograph after a Kentucky victory.

Obviously his 1965-66 team, with its outstanding record, gave him great satisfaction, and surely the same could be said of the 1953-54 unit which was 25-0. Because of an N.C.A.A. suspension in 1952-53 Kentucky did not play a schedule. When the Wildcats got the green light a year later they were all go, and they didn't stop until they ran out of games to play.

According to tradition, Kentucky has a pet pattern at the outset of a game. Rupp calls it the "Star Spangled Banner and Number Six," meaning, the first time the Wildcats get the ball after the opening jump they set up their guard around play.

The reason, Rupp explains, is simple. "It tells us immediately if the opposition is playing a zone defense against us." The basic guard-around pattern has been employed by Kentucky teams which have raced to four national titles and produced eight All-American guards during Rupp's era.

Along with his All-Americans and championships, Rupp has won many individual honors. Four times he was selected as the "Coach of the Year," and after the 1966-67 season the Columbus, Ohio Touchdown Club hailed him as "Coach of the Century." He was tapped by both the Helms Athletic Hall of Fame and the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.

Basketball, however, isn't the only area in which Rupp has developed an international reputation. He is a registered Hereford Breeder and is currently serving his fifteenth term as President of the Kentucky Hereford Association. He is also a director for the Central District Warehousing Corporation, world's largest tobacco marketing organization.

Few men, regardless of their calling, become a legend in their own time. Adolph Rupp is one of them.

Return to Kentucky Basketball page, Kentucky articles, statistics, team schedules, team rosters, opponents, players, coaches, opposing coaches, games, assistance or search this site.