Published in Inside Kentucky Sports, October 1972, page. 3

by ADOLPH RUPP

A lot of people are still asking me if I am upset over my retirement from the University of Kentucky . You would think enough time has gone by that people would be all over that by now. I have no hard feelings toward anyone at UK. I am very pleased to be a part of the Memphis organization and I know the University's baskeball team is in very good hands with Joe Hall.

Let me just set this whole retirement thing straight once and for all. Of course it bothered me to give up the UK coaching job - there is no way you're going to be associated with a fine program like that without being hurt when that association is over.

Some people accuse me of being too proud. Well, I am proud. You do not build something like we had at Kentucky without pride. Whether there is such a thing as too much pride, I don't know. I fought the retirement thing and I lost. I have never liked losing.

But just let me say now, to clear the record, that my relationship with Dr. Singletary and the UK administration has always been cordial and I hope it always will be. A lot of reporters blew this thing all out of proportion when I stepped down. There were no strained relations at all, in any way. I have the highest regard for UK and I always will. I still keep an office there and I have a secretary. Mr. Finley insisted on my staying at home in Lexington when he hired me as President of the Memphis Tams.

I have been asked if maybe I wasn't a sacrificial lamb, if maybe I wasn't sacrificed just to make the mandatory retirement rule work. When the university retired me they retired 15 or 18 professors. I hoped they would make an exception in my case, but if they had, then one of the other professors could have come along and said, "I'm special, too." So you see what kind of problem that could have created. I imagine they would have kept Einstein or some of those fellows, but rules are rules, and, like I've always told my hoys, you either play by the rules or you don't play at all.

I always tried to teach my boys the importance of discipline - that you do not sacrifice the good of the team for one individual. With that in mind, I have no regrets.

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