Published in Business Progress Magazine, October 1966, pp. 6-7, 22

by Ted J. Rakstis

The man in the brown suit squirms nervously on the bench as he watches his blue-and-white-clad team race down the basketball court. Suddenly, he leaps to his feet: "Go, dammit, go! Get up on those boards!" Like a computer programmed to obey its masters every command, the team responds.

Pit-pit-pit-pit. The ball flicks from one eager pair of hands to another. An opening in the defense yawns, and a roar comes from 12,000 throats as a 25-foot jump shot swishes through the nets. An hour later, the demoralized visitors trudge off the court. Though the home team has won by 26 points, the coach grunts: "We need to work on that defense."

It is a scene that has been repeated with monotonous regularity since 1930. The wearer of the omnipresent brown suit is "Baron" Adolph Rupp, coach of the Kentucky Wildcats, a man whose ambition in life is simple: "I just want to win every basketball game my team plays!"

At 65, Rupp has compiled the greatest coaching record in the annals of college basketball. In his 36 years at Kentucky, Rupp has rolled up a phenomenal total of 747 wins and only 152 losses -- an efficiency rating of 83 per cent.

Adolph Rupp

He has won the National Collegiate Athletic Association title a record four times, in 1948-49-51-58, and barely missed a fifth crown last year. Rupp has taken the Southeastern Conference title 22 times since 1933, has seen five of his teams acclaimed national champions in wire service polls since 1949, and three times -- including last season -- has been named "Coach of the Year."

Rupp is now closing in on still another record. This year, he may register the highest career win total in college history. As the 1966-67 season opens, only Forrest "Phog" Alien, retired Kansas coach, and Ed Diddle, former Western Kentucky mentor, are ahead of him. Allen, who was Rupp's coach in college, closed out with 770 victories, and Diddle quit with 759. But it took Allen 46 years and Diddle 42 years, and Rupp is breathing down their necks as he starts his 37th campaign.

Furthermore, neither Alien nor Diddle can match Rupp's won-and-lost percentage. Allen had 233 losses. Diddle 302.

"Statistically, I'm way ahead of both of them," the Baron points with characteristic candor.

Rupp has still another argument going for him -- as if he needed one. In 1951, Kentucky played summer ball in Puerto Rico, and this past summer it toured the Near East on a 31-game schedule sponsored by the U.S. State Department. The National Collegiate Athletic Bureau classes such games as exhibitions, and they do not count in official records.

In addition, Rupp lost a whole year of competition when the NCAA placed Kentucky on probation in 1952-53 following a scandal in which three UK players were accused of "fixing" games for gamblers. It is likely that a 1952-53 team, had it been permitted to play, would have been one of the Baron's greatest.

Statistics, however, are the least of Rupp's concerns. His real goal ? "Why, I want to win four or five more NCAA titles, and I plan to stay around long enough to do it."

The fifth NCAA championship slipped away from him last year, but the fact that Rupp even came close stands as one of his greatest achievements. As the 1965-66 season began, Kentucky was overlooked in every major national pre-season poll. The year before, the Wildcats had struggled through a 15-10 campaign -- their worst ever. The attitude in Lexington was: "It looks like another long winter." Rupp knew better, but even his most ardent admirers winced when he predicted: "I honestly believe that, man-for-man, we just might have in the making a better team than we had in 1958 when we won the national title."

UK started with a 99-73 win over Virginia, and the Baron's prophecy was beginning to materialize. With no starter taller than 6-5, the Wildcats thrived on ball-handling finesse and unerring shooting skill. They blazed to a 24-1 season, marred only by a 69-62 late-season loss to Tennessee. As the NCAA tourney began, both the AP and UPI polls had tabbed "Rupp's Runts" as No. 1 in the nation.

With cool precision, the Wildcats disposed of Dayton, Michigan, and No. 2-rated Duke in the NCAA. They found themselves in the finals, solid favorites to whip the Texas Western Miners, who were the nation's No-3 ranked team.

But UK starters Larry Conley and Tommy Kron were ill and the rest of the Cats looked pallid, too. Texas Western dominated the backboards, humiliated Kentucky with a series of ball-thefts, and caused UK to slump to a game shooting mark of 38 per cent, down from its season average of 49.3 per cent. When it was over, the bigger Miners had a startling 72-65 win and the NCAA trophy.

The loss still rankles Rupp. He proudly points out that, over the years, 83 per cent of his boys have come from Kentucky, including seven members of last year's squad. Some of the members of Coach Don Haskins Texas Western team, on the other hand, came from such distant points as Detroit, the Bronx, and Gary, Ind.

Rupp looks back on last year's Wildcats with great affection. He has called it his favorite team and its members the hardest-working lads he's ever coached. "If that club had won the NCAA final, I would have called it the finest team I'd ever seen," Rupp says. "They had tremendous shooting ability, and I consider them the best ball-handling team any one has ever put together."

Gradually, the bitter taste of last year's final loss is being replaced by the sweet anticipation of the coming year. When Rupp opens on Dec. 3 against Virginia, he will field a team that must be considered the favorite in the Southeastern Conference and one of the three or four top contenders for the NCAA hardware.

In the past, Rupp has transformed seemingly hopeless material into winners. Even his 1958 NCAA champions were known as "the talentless wonders." This year, the alchemist of the hardcourt finds himself in the unfamiliar position of being stocked with almost enough potential for two good teams.

Leading the pack will be three youths who earned All-America mention last year. Louis Dampier, the 6-foot guard from Indianapolis, Ind., had been passed up by both Indiana and Purdue as being too small. Under Rupp, Dampier grew into stardom. Last year, he was placed opposite Michigan's fabulous Cazzie Russell at the guard posts of almost every first-string All-America.

Joining the adroit Dampier are two other returnees who made most second and third-team All-America squads -- Pat Riley, the deadly-shooting forward from Schenectady, N.Y.; and the hometown kid from Lexington, 6-5 center Thad Jaracz. Dampier and Riley will be seniors this year, Jaracz only a junior.

Rupp admits that Kentucky will miss its two home-grown starters -- Conley, the 6-3 playmaker forward from Ashland and Kron, a 6-5 pro-style guard from Owensboro. But there are plenty of candidates to supplement the nucleus of Dampier-Riley-Jaracz.

To replace Conley, Rupp may move Jaracz to forward and install 6-8 Cliff Berger, a junior letterman from Centralia. Ill., at center. Also figuring at forward are three native Kentuckians, all juniors with game experience. They are Gary Gamble, 6-4, from Earlington; Tommy Porter, 6-3, from Gracey; and Jim LeMaster, 6-2, from Paris.

There are so many outstanding guards that Rupp shrugs: "They'll just have to fight it out." LeMaster may wind up in backcourt opposite Dampier, but he faces stiff competition from 6-1 junior Bob Tallent, of Langley, Ky., and two 6-footers -- Steve Clevenger, a junior from Anderson, Ind., and Phil Argento, a Cleveland sophomore. As a senior at Cleveland West High, Argento averaged 30.7 points, and Rupp battled 50 other colleges to land him. Although last year's UK freshman staggered to a 10-8 record, Argento was already being hailed as the Dampier of the future.

However, bright as the Kentucky scene appears, there will be opposition. In the SEC, Rupp tags small, fast-moving Mississippi State as his main obstacle, and he also expects trouble from Vanderbilt, Tennessee, and Florida, all much bigger than UK.

If Kentucky cops the SEC again, it almost surely will have to contend with UCLA in the NCAA. The UCLAns, with 7-foot sophomore Lew Alcindor, have a strong chance to regain the NCAA title they won in 1964 and 1965. Then there will be Duke, with Bob Verga and Mike Lewis back. And Texas Western again -- with a long string of veterans.

"We'll be running again," Rupp guarantees. It is also a certainty that UK practice sessions will be conducted in the traditional no-nonsense atmosphere. They start at 3:15 p.m. sharp, last for an hour, and are enveloped in total silence, outside of Rupp's outbursts. "We have a requirement that you speak only if you can improve on the silence," the Baron explains.

Kentucky drills are relentless. Ted Lenhardt, a former Rupp assistant who later was head coach at Tulane University, recalls the day when he watch a UK practice. When Rupp caught one of his starters loafing, he tore out on the floor and unleashed a verbal barrage at the laggard, totally oblivious of the impression he might make on his future stars.

But just as young men know what to expect when they enlist in the Marine Corps, they can anticipate their fate when they accept one of the 25 basketball scholarships offered by UK.

Away from the basketball arena, Rupp is really a baron -- a cattle baron. On his 1,083 acres of Kentucky farmland, he has 350 head of registered herefords and now is in his 13th year as president of the Kentucky Hereford Association. He has also made sound tobacco investments, and those close to him estimate his net worth at $750,000.

But basketball is life to Rupp. And, after losing 20 pounds and apparently winning a 10-year battle with high blood pressure, the Baron is looking for many more years of that life. Lexingtonians would probably never let him retire, anyway. For the past 16 years, Kentucky season tickets have been practically sold out the morning they went on sale. When the roar of the crowd greets Rupp's 37th UK entry this winter, the Baron can beam at a job well done. There is no way to improve on perfection.

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