Maybe not, but no one's going to find Kentucky's Baron bending in any conflict
Published in Sport Magazine, March 1967, pp. 32-33, 92-94.
by FRED KATZ
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| Adolph Rupp |
Rupp's career has been both richly rewarding and uncommonly controversial. We asked him to talk about both aspects and this past November he invited us to his office. We noted that Rupp, at age 65, appeared to be in splendid health. And then our eye caught the many objects indicating the diverse interests of the man. On the wall were photos of him at Shrine functions (in 1950 he had been chosen one of the nation's ten outstanding Shriners). Piled high on his desk were magazines on cattle breeding (he has 300 registered head roaming his 500-acre farm and is on the Board of Governors of the Agricultural Hall of Fame and National Agricultural Center). But basketball still has been the driving force throughout his adult life, and, as we turned on the tape recorder, that's what we talked about:
Katz:
You have received a lot of criticism as a "mean man." What do you think the reason is ?
Rupp: A lot of people think we run a marine corps outfit. Fine. If they think that, that's fine. One of the fathers came to varsity practice the other day--of course, he wasn't supposed to be there, because it's difficult to criticize a boy in front of his father. But this father slipped in there and afterwards he told another man:
"I see now why they say he is tough, but that's the kind of fella I want my boy to be under, because if he doesn't learn anything down here it sure won't be the coach's fault." And there might be jealousy involved in this thing. Some of the coaches in the Southeastern Conference put out reports I was just a mean so-and- so. But if you whip a guy 18 to 24 times, he isn't going to have a hell of a lot of admiration for you. They are not in the conference anymore because time takes care of jealousy. But if discipline means meanness, then I guess I'm a mean man.
You have often said you pay no heed to criticism, but surely it must have gotten to you sometime ?
Rupp: In Chicago Stadium 12 to 14 years ago a fellow gave me unmerciful hell for not taking out my first team. We were only eight or ten points ahead. You know what possibly was the reason behind his hollering. He came into the dressing room and said in a very nasty way what he was going to do. I thought it was about time to show him our dressing-room door and I did so in no uncertain terms. I plastered him. It was the only time I've ever struck a man and I gave him a good one and knocked him down. A few minutes later he came back in. We turned him over to the cops and they escorted him out of the building. This took place a couple of years after I had my back operation. I'd had two discs taken out and two silver screws put in and I'd always hidden behind that and one of the boys said, "Hell, there's nothing wrong with the old man's back tonight."
How close are you with your boys ?
Rupp: Until recently, not too close. I've always felt there must be a barrier between a coach and his players. I have possibly not been as strict about this in recent years because I know these boys so much better and have known some of them since they were in grade school.
Why are you closer to them than, say, the players you had in the late '40s ?
Rupp: At one time in the late '40s, 15 of my 18 boys were war veterans and they were toughened. After you've been shot down over Germany the way this (Cliff) Barker boy was and a prisoner for 18 months, you couldn't steam him up about loyalty.
But many people think you have mellowed a bit these past few years.
Rupp: I knew when I came here that the only way I could be successful would be to go out and win these basketball games. Well, I haven't changed in my thinking. If I have changed in any way, others have noticed it more than I. I think maybe I have mellowed some. We have our own plane and I always take a box of apples to give the boys on the flight. If the people have detected a mellowness, fine, I'm glad they have. I don't want to be a mean old man.
It's been said the change mainly took place last year.
Rupp: Well, I don't know. I notice the boys drop in here and ask me an awful lot of questions - some intelligent, some very foolish - and I talk with them. But last year, the way they were winning got me enthused - winning 23 straight. I watched these boys do things I know they were not capable of doing. I pinched myself to make sure what I was seeing every day was true. We weren't even in the Top Fifty when the season started and to see them come along was fantastic. I just can't anticipate having another team that can run as well, or move the ball as well, or a bunch of little runts who could rebound as well.
Was this why you call it your favorite team ?
Rupp: Yes, because the year before was our worst in 35 seasons. We had a 15-10 record and that would renew your contract any other place but here. Everybody had stories: "Uncle Adolph is through"; "The Conference has caught up with Rupp," and "Basketball has finally caught the old man and he'll never come back." These things kind of sting, but I thought I knew as much basketball as I ever had. An old man of 65. (He laughed) Well, that kind of tickled me and of course they said I coached the same way I did when I came here 35 years ago. That wasn't bad - we won 17 and lost one - that wasn't bad. I'd like to do that every year.
Your health was bad the year before last, wasn't it ?
Rupp: I haven't had too good health the last five or six years. But I went from 245 pounds to 220 in September '65 and this morning I weigh 206. But I have felt better the last year than I have the past six or seven. I'm fighting a blood pressure thing and of course that's always bad.
Do you have any retirement plans ?
Rupp: None whatever. I'm on medicare (he laughed), on social security and all those things, but I have no plans except to build another championship team. I'm still going to stay five more years, until I'm 70 and compelled to retire.
What kind of person do you have in mind as your replacement ?
Rupp: I'll have little to say about that, but I imagine Harry Lancaster, my assistant, will move up. Joe Hall, the assistant freshman coach, will probably move up as Harry's assistant. Now, that's my hope.
Have you ever had any differences with the school administration ?
Rupp: The only one was several years ago when they continued to hire football coaches and pay them a salary I thought I should receive after having all those successful teams. That wasn't a violent argument - it was just something they hadn't thought about.
How was it resolved ?
Rupp: It resolved very nicely for me.
What has been the greatest single satisfaction of your career ?
Rupp: That fact that many of these fine young men have made a tremendous success of themselves. I have a vice- president of General Electric. I have eight doctors and four dentists and I don't know how many lawyers, coaches and school teachers.
How about the greatest satisfaction from the undergraduate achievements of your players ?
Rupp: I have had many. I've watched our boys stand on the podium in Wembley Stadium in London, England, at the 1948 Olympics and receive the gold medals as the world champions. We had a great team here in '51, that won the NCAA as sophomores. I had the undefeated team of '54 - (Cliff) Hagan, (Frank) Ramsey, (Lou) Tsioropoulos, (Bill) Evans and that crowd - that was number one in both of the polls and regarded as national champions. Then there was the Fiddling Five of '58, with (Adrian) Smith, (Vern) Hatton, (Ed) Beck, (John) Crigler and (Johnny) Cox. Here was a bunch that didn't have the talent and still turned out to be a wonderful basketball team. They couldn't play a violin; they just fiddled. Then of course my team last year. Had they won the final game I would have been compelled to say that they were the greatest basketball team ever produced in the United States.
What, on the other hand, is the saddest memory of your career ?
Rupp: Last spring, when I couldn't come up with an answer for the Texas Western game. Fate should have given them a better card in their hand.
Was this sadder than having some of your boys involved in the point-shaving scandals ?
Rupp: No, I wouldn't exactly say so. That of course came as a tremendous surprise, because how could you win the NCAA, the Olympics and the Conference in '48; repeat in '49; come back with a 25-1 record in '50, be elected Coach of the Year in '50 and come back in '51 with a bunch of sophomores and win the NCAA? Now, who has ever done that before? No one. Then some stupid jackasses thought I should have known about it. If I were suspicious, what boys would you trust? What was the guy who wasn't winning - at Northwestern or SMU or some of those other darn places - thinking about ? He might have had a reason to wonder what was going on. But we walk off with all the trophies they had, and I was supposed to know about it. How stupid can you get?
Have you softened in your feelings toward the boys involved ?
Rupp: Go on to the next question.
Did anything good come out of the scandals ?
Rupp: The good that came from it was to alert the colleges to the dangers of gambling. I don't know if they have eliminated that yet or not because I see these newspapers still run the point spread. If you're going to publicize the thing, then why condemn it ? The whole thing is that it has alerted us to be more careful as to how this thing actually happens and every year I think all schools acquaint their football and basketball teams with how these small things can grow into a big thing.
Do you speak to your players about it ?
Rupp: I not only make a speech, but I also require that every boy let me know if he eats a meal away from our cafeteria. They say we are pretty strict here, but I don't care what they say about us. They also cannot leave Fayette county without our permission. We want to know where they are, and we check with them a dozen times.
You've had feuds with certain Eastern writers --is this a thing of the past ?
Rupp: Most of those fellows are either dead or got better jobs, so they don't bother me. When we were riding high and wide - you can look at our record in Madison Square Garden; it isn't anything to be ashamed of and it might be the best record of any team in the Garden - some Eastern guy would come around and say something and then print it as though I said it. But I'm too old to have any more feuds.
At the NCAA last year you irritated a lot of non-Kentucky writers by barring them from the locker room immediately after the game. Why did you permit only local writers ?
Rupp: Of course there was a lot of irritation, and a lot of them irritate me too. Let's get this straight: For the last 11 years I have had a radio program that comes three minutes after the game. I don't get paid to break contracts and I don't care if anyone gets to talk to me. That was one reason.
But is it fair to bar some writers and admit others ?
Rupp: You may be right. I won't argue that. But I don't allow any newspaper, radio or television man to talk to any of my boys during the year unless he has my permission. The boy can come out and make a very bad statement. You are dealing with 17- and 18-year-old boys. They are not all 22 or 23, the way they are at some schools.
Since you have been doing the same things for 37 years, why do you think closed practices are so important ?
Rupp: It's just like in medical school. You can't have everybody standing around and watch you perform an operation. In our old gymnasium that was the case. We sometimes had three and four hundred standing along the sideline. It was distractful.
Why do you maintain strict silence in practice ?
Rupp: You have to have complete concentration the same as in law school or medical school. We'll have a shooting practice for 30 minutes and not a boy will say a word. He'll just have his ball and our boys like it that way.
You have been accused of taking the fun out of the game. Do your players get much fun out of the game aside from winning ?
Rupp: Our boys have more fun playing at Kentucky than they will anywhere else. They know every evening exactly what they are going to do. That's not true elsewhere. The East-West game is played here and we have 20 of the best basketball players in America and a lot of them tell me there were evenings they went out and didn't do a thing. Last night I told Louis Dampier before practice what we were going to do and he had charge of the entire practice session. If they can't assume responsibility in practice, how are they going to out there in a game? Last year I alternated a captain every single night and our boys got that responsibility placed on their shoulders. As for fun, one of our players was asked that very question. He said, "We have our fun at the end of the year when we all go together and take the trophy and put it in the case."
What kind of disciplinary problems have you been faced with through the years ?
Rupp: I haven't had many discipline problems because we're not going to tolerate some of these things that they do in other places. You know they have these panty raids and things like that. We're not going to put up with that kind of foolishness. I've never heard of one of my boys smoking. If I did, I'd probably give him 50 extra laps for a week and maybe the shortage of breath would make the point. But you know, our students won't let the boys step out of line, either. Several years ago I got a report that a boy was going into one of our taverns. I didn't put a tail on him. I'm not a policeman, I'm a coach. But I got a second report and I asked him and he said, "Yes, I was in there, I had a beer," and I said, "All right, check in your stuff. That's all. No more." He tried to get back on; even went to see the Governor, but that's no good. We've only fired two other boys in 37 years. They were just not a Kentucky boy.
How has recruiting changed over the years ?
Rupp: I didn't know what that word meant when I came here. It's changed so that some of these good boys will have 20 or 25 offers. Now, I see in the paper where some of them are offered 100- 150 scholarships. That's just ridiculous. A lot of boys think that when a school sends an information blank, that they have already been invited. Several years ago a lot of boys tried to pressure us into committing ourselves by lying they had already been offered scholarships by Tennessee and Vanderbilt. That was the end of that boy as far as we were concerned. A boy once told me he had visited another team's dressing room and lied to the coach and said he had an offer from Kentucky but wanted to play for him. The boy got a scholarship to that school that night. You run into those things, too. The pressure on your top boys is tremendous.
Do you do much personal recruiting ?
Rupp: I supervise it, but I don't do much. I never did, because we have had a very fortunate thing here. When a Kentucky mother sees her newborn son for the first time, she looks at him and hopes he will be President of the United States, because Abe Lincoln made it. And then if he can't be President, she hopes he will come to the University and play basketball. So we haven't had much trouble getting boys from the Commonwealth to come here and play.
How many scholarships do you give ?
Rupp: We allow 25 for all four classes, but we haven't had 25 since 1959. This year we went out and got a big bunch of freshmen because last year we only had one sophomore on our squad, which meant our recruiting missed completely the year before. Right now we have 11 freshmen on scholarship and 12 varsity.
Just how important is recruiting ?
Rupp: It depends. A lot of people recruit viciously and still don't accomplish anything. But of course you can't win without good material. I say look at a roster and that will tell you how much recruiting is being done. In the last 40 years, I think 81 percent of our boys have been from Kentucky. That will show you our recruiting hasn't been vicious or violent. Last year we did pick up some very outstanding boys from five other states which I think was because of our great success during the season.
Does out-of-state recruiting, then, tend to be more dependent upon current success than past tradition ?
Rupp: Yes, I think so. Last year the nation adopted the University of Kentucky team. Around the first of February I told our athletic director: "Our mail is getting so heavy that we can't get on top of it. I would like to hire another secretary." He said, "For how long?" I said, "For three or four days." She stayed three and one-half months. We received 7000 letters in February, March and April. A lot were for auto- graphs and pictures, but people also wanted to know what we were doing with the 1-3-1 defense the way we were playing it. Vietnam was one of our favorite places. We got hundreds of letters from there. One boy stood in a fox hole and drew a picture of a Kentucky wildcat and sent it to us.
What kind of letters did you get when you lost the championship ?
Rupp: We never got a single word of criticism. If we did, I didn't see it, because I don't get those anyway. Our secretaries have been instructed by our athletic director just to throw all nasty letters in the waste basket and don't let them come to the coach's attention.
Isn't that running away from reality ?
Rupp: No, because most of the people who write don't really know the situation, If it's a letter of criticism, yes, I see that, but these crank letters, I never see those at all.
Has Kentucky recruited any Negroes ?
Rupp: Yes, we have two on our football team and we called on five or six basketball players last year, but we were not successful.
Why not ?
Rupp: I just think the whole thing has been a fear of traveling through the Deep South and probably being insulted or picked on. I know one of these boys got many letters from the south when it looked like we were going to get him, suggesting he not come here. But we do not draw the color line in any way.
What kind of relationship do you have with Bear Bryant ?
Rupp: The very best in the world. You know they tried to stir up something again this last year. We were playing in Iran and just about five minutes before game time they said I had a very important call from the United States and it just couldn't wait. Well, I immediately thought: "Is there something wrong with my family or the family of one of the boys ?" Well, someone called in and absolutely did not tell me the truth. They said that Bear Bryant had made such and such a statement and I can't imagine a thing like that because Bear Bryant and I have had the happiest relationships of any coaches that ever worked together.
It is true, as I've heard, that you got a street condemned in order to build the Coliseum ?
Rupp: Yes it is. It happened this way: The Coliseum's final plans were spread out on the desk of the university president. The architect, members of the athletic board, the athletic director and I were all there. They said, "Here is the building. It's going to seat approximately 15,000 and we want to be sure that everyone is in agreement on this thing." I was the last to have my say. Everyone else was more concerned about it than I was, of course, since I was only the basketball coach. And I said, "No, I don't approve it at all," and they said, "Why?" I said, "It won't seat but about 7- or 8000." They all laughed and I said, "Go ahead and laugh if you want to, but just give me the length of the Coliseum and the number of rows you have, reduce that to inches, divide by 18 inches for a seat and I will tell you exactly what it will seat." The architect got out his pencil and said, "Well, if you figure it that way, it will seat 7800." I said, "I told you to make plans for a building that would seat approximately 15,000." They said, "We just can't build one like that." I said, "Condemn the street back of the Coliseum." They said, "You can't condemn the street." I said, "You can condemn that one." It only ran about a block. So I called the mayor and he said, "Yes, we'll condemn that street if you have to have it." I said, "Would you mind telling the president that ?" And he talked to the president and assured him the street would be condemned and he would call a special meeting of the council if necessary. And that's how we got the back end onto this Coliseum.
With your political connections, have you ever thought about entering politics yourself ?
Rupp: I thought some about it, but I believe I can serve the Commonwealth better here. We have about six or seven people out for the governor's race and I think that's enough for this year.
Have important political people ever offered you a place on a ticket ?
Rupp: Yes, twice. Once for governor and once for lieutenant governor. Oh, it pops up every now and then, but I won't take it seriously.
What do you think of pro basketball ?
Rupp: It certainly has given employment to many of my boys, but I think it's a careless sport. Outside of their exceptional shooting, it doesn't have the clever passing like our team had last year. About three years ago we checked a game between the Hawks and the Celtics. I think one team lost the ball 26 times and the other 18. In college you would get slaughtered if you did that. Also, their 24-second rule sometimes makes them take a shot that isn't valid. And I think the game is too long.
Why haven't you ever been interested in coaching pro basketball ?
Rupp: Why should I leave here to go elsewhere to prove myself? I've got possibly the finest coaching position in America right here. I've had pro offers, but my biggest opportunities have been in business. I make many talks to large corporations each year. Several of them have offered me positions in public relations and in personnel. But it meant moving, usually north of here, and Mrs. Rupp doesn't care to wade through that snow too much and we have friends here.
You give the impression that fame means a great deal to you.
Rupp: It does because in my profession you have a rating to determine how successful you are. In business, you have a factory and it can run at capacity and turn out things and sell all of them. But still where do you stand ? Last year they had seven Coach-of- the-Year awards. No one ever got more than one, but I've got all seven and there they are; you can see them right here. That's a satisfaction, of course, but it isn't complete, because we didn't win that last game. And that hurt me more than you'll ever know.
How long did you brood about it ?
Rupp: I brood about it now. I wake up at night and think: "Why couldn't you come up with some idea to win that ballgame ?"
What did you do wrong ?
Rupp: Well, I don't know why we had 34 personal fouls playing a 1-3-1 -- a defense that's supposed to eliminate fouls -- and they have only 13 personals playing a man-to-man. And I don't think we ran our plays to get enough shots in front of the basket. We worked on several things and just plainly forgot about them as the heat of the game developed.
Have you ever employed gimmicks - things to get your boys up for a basketball game ?
Rupp: No. We don't have any trouble getting our boys up - not with the schedule we play. Sometimes you do have to use psychology, but it doesn't always work. Years back we were playing Ohio State here. That evening Frank Ramsey said, "How do you feel?" and I said, "How I feel is unimportant. How do you feel?" He said, "Why, we're going to beat Ohio State." I said, "Frank, don't talk like that." He said, "We're not only going to beat them, we're going to beat them bad." I said, "Have you studied the scouting report?" He said, "I don't care about the scouting report. Ohio State isn't going to come down here and whip us. You just sit down and relax; we'll take care of that ballgame." There was where psychology backfired on me, but the kids were ready.
No Rupp interview would be complete without this question: Who would your all-time Kentucky All-Star team consist of ?
Rupp: Well now, I'm glad you asked that question, because I've never answered it. I guess I've been asked that 5000 times and I've been offered a nice fee to write a story on that. But you see I've had 34 All-Americans made by 24 boys. We've had everything but shooting scrapes around here arguing over who is the best boy. But to answer your question I can only satisfy five boys and hurt the feelings of all the rest and I just don't want to do that because I'm so grateful to all these boys.
Is there a lot about you that only close, intimate friends would know ?
Rupp: That is true, and maybe the fact that people don't know me makes me a little interesting at times. I don't go for this nightclub life. Whenever I go to a hotel or to a restaurant, I always like to sit in a corner where my back is to the people. When I can sit there and nobody knows who I am, I just feel more at ease. I don't like the limelight at all. In the evening I like to go home and be with my family. I have been more retiring possibly than any other basketball coach in America but that's the way I like it. I like to read a lot - even a book - and that's unusual for a coach.
You once said you didn't believe in the poem Grantland Rice wrote about the one great scorer asking not if you won or lost, but how you played the game. You said if this applied to sports, they wouldn't keep score. Does this mean you were downgrading Rice's central theme - sportsmanship ?
Rupp: That was a beautiful thing he thought of that day. If he wrote that thing, he had a good day. Sure. Let's go even beyond that. Let's just boost the Ten Commandments and if the boys abide by the Ten Commandments, every night, even if you get beat 100 points, you still had a good day. You couldn't ask for a better thing than that. That's fine. The trouble is, failure doesn't bother people today. In fact, we subsidize failure. The worst failure you are today, the better chance you have of getting on some of these subsidies we've got. I have never believed in failure. Had Adolph Rupp failed in high school or college, I don't know where he'd be today. That bothers me. I wake up at night many times thinking of my years in college where I was failing - at least I thought I was failing. I never failed a grade in my life and I had that burning desire not to fail. I couldn't fail. I couldn't go back to my home community and have people say "he failed." That's why I think we must re-establish a new line of thought in regard to "it matters not whether you won or lost." It does make a great deal of difference.
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