Published in Sports Review Magazine, January 1960, pp. 28-29.

Coach Rupp (L) makes quip that causes Kentucky's president, Dr. Frank Dickey to break into laughter as he accepts piece of cake from Rupp at surprise ceremony last year honoring Rupp's 600th life-time basketball victory.

by BILL SURFACE

OUTSPOKEN Adolph Rupp, basketball coach at the University of Kentucky, and burly Dan Tehan, a referee who doubles as sheriff of Cincinnati, were exchanging slightly warmed words over a disputed call at the end of a game.

"Dan," Rupp barked in the dressing room. "All 12 of my boys say you missed the call. Just ask any of 'em. They'll all tell you you're wrong."

"Adolph," Tehan replied. "I've got 13 deputies back in Cincinnati that didn't even know the game was being played and they'll all swear in court I'm right!"

Adolph Frederick Rupp was defeated. But it was one of the rare occasions that he ever suffered defeat, even from subjects such as arguing or pulling the loudest applause from jokes, to his No. 1 vocation, basketball.

A master of producing cbampionship basketball teams that have been 85 percent unbeatable for 29 seasons, Rupp probably could qualify as a successful comedian or television entertainer. At least he's the funniest man in basketball.

Rupp, appropriately billed as the "Baron of Basketball," doesn't like modern day entertainers. Rupp says:

"Someone once said I'm a better comedian than those characters on TV. I can't say if I am or not because they'd think I'm egotistical."

One day, though, Rupp didn't have to leave Memorial Coliseum, site of all Kentucky home games, for an entertainer. Rupp led his team onto the basketball floor when an attendant stopped him with: "You can't come out here. Arthur Rubenstein is rehearsing for his performance tonight."

"Listen, buddy," Rupp answered, "if Rubenstein misses a hundred notes tonight there won't be a soul who'll know it. But if my basketball team blows one easy basket against Tennessee tomorrow night the entire state of Kentucky will be up in arms."

Although the nation's most successful college basketball coach, Rupp still is an avid baseball fan, and personal friend of former major league baseball commissioner A. B. (Happy) Chandler, now the Kentucky governor. So once upon a time, Chandler's son, Dan, made the Kentucky traveling squad.

Dan, the No. 12 player on a 12 man team but still aggressive, wasn't exactly ticketed for extensive duty and perhaps he was overly enthused when Cliff Hagan, All-American center, was knocked unconscious. Rupp yelled "Chandler."

Dan, who told Rupp before the game that several of his former Darlington (Ga.) Prep School teammates were watching the game, rushed up to the Kentucky bench, even ripping the zipper from his warmup jacket, and grinned: "Who do you want me to guard, Coach Rupp?"

"Guard, hell," yelled Rupp. "Go out and help Rusty the trainer carry Hagan off the floor."

Kentucky practice sessions are conducted behind padlocked and tarpaulin covered gates and could produce bigger laughs than Red Skelton at the Chez Paree -- that is if the small but select audience laughed out loud.

Although the drills are conducted in an orderly business-like fashion by Rupp and his talented assistant, Harry Lancaster, it is Rupp's free-wheeling oral barbs that guarantee an interesting afternoon.

A new junior college guard not familiar with Kentucky's slashing, pattern type offense dribbled the entire length of the floor.

"Hold it, hold it," screamed Rupp. "The N.C.A.A. just passed a new rule change this season. You're allowed to pass off this year. You don't have to dribble the entire length of the court."

And moments later, he intoned: "You've just violated the 11th commandment. Thou shalt not be stupid!"

Although letters from cranks rarely reach Rupp after they are censored by the secretaries, he still laughs about the note concerning Johnny Cox, All-American forward on last year's team.

"When Cox was a sophomore, he didn't look too good and the newspapers ran a story that the highest scoring freshman in history might not start in the season opener," grinned Rupp. "Then I got this letter from Cox's hometown of Hazard, Ky., saying:

"'If Cox doesn't start Saturday night, there will be a hanging in Lexington and it won't be in effigy either.'

"Somehow he showed remarkable improvement the followmg day and has started every game since, ending up an All-American."

Coaching has its disciplinary problems, too, and Rupp was informed that a 6-8 center was being placed on probation by the school for serving as the ringleader in a panty raid.

"Son, tell me your side of the story," Rupp told the center.

"Well, Coach Rupp, I was walking down this street. Then I saw this big crowd and everybody running around and this boy I knew back in the dorms stuck his head out the window and told me to come on-in."

"And you crawled through the window?" Rupp said.

"Yes," replied the center expecting the biggest lecture of his life.

"What's the matter," returned Rupp. "Wasn't the door open?"

Rupp doesn't like the New York writers, and vice versa. Rupp calls them "hatchet" men. And truthfully they do chop him up pretty good.

The scribes like to tell the story of the season Rupp lost four of his starting five from the 1953-54 unbeaten team and was leading the national polls again.

"You've done a pretty fair reconstruction job haven't you," Rupp was asked at the time by a Gotham writer.

"Well, boys," Rupp laughed. "Let's put it this way."

"Who won the National league pennant?" Rupp asked.

"Why the Giants," said the scribe.

"Alright," returned Rupp, "now who manages 'em?"

"Leo Durocher," was the answer.

"Now then," quipped Rupp, "if the general manager sold 75 per cent of Leo's pitching strength and 80 per cent of his batting strength and he came up and won the pennant again, what would he be?"

"Why he'd be one helluva manager," answered the puzzled writer.

"Alright now, boys," said Rupp, "by graduation I lost 75 per cent of my defensive strength and 80 per cent of my scoring strength and where are we today?"

"What do you mean," asked the scribe.

"I mean where are we rated?" grinned Rupp.

"Why No.1 in the nation in all polls," answered the scribe.

"Now then, boys," laughed Rupp, "you just base your stories around that!"

Rupp, who farms 1,250 acres, is serving his sixth term as president of the Kentucky Hereford Association, and his son, Herky, now on the varsity at Kentucky, was playing Pony League baseball a few years ago. Naturally, besides his basketball prospects, he had other summer interests.

So one day a highly delighted Rupp remarked loudly coming down the Memorial Coliseum halls leading to the athletic offices: "We won, we won."

"You did," interrupted Ken Kuhn, Kentucky sports publicity director. "How many hits did Herky get?"

"Oh, hell, not Herky," laughed Rupp. "R.R. Royal Prince just won the Tri-State Cattle show."

Old-timers like to tell about the 1948 season when Kentucky was leading an opposing team something like 43-3 at halftime. Rupp was strict at halftime, and while checking the scorebook for fouIs he noticed that No. 5 had scored all three points for the opposition.

"Who's got this man," he demanded. "I have," said a low voice from the back of the room.

"Well, then," roared Rupp" "start guarding him. He's running wild!"

Never at a loss for words, Coach Adolph Rupp expresses fond admiration of silver pitcher he received as gift from UK Athletic Association employees.

But, getting serious, there are few players or teams that ever run wild on anything Rupp coaches. And even if he does brag about some of his teams, after looking at his record, it seems that he has something to brag about.

In 29 seasons he has an amazing 608 victories against only 106 defeats. .. . An unprecedented four National Collegiate Athletic Association championships. . . . Nineteen Southeastern Conference titles since the league was formed in 1933. . . . A National Invitation Tournament championship in 1946 that makes him the only coach ever to guide a team to four national titles in six years. . . . A nominal world championship as co-coach of the winning United States entry in the 1948 Olympic games after his Kentucky' team won both the N.C.A.A. and Olympic collegiate bracket trials. . . . Four Sugar Bowl titles. . . . Four of the first six University of Kentucky Tournament championships featuring the nation's top teams. . . . Developed more All-Americans (20) and more pro players (18) than any other coach. . . . Elected to the Helms Athletic Foundation college basketball Hall of Fame in 1946 and- selected as "Coach of the Year" four years later. . . . Recipient of the first plaque of appreciation awarded by the Sugar Bowl committee and twice made honorary citizen City of New Orleans. . . . Election to Kentucky Hall of Fame (1945) and as outstanding citizen of Lexington, Ky. (1949).

Whew!

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