Blog Post #7: "Baron of the Blugrass"

Memorial coliseum is so much more than just a gym for our volleyball team, our women’s basketball team, and our gymnastics team. Memorial coliseum was built in 1950 to pay homage to those from Kentucky who served in World War 1 and World War 2. This location has seen things that will shock you. It was home to the men’s basketball team before Rupp Arena was built. The men’s basketball team is just as important to memorial coliseums history.

The men’s basketball team had two coaches while they played and performed in memorial coliseum. Coach Adolph Rupp and Coach Joe B. Hall. Both of these men where amazing at what they had done and they both transformed men’s basketball at the University of Kentucky into what it is today.

Adolph Rupp was an amazing basketball coach from Halsted, Kansas. By the end of his career he had amassed a total of 876 victories. Rupp was quite a strict coach and he told you how it was. Rupp had quite an amazing legacy here in Kentucky. Not many here in Kentucky would argue with you if you were to say that Rupp was the best coach here at the University of Kentucky. He had one year that was an unwinning year in the 42 years that he had coached here.

One thing that stuck with Rupp’s legacy though was the fact that he was a racist. The most infamous game in his entire career that continued speculation on whether or not he was a racist was the championship game between Texas Western and the University of Kentucky. Where Texas Western had five starting African American players and where the University of Kentucky had five white starters. Rupp had only ever gotten one black player in his entire 42 years here at the University of Kentucky.

Now in the earlier paragraphs I talked about Coach Joe B. Hall I was planning on talking about him in this post but I found more on Adolph Rupp than I had expected so I will talk about Coach Joe B. Hall in the next post.

Works cited.

Carter, Bob. "Rupp: Baron of the Bluegrass." ESPN. ESPN Internet Ventures, n.d. Web. 31 Oct. 2014. <http://espn.go.com/classic/biography/s/Rupp_Adolph.html>.

Web. 31 Oct. 2014. <http://www.ukathletics.com/>.