Feb. 6, 2003
By CHRIS DUNCAN – AP Sports Writer
On Feb. 6, 1903 – 100 years ago Thursday – Kentucky played its firstgame before a capacity crowd in an on-campus gymnasium that is still used today. The loosely organized Kentucky State College team lost 15-6 to a more experienced team from nearby Georgetown College.
The opening loss aside, Kentucky has evolved into collegebasketball’s winningest program, and a century later is celebrating a history that has been tainted by scandal, but defined by a record 1,834 victories, 43 NCAA tournament appearances and seven national titles.
And what a way to celebrate an anniversary. On Tuesday night, thesixth-ranked Wildcats topped No. 1 Florida 70-55 for their 11th straight win.
Coach Tubby Smith appreciates the program’s success, and its deeproots.
“The magnitude of it can be overwhelming if you’re not humble,”current coach Tubby Smith said. “If you ever get to the point where you think you’re the one who built it, whether you’re a coach here or a player, you’re wrong. It’s bigger than any individual. It always will be.”
An account of Kentucky’s first game in the Lexington Herald-Leadersaid, “The gymnasium was packed with rooters who continually applauded the brilliant plays of their respective colleges.” Outside, more fans awaited game updates from a caller with a megaphone, according to Kentucky basketball historian Russell Rice.
For the Wildcats’ home games this season, a logo featuring a bold”100″ is painted on the court at Rupp Arena, the facility named for Adolph Rupp, who built the program’s foundation. A short video chronicling the history has been played on the scoreboards before every game.
The program wasn’t immediately successful. In fact, Kentucky endured13 losing seasons in its first 27 years.
The wins started coming in 1930, when athletic director S.A. “Daddy”Boles hired Adolph Rupp, a high school coach in Freeport, Ill.
It didn’t take long for Rupp to see Kentucky basketball developinginto more than just a curiosity. It was becoming a unifying force for the people of the state, his son, Adolph Jr., said in a telephone interview.
“This became the one thing all the people – from the Ohio River tothe Tennessee border – could all look at and say, ‘We’re better than you at this. We don’t care who you are or where you’re from. We can beat you in basketball,'” Rupp Jr. said.
“My father was aware of that. When he went out to coach a team, heknew he was representing the whole state of Kentucky.”
His players sensed the excitement, too.
Ralph Beard played for the elder Rupp from 1945-49, when theWildcats won their first two NCAA championships. Beard remembers hundreds of fans meeting the team at each stop as it traveled by train through eastern Kentucky on its way to postseason games in New York.
“Whole towns would turn out. They’d make us food and come on thePullman and give it to you,” Beard said. “In 1949, somebody made life-size action pictures of each player and hung them up on telephone poles. I still have mine.”
Beard also was a key figure in one of the program’s darkestchapters, when he and four other players were caught up in a point-shaving scandal.
Beard said fans recognize him today only for his on-courtaccomplishments.
The scandal “is never mentioned by people unless I bring it up,” hesaid. “But the scandal was really a blip on the screen for Kentucky basketball. You just can’t kill something that big.”
Fan support never dwindled.
In 1941, H.L. Donovan became the school’s president and began a pushto build a state-of-the-art basketball arena. Nine years later, the 11,500-seat Memorial Coliseum opened.
Cynics said the arena was too big, but every home game between1950-76 was a sellout.
By the 1960s, however, Rupp’s run was fading. The Wildcats failed toreach 20 wins in four of the first six years of the decade.
They won 24 of 25 regular-season games in the 1965-66 season andreached the NCAA championship game, where they lost to Texas Western, a team with five black starters.
Rupp had never recruited a black player, and the climate in thecountry fueled the game’s significance, said Smith, who is black.
“Back then, college basketball wasn’t that big a deal. But, boy,that made an impression on me,” said Smith, who was 14 at the time. “Those were some changing times. The uproar of civil rights was at its highest point and then here comes (Coach) Don Haskins with his five black starters.
“We were saying, ‘Boy, you don’t see black people on TV doing that!’That was unbelievable.”
Rupp retired after the 1971-72 season. He departed with 876victories, an all-time record until North Carolina coach Dean Smith passed him in 1997.
Kentucky hired Joe B. Hall, Rupp’s lead recruiter. Hall had helpedlure the program’s first black player – seven-footer Tom Payne – in 1969. Others followed, like Jack Givens, Sam Bowie and Dirk Minniefield.
The changing landscape of Kentucky basketball was what attractedKenny Walker, who grew up in rural Georgia and went on to become the school’s second-leading career scorer in the early 1980s.
“Could it have been done sooner? Probably. But to just single outKentucky in that way is a little unfair. You could probably look at a lot of Southern schools at that time and say the same thing,” Walker said. “I look at where we are right now. African-American players are a big part of this and now we even have an African-American coach. That says to me Kentucky is doing all the right things in that regard.”
Shortly after Walker departed, scandal rocked the program again. In1988, an overnight package sent from Kentucky and stuffed with $50 bills was intercepted on its way to the father of a basketball recruit.
The NCAA put Kentucky on probation for three years and imposed atwo-year postseason ban and a television blackout.
Eddie Sutton was fired after just four seasons, and Kentucky hiredRick Pitino on June 1, 1989.
A dizzying three years later, Kentucky fell one heartbreaking,last-second shot by Christian Laettner short of reaching the Final Four.
The stunning loss to Duke only delayed Kentucky’s return toprominence. Pitino led the Wildcats to the 1996 NCAA championship, and the 1997 title game before leaving for a chance to run the Boston Celtics.
“I don’t believe any coach could have the situation I’ve had atKentucky,” Pitino said on the day he resigned, May 7, 1997. “It’s better than any situation you could go into.”
Smith delivered a seamless transition, guiding Kentucky to the 1998NCAA championship.
“Kentucky has been a force in every decade since the 1930s and kidsadmire that,” said Walker. “The foundation and the tradition that was built a long, long time ago is so strong.”
