Who would be on your coaching Mount Rushmore?

OK, so Rupp's Wildcats win it all in '58, then for the next EIGHT YEARS every national champion was integrated and he still sent a lily white starting five on the court in the '66 title game. That's just being willfully ignorant.

also, from a book called "One Beautiful Season" by Kyle Whelliston

(editing of the N word mine, not Whelliston's and certainly not Rupp's)

 

I respect that Mark2010 never rebukes charges of racism but instead defends his beliefs. That shows great self-confidence and awareness.

 

I wasn't alive then, so I can't really say. I don't know if Rupp thought his Kentucky lineup was the best combination he had. Or maybe he was trying to make a social statement in 66. I really don't know.

 

You know, it's funny if any Division I coach today (even Coach K at Duke) was to field an all-white lineup, he would be branded a racist. But field an all-black lineup and no one bats an eye.

 

Save that for whenever he post on the "Say Something Nice" thread.

 

Hell, that's just scratching the surface of racist quotes alleged to have been said by Rupp. A few other examples:

"He said, ‘You've got to beat those coons,’ He turned to (center)Thad Jaracz. 'You go after that big coon.' . . . He talked that way all the time. . . A chill went through me. I was standing in the back of the room, and I looked around at the players. They all kind of ducked their heads. They were embarrassed. This was clearly the type of thing that went over the line." Frank Deford, Sports Illustrated, reporting on Coach Adolph Rupp’s halftime exhortations in the UK Wildcat’s locker room.

"Harry, that son of a bitch is ordering me to get some ni**ers in here. What am I going to do ? He's the boss." Harry Lancaster, long-time assistant to Rupp, in his book Adolph Rupp As I Knew Him (Lexington Productions, 1979), quoting Rupp on Dr. John Oswald, UK President.

“Once, I was on a flight with Rupp and sat with him in the first-class section. He had about six Kentucky bourbons in less than an hour and was about halfway to the wind. I told him that I was an attorney who represented some basketball players. Now, I had never met the man, and the first significant thing he said to me was, ‘The trouble with the ABA is that there are too many ni**er boys in it now.’ I sat there just stunned. That just killed my image of Adolph Rupp the great coach. Maybe it was because he had too much to drink, but even so...” - Loose Balls by Terry Pluto, Simon & Schuster, 1990, pg. 241.

"Rupp liked to say he had tried to recruit Wilt Chamberlain in the mid-1950s, when the 7-foot Philadelphia phenom was the talk of basketball. 'But could I take him to Atlanta, New Orleans, or Starkville ?' Rupp asked rhetorically.” And the Walls Came Tumbling Down (1999, Simon & Schuster) by journalist Frank Fitzpatrick, a long-time staffer at the Philadelphia Inquirer.

 

For "my" teams:
Marv Levy
Jerry Sloan
Lindy Ruff
Rick Majerus

In general
Bear Bryant
Vince Lombardi
Bill Parcells
Bobby Knight

 

MLB: Tony LaRussa
NFL: Jon Gruden
NBA: Phil Jackson

 

Sorry, but I'm not sold on Joe Girardi as a great manager. He needs to win at least three rings to enter the pantheon. I would rather have Francona, LaRussa, or even Mike Hargrove at the helm.

 

Adolph Rupp doesn't belong on any list of top ten college coaches.

Aside from all of the stuff previously posted, he was overrated.

He coached basketball at the one place in the SEC where basketball was bigger than football. It was a fairly easy road to the NCAA Tournament, which was not always a better tournament than the NIT in the 40s and 50s. The Wildcats got far better talent than other SEC teams. Once in the tournament, there were only conference champions, and some representatives of conferences weren't great teams and might not have been better than teams which didn't win their conference.

Until 1958, teams could select whether to go to the NIT or NCAA. (Go to the NIT in New York or play an NCAA game in Bloomington, Indiana - hmm). Some teams, like CCNY, Bradley, and Kentucky could go to both because the NCAA tournament was played at Madison Square Garden. After 1958, a conference champion was required to go to the NCAA tournament.

There is no way Rupp should be mentioned in the same paragraph as Bob Knight, Coach K, Dean Smith, Al McGuire, John Wooden, John Thompson, Larry Brown, Joe Lapchick (if St. John hadn't forced Lapchick to retire because he had reached 65, Kareem said he would have gone to St. John), and Pat Summitt. Don't even start on NBA coaches who are better. Rick Pittino is a better coach than Rupp.

 

Wooden
Halas
Toe Blake
Auerbach