Adolph Rupp

Dan has a new memoir out, written with Doug Brunk, and it covers about 80 seasons.

A dairy farm in Illinois, Adolph Rupp, the 1975 ABA Championship at Freedom Hall, the Mile High City, and a few chapters that were much harder to write than the rest.

Both of them join me to talk about how a life becomes a book.

This is Iconic Seasons.

History.

Coach K, Boeheim, Rick Pitino, John Calipari, Roy Williams, Bob Knight, Dean Smith, Jim Calhoun, Adolph Rupp, Bob Huggins, Rick Barnes, Bill Self, Cliff Ellis, Eddie Sutton, Dana Altman.

15.

That's a pretty...

My dad was a great high school basketball coach in Louisiana.

I still run into some of his former players today that tell me he was way ahead of his time and had books by Adolph Rupp and all these great, John Wood, all these great coaches in his bookshelf at our house.

But he and the head coach At Crenshaw, at that time, when I was a 10th grader at Dorsey, Coach Willie West had gotten a job.

He was the B and C coach, which is like for our soft level basketball in today's parlance.

And, and here's the, here's the fact for you that I think is interesting.

Um, Adolph Rupp was hired in 1930.

NCAA started their championship series in 39.

We didn't get our first title until 48.

I'm sorry.

On this day in history, 1964, coach Adolph Rupp of the University of Kentucky got win 700 for the Wildcats.

They defeated Georgia 108 to 83.

The British group, the Beatles, received its first gold record award for, I won my home jersey.

Absolutely.

Uh, Adolph Rupp's favorite, Brooking's Chili.

Uh, Buffalo and Dad's.

Right.

Dunno.

Okay, Adolph Rupp's last game was a 1972 NCAA tournament loss, 73-54, to what team?

I get these two mixed up.

I know it's either Western or Florida State.

Hold, hold on.

What was that question?

The last, uh, game of the Adolph Rupp era.

Rupp's last game as coach.

1966, when Texas Western, now UTEP, wins the national championship, after seeing the Celtics start an old Black starting lineup, they win the national championship with five Black starters.

And only then does it happen later in the 60s where even guys like Adolph Rupp, who were vehemently against recruiting Black players, started bringing in Black players.

The ACC started having Charlie Scott.

All these other things started changing.

It was like the reverse of...

It's like the opposite of an Adolph Rupp, dude.

You know what I mean? The guy coaching Kentucky.

Remember that John Voight played Adolph Rupp, and I was like, man, there's not much acting going on here, is there? No.

Yeah, accurate.

Rupp was tough, dude.