Experience history with a special Kentucky Chautauqua performance featuring Dr. Edward B. Smith as championship-winning University of Kentucky men’s basketball coach Adolph Rupp.
This free program will take place on Saturday, November 3 from noon to 1 p.m. at the Erlanger Branch of the Kenton County Public Library, located at 401 Kenton Lands Road, Erlanger. Refreshments will be provided. Registration is required by going to this website.
During the 42 years he coached the University of Kentucky men’s basketball team, Adolph Rupp raised the game to near-religious status in the Commonwealth. Rupp’s teams won 880 games, four national championships, and one Olympic gold medal. There was a flip side to all this success – the team was suspended for the 1952-53 season after a point-shaving scandal, and Rupp was heavily criticized for taking too long to integrate the Kentucky basketball program.
Adolph Rupp grew up in Kansas, the son of immigrant farmers. He played three years of varsity basketball at the University of Kansas, but never scored a point. He began his coaching career in Kansas, but soon moved on to high schools in Iowa and Illinois. The University of Kentucky hired him in 1930. Rupp’s genius for public relations and his team’s winning ways combined to make Kentucky basketball a statewide phenomenon, a point of pride around which Kentuckians of all stripes still rally.
Chautauqua event is free and open to the public. Kentucky Chautauqua is funded in part by the Kentucky Humanities Council, Inc., and the National Endowment for the Humanities.
The Kenton County Public Library offers many books on this topic including:
* Baron of the Bluegrass: Winning Words of Wisdom By and About Adolph Rupp, Legendary Kentucky Basketball Coach by Mike Embry
* Adolph Rupp: Kentucky’s Basketball Baron by Russell Rice
* Beyond the Baron: A Personal Glance at Coach Adolph Rupp by V.A. Jackson, Team Physician; also VIP recipes by Marie Jackson