I'm a graduate of the University of Kentucky (class of 1981). I attended school with many people who were on campus during the 60s & early 70s when Mr. Rupp was still our coach.

While I cannot put any thoughts into his head, I heard numerous stories about his odious racial comments made during practices at Alumni Gym (old facility on campus that team used at times during that era). These recollections were from former athletes who shared Alumni Gym with the basketball team when it was doing conditioning work.

As for recruiting Mr. Unseld (and the previous poster failed to mention Coach Rupp's 'recruitment' of Butch Beard at the same time), my sources said that Coach Rupp would make no allowances for the fact that this person would have been intergrating the SEC in 1964 (good luck with that), refused to even consider that a negative, and that Mr. Unseld then never seriously considered UK (our loss).

Our first black basketball player at UK was named Tom Parker. He was a tremendous talent out of Louisville who happened to be a psycho (he is still incarcerated at this date for multiple felony convictions for various acts of mayhem). UL was not recruiting him, due to their knowledge of his character deficiencies. Coach Rupp had basically been ordered by Dr. Oswald to get a black player on the team. I think that Coach Rupp knew that Mr. Parker was a loose cannon & that was one of the reasons he recruited him ('they want me to get a nigra, by God I'll get them a nigra'). His great basketball talent, of course, being another reason.

When Coach Hall took over the program, he had terrible trouble recruiting any quality black players. That is a legacy of Coach Rupp (IMO). I think the fact that he had to meet in secret with the innovative coach who happened to be black speaks volumes about his view of blacks in general.

My final caveat is that these people told me that Coach Rupp also didn't particularily treat anyone nicely, white, yellow, black or green. Several people told me he was the most ill tempered jerk they had ever met. I guess he was also a product of his times, being born at the turn of the century.

thank's to WES for the correction.

I don't give a shit what a loser like Ms. Ferraro thinks. My opinion on Sen. Obama is that he has flourished in spite of being black.

on behalf of the Kentucky goyim, I accept your apology for killing Jesus. I am not yet ready to accept your apology for controlling all the world's banks & media.

Let's see how your media does in the next 7 months and I might accept your other apolgies as well.

Mr. JPScott. I love this line in your reply to WES: 'Regarding Tom Payne, again UK had been recruiting black players for many years. To Payne's credit, he ignored many in his community who wanted him to 'punish' UK by turning down a scholarship offer to UK. Rupp was very happy to sign him and was very vocally upset when he turned pro early.'

Where oh where to begin with the BS? As far as UK recruiting black players for 'many years', by your own admission 1964 was the first time an 'attempt' was made & Mr. Payne was signed in 1970, so I think by your counting system, Coach Rupp was head coach at UK for an eon, or maybe an epoch.

Mr. Payne, IMO, has no credit. He is a multiple convicted rapist who had already been in trouble with the law during his HS years. I'm sure there were people around him who didn't want him to sign with UK due to our & Coach Rupp's colorful history(and I'm sure some wanted him to sign because they knew what a cancer he was). You'll note that his hometown university (University of Louisville) was not recruiting this 7' terror on the boards (and dark alleys). Don't you think that should have told Coach Rupp something about the player?

It also says what a win-at-any-costs jerk Coach Rupp was that he was sad to see him leave. But you go on & peddle your hokum, I know many deluded souls who cling to fictions that have long since been proven false.

There was alot more BS in your 2nd post that I didn't get into. I'm sure WES will evicerate you shortly. Have a nice day.