During that game, nobody made a big deal that a 5 black starting lineup beat an all white starting lineup right? Well who made it a big deal later on? Who was the a-hole labeled UK as a racist school?
1966 Title game question
- Thread starter Kentucky fan 1989
- Start date
Oh yeah, there was plenty of talk before, during and after that game.
![[pfftt]](https://ct.yimg.com/mr/uploads/891/1682173.gif "Pfffttt [pfftt]")
Disney played a pretty big role in how they decided to portray Rupp and the school in order to spice up their movie and add to the narrative. Its basic character building; Attempt to make the protagonist lovable and the antagonist as dislikable as possible.
Actually I don't think Deford ever really wrote about it. He was the SI beat writer during the 1966 Final Four and made only a passing reference to it at the time.
Decades later it came out what Deford claims that Rupp told his team during halftime, but that was all second hand. I.e. One of his colleagues mentioned Deford as hearing it, but Deford himself didn't write about it at the time of those revelations in the late 80's/early 90's either.
There was talk about Rupp's language in the locker room at halftime of the game. And, there was always talk about the fact he "did" or "did not" recruit black players. What forever cast him as a racist was a 1991 SI article by Curry Kirkpatrick, I believe. That game was a turning point for college athletics and should be viewed as such. It has, unfortunately, become a "Rupp is racist focal point."
The Disney movie Glory Road made casual fans more aware of the game and UK's participation in it but IMO they did a good job of portraying Rupp and his legacy.
They didn't go out of their way to take shots at him or present anything inaccurate about him, other than concocting a meeting in the Dallas airport which never happened.
Overall I think the director and Jon Voight did a credible job with Rupp. Too bad the rest of the movie wasn't nearly as historically accurate.
Heard Billy Reed on the Deener show this morning talking about Rupp. He said he couldn't see what "was in his heart" but knows he tried to recruit many black players.....just wasn't successful.....probably because of what they would face when they went on the road.
FYI, I've posted this before but below is an article which was published immediately after the game which did take the racial aspect of the game into consideration and did a good job IMO of putting it into the context of the time.
Link to Article from The Trentonian by Harvey Yavener
Yavener, like most informed people at the time, were well aware that UK and Rupp were actively recruiting black players at the time. This includes, BTW, Frank Deford who had written an article about UK's efforts to recruit Butch Beard the year previous to the 1966 Championship game.
I never watched the Disney movie and never will. One look at the ridiculous attempt to make Voight look like Rupp with the makeup and exaggerated nose was all I needed to know I should stay away.
The neverending headline that "Rupp was a racist" has been driven by a sports media that often (always) creates a storyline where none exists. Why? Because it sold papers back in the day and gets clicks in the age of blogs and "Insider" articles.
To be certain some "journalists" have agendas and axes to grind. Maybe a few found themselves on the wrong side of a Rupp tongue lashing or never got the big interview with the Baron that they thought they deserved? Who knows?
Certainly, the efforts to paint Rupp in a negative light continue to this day. The agenda of destruction never stops.
But, this subject speaks to my bigger grievance that journalism as a whole and sports writers specifically have become little more than failed novelists and hacks. Instead of REPORTING they've become reality narrators and opinion pushers. If a tasty story doesn't exist, they'll create one. Only lawyers rank higher in my mind when it comes to the lowliest of professions.
The neverending headline that "Rupp was a racist" has been driven by a sports media that often (always) creates a storyline where none exists. Why? Because it sold papers back in the day and gets clicks in the age of blogs and "Insider" articles.
To be certain some "journalists" have agendas and axes to grind. Maybe a few found themselves on the wrong side of a Rupp tongue lashing or never got the big interview with the Baron that they thought they deserved? Who knows?
Certainly, the efforts to paint Rupp in a negative light continue to this day. The agenda of destruction never stops.
But, this subject speaks to my bigger grievance that journalism as a whole and sports writers specifically have become little more than failed novelists and hacks. Instead of REPORTING they've become reality narrators and opinion pushers. If a tasty story doesn't exist, they'll create one. Only lawyers rank higher in my mind when it comes to the lowliest of professions.
Tommy Kron was a friend of mine and one of the finest people I have ever known. When I told him I wasn't going to see the Movie he laughed and said Get over it. It's one hell of a story. He and Diane his wife had already seen it.
So I saw it and The only thing I found offensive was the confederate flags. I went to every home game and never ever saw UK fans with a confederate flag . I believe that was historically inaccurate and a cheap attempt to make us look racist.
At the age of 12 I don't remember all Ky Fans waving rebel flags as the movie portrayed us. It was a good game, UK just come up a little short. !966 I caught WildCat Fever and I still have it today. Go Big Blue!
No offense to you or Tommy Kron but, I know the real story too. And yes, I know he lived it. But, I don't need to watch a Hollywood-ized, historically inaccurate version, a la JFK.
If they (film makers) gave one hoot in hell about getting it right they would have left out the rebel flag thing, as no evidence exists to support such scenes. Again, where no storyline exists, they just make it up.
Au Contraire. There was a huge deal about this, both before the game and certainly thereafter.
There is video evidence that there were a few Confederate flags in the crowd that night. It wasn't unusual for that time.
Where the movie took liberties was the sheer number. There was nowhere close to the number of flags that the movie portrayed. That was a gross exaggeration on their part.
BTW, some have also talked about the UK band playing Dixie. Again that wouldn't have been unusual for that time period but that is actually not true, since the UK band didn't travel to Maryland for the games there. In fact, UK tried to hire the Duke band to play for them but the Duke band refused to do so. If someone was playing Dixie during the game, it certainly wasn't the UK band.
Knew Butch Beard. Breckinridge County. Even ended up in the,Army with him stateside while he played with the Cavs. He said Rupp and Harry Lancaster recruited him hard. Anyone around Rupp in the 60s will tell you he didn't cate if you were purple. All he wanted was to win. Hell Rupp had black players on a high school team he coached in the 20s. Really got a bad rap
Not exactly sure what you're talking about. Care to elaborate?
Note that I'm sure that among some individuals there likely was a huge deal made out of the game. But in terms of national discourse (i.e. newspapers, magazines, television etc.), there really wasn't a whole lot of discussion that was apparent.
I was born in 1976. I grew up in the 80's hearing my dad bemoan the fact that people thought Rupp was racist. This was long before Kirkpatrick's story, so it was out there. I think maybe he re-invigorated the story on a national level for a new generation.
Not only that it was NOT an "upset" as commonly believed (UK and TexWes entered the tournament ranked #1 and #2...both had only one loss) but check out the post game interview by Rupp and you use "Ctrl+F" and tell me how many times he said "black", "colored", "negro", or "African" in that entire interview.
http://www.bigbluehistory.net/bb/1966twaudioclip.html
Not to mention he chose to schedule non-conference opponents that were integrated going as far back as what, mid-to-late 50s?
Did you know?: UK got three extra NCAA Tournament appearances because the SEC champs who were supposed to go that year (there were no "wild cards"/at large bids in those days) were forced by their state gov't's (I don't think it was the players/coach fault in any of them) to skip the NCAA's out of fear of playing integrated teams.
Regarding the confederate flags......do we even know those were UK fans? How many UK fans would have traveled to Maryland back then and for that matter, why would they let them in and not confiscate them?
I was in Memphis at the time. There was talk all over the town and TV sportscasters talking about how an all black team had beaten UK and their all white team. I also saw at least one national news broadcast (can't remember NBC or CBS) who made a comment about Rupp and racism.
Also, there was obviously no internet, social media, cell phones, or 24 hour sport or news stations at the time, so 'national discourse' could very well (and probably did) happen, but just
didn't dominate every waking moment, as we so commonly see now.
You are correct that it's not a given they were UK fans, but it's likely. Again it was a different time. It wasn't unusual during that time period to see fans of Southern schools wave Confederate flags. In fact it's a know fact that the following year the UNC team with Dean Smith at the helm was known to wave Confederate flags themselves.
As @clevenger32 mentioned, there were Confederate flags flown during games at UK from time to time. Below is a link to the 1968 UK Yearbook which shows some:
Link to Photo from 1968 UK Yearbook
Not from those days or those games, but "from his time at UK"
Rex did, a few times... sincerely hope he has changed.
It's just a movie.
Every reasonable person in this country realizes that movies are exaggerated.
Of all the things to get worked up over, this is not one of them. Shades of Katman level psycho-babbel in here. Thank God for Jon Scott.
Every reasonable person in this country realizes that movies are exaggerated.
Of all the things to get worked up over, this is not one of them. Shades of Katman level psycho-babbel in here. Thank God for Jon Scott.
That game would have been another Kentucky championship had it not been for the illness many on the team had that night. The team was drained by the flu or something like it.
My grandfather said that losing to an all white Duke team earlier would have been the best thing that could have happened. He always pointed out that Duke was one of the last teams to integrate, but nobody talks about that now.
John, I am so impressed that you know this. My uncle was Rupp's Doctor, and had called me about 2 hours before game-time to tell me the same thing. He had actually just given two of the players IV fluids because of their illness. He used the term 'flu-like symptoms'.
Thanks, Hijack.
I think it was pretty well known after the game, but it did not fit the narrative of the big upset that the media was pushing and as far as I know Rupp did not use it as an excuse for the defeat, so it never got broad coverage.
First of all, every single in the SEC, ACC and old Southwest Conference was late in recruiting and signing black players. None of these schools started signing black players until the mid-1960's and that roll-out continued through the early 1970's until Mississippi State had Larry Fry and Jerry Jenkins play for them starting in 1972-73 season. They all hold some blame and accountability for that. [Just as I'd argue that instead of going back 60 years to cast blame on Southern schools, one could also go back 70-75 years and start casting blame on many Northern schools for not integrating their sports teams sooner either.]
At the time of the 1966 NCAA Championship game, Duke did have a black freshman by the name of C.B. Claiborne, and he went on to play varsity. They were actually the 2nd ACC team to have a black player on their varsity team (after Maryland with Billy Jones the 1965-66 season).
One thing people need to understand is that while Duke was one of the early major Southern teams to have a black player on their team, they were taking the 'tokenism' route as Claiborne came to school was a walk-on. I don't know for sure if he ever received a scholarship from the school, although he may have later in his career.
Going the token route was a practice that a number of ACC schools ended up taking as a way to test the integration waters, whereby they asked a black player to attend their school but refused to offer them a scholarship, which made it easier for the school if things didn't work out. Lou Hudson, a North Carolina prep star in the early 1960s received such an offer from N.C. State and referred to it as 'a chicken way to operate'. That was the only offer from an ACC school he received. He ended up becoming an All-American at Minnesota.
For his part, Rupp was recruiting black players at the time but he resisted the idea of taking the token route (despite pressure from the school President at the time to do just that). Rupp considered it unfair to the player and to the coach to have such a situation. (because of the tension it would create in terms of playing time with a player who clearly wasn't up to par etc. and the physical danger and abuse such a player would encounter sitting on the bench being a target during road games.)
Instead Rupp was trying to follow Branch Rickey's advice (Rickey who had helped integrate major league baseball with Jackie Robinson) by recruiting players like Wes Unseld and Butch Beard etc. who clearly could excel on the court and in the classroom. And I think even in hindsight he was absolutely correct on this point, although it didn't work out for him in the long run.
One other point concerning Duke. To their credit they were one of the early teams to host integrated teams on their campus starting in the early 1950's. They along with Kentucky and N.C. State (as part of the Dixie Classic) were some of the very few major Southern teams to do so. Most other ACC and SEC schools (including UNC) didn't host integrated teams until well into the mid-1960s and later. Some such teams wouldn't even travel to play integrated teams on the road. (a practice which teams like Duke, UNC, Kentucky and Vanderbilt had no problem doing starting in the 1940's).
I don't think the movie portrayed Rupp (or Kentucky) as racist. Possibly insensitive to race, but not racist. Possibly a bit arrogant, going against this school that had not been on the basketball map. It portrayed him (correctly) as someone who just want to win, and expected the most out of his players.
AND Rupp/Kentucky had that stereotype WAY before that movie came out.
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