Correct me if im wrong, but does UK have 7 Helms titles?
- Thread starter TyCatPrice14
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You keep saying that, but have yet to acknowledge or respond to the newspaper article from 1935 that was posted in this thread with multiple direct quotes from Coach Rupp referring to the need for a post-season tournament to determine a true national champion and, in so doing, eliminate the absurdity of 3 or 4 schools claiming a MYTHICAL national championship every year despite the lack of cross-sectional play at the time. It's pretty clear what Rupp's views were on Helms and other fake titles...they were MYTHICAL!
If another bakery were to begin awarding titles retroactively in 2035, they would likely name Kentucky the 2015 champion as we were clearly the best team all year, ranked #1 wire to wire, won our first 38 games without a defeat, and administered historical beatings on some traditional powers (i.e. Kansas and UCLA). And the truth is that we may well deserve such recognition, but it wouldn't be real because real championships are won on the court (not based on the opinion of a committee or, in the case of Helms, one person), and we came up just a bit short against Wisconsin.
We could claim our 1946 NIT Championship as a National Championship with MUCH more validity than Kansas could claim their Helms' Titles in 1922 and 1923. As others have said, to place those banners alongside the real championship banners with no distinction only disparages the real ones.
I acknowledge Coach Rupp's desire and Phog Allen's desire to start the NCAA Basketball Tournament. They were the driving forces at the time. They wanted a better process to determine the National Champion. No argument from me on that. I was quoting from Adolph Rupp- Kentucky's Basketball Baron, which is described to be an 'Authorized' biography and written by a longtime friend. Russell Rice published a book using Coach Rupp's words. I just provide the link to the book's front cover. If Sour Mash want to claim the book wasn't authorized or that the Author was not quoting Rupp correctly or the fact that it was written after the Coach's death to attack the quote, that is Sour Mash's choice. It doesn't erase or change the quote.
The problem with that isolated quote is that it is an isolated quote. While it gives you some support, that support is weaker than the ice on a pond in Kentucky in December.
If someone made a similar statement today, we could ask him if he really considered it a national championship and he could elaborate. As it is, we don't have that opportunity to ask a follow-up to Rupp.
What you need is collaborating evidence. For example, can you find a quote in which Rupp referred to the number of national championships that UK had that also include the Helms? Knowing Rupp, he wasn't shy about his accomplishments or the accomplishments of the University of Kentucky so if it is clear that he considered it a legit championship, he would have included ours in the total in his public remarks.
@preacherfan, I appreciate your thoughts. He didn't appear shy. I am not sure if I had an opportunity to ask follow-up questions to Coach Rupp about the state of college basketball today I would waste much time asking about the Helms Foundation.
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It never says in the book that it is an "authorized biography", and even it it was, it was cleared and authorized by the Rupp family and UK. If you can find it where it says that Adolph Rupp "authorized" it, then you let me know. Like it was said above, it's not as if Rice wrote the book while Rupp was alive, or even right after his death. Instead, he decided to write it because people at UK and some fellow colleagues encouraged him to do it 17 years later. Tell us, Nostradamus, did Coach Rupp call Rice up from Heaven in 1994 and say, "OK, Russell, go ahead and write the book", or did he say to Russell Rice right before he died, "Now, Russ, I don't you won't you to write any biographies of me for at least 17 years, so 1994 sounds like a good date to me." By the way, neither Rice nor Rupp ever once compared the Helms title to a NCAA Championship at any time. Sure, Coach Rupp was quite proud of his 1946 NIT Championship, but then again, THAT was an actually a REAL championship of great meaning, won on the court.....
......and not awarded by one random guy, working at bread company, 20 years later.
If you want to get into a historcial debate or argument with me about Adolph Rupp, then you had better think twice about getting me involved further in this debate. I will eat you alive, Mr. Redlegs.
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Attacking the edges. Google the book and you will find the words "authorized biography" and "life-long friend" repeated over 30 times. Accept the data as fact or not. If you believe the book is a lie or that Rice didn't knew the subject matter, I understand your argument; I just don't share your point of view. Again, I am not trying to prove the validity of the Helms Foundation, I was simply providing documentation that Rupp called his 1923 Kansas Jayhawks team a National Championship.
So far the quote as been attacked as "not authorized", or only authorized by the Rupp family but not by Coach Rupp, written after Coach Rupp's death and that somehow makes it false and/or written by a man who enjoying his retirement and was "forced" to write the book against his will.
So far the quote as been attacked as "not authorized", or only authorized by the Rupp family but not by Coach Rupp, written after Coach Rupp's death and that somehow makes it false and/or written by a man who enjoying his retirement and was "forced" to write the book against his will.
See, passive aggressive.
So Bobbi Jr, nobody called it fiction. It's one man's account of who by all accounts was a
very complex man that was a pioneer in his field. Excerpting a text like that written more than a decade after the subject died and using it a decade or more later is the stuff of historical fiction. While I personally like the genre, I don't attempt to use it as a foundational point in a debate.
Here's the bottom line. Your school hangs bread wrappers from the ceiling. You are trying to assign some prestige to that. You came to the wrong place to flaunt that bread wrapper. My advice would be to find a board where the blood isn't quite as blue or stress the parts of your program that are actually noteworthy like total wins.
As understand it, you'll get a chance to put your bread on display in a few months, so send them out for dry cleaning.
We are coming.
A title is a title. I wouldn't have a problem if we hung ours as long as it was obvious it was Helms. If you got em hang em.
The argument of Rupps opinion on the matter does not validate a Helms banner in any way at all . Even if he did believe it was legit he would still be in error , Rupps opinion is not handed down from on high . He was mortal , so hinging your argument on what Rupp thought doesn't mean we all fall in lockstep . That Helms banner is pageantry at best , it wasn't won on the court . I'll be glad when you guys get more legitimate NCAA titles so we don't have to debate your insecurities .
![[laughing]](http://l.yimg.com/j/assets/img/emoticons/classic/laugh.r191677.gif "Laughing [laughing]")
I hope everything but the outcome of the game is an enjoyable experience for you and all the BBN.
Just to expand on previous thoughts, what Rupp did was use "accommodation, " which is common for a person to do. For example, I might say, "Notre Dame won the national title in 1977." My statement is true but could be misleading if someone would later use my quote to say that I agreed that polls were a legit way to pick a national champion. My statement is nothing more than an accommodation of the system that was "accepted" by many in 1977.
My true feelings are that NC's, that were determined by polls, were a complete joke and I don't really recognize a team that finished first in the poll as the legit national champion. There was no true national champion.
Yeah, because a media guide from 60 years ago and a plaque to one single recruit is the same as hanging friggin banners in your arena.
This part is a lie. Those are not Rupp's words on the inside flap. Those are Rice's words.
If you win the Hostess Cupcake tourney in Maui please do hang that banner as a National Championship as well.
Sorry excuse for a blueblood. Were it not for your lineage of coaches you guys would be 2nd to 3rd tier.
Okay, so here's what we've got so far.
Rice wrote a book speaking on Rupp's behalf 17 years after his death, and he referred to KU's Helms title as a national championship because it's accepted in Kansas.
Rupp, himself, alive as can be as the coach of UK in 1935 publicly referred to Helms titles as mythical because it's not accepted in Kentucky.
Conclusion? No big deal. Kentucky fans just have higher standards than KU fans when it comes to their basketball program. There, the matter is settled.
I don't know what's more comical. Kansas actually hanging banners stating "National Champion" that was never rightfully earned in the accepted format, or the KU fans weak ass attempts at trying to justify it in this thread.
Kansas and its fanbase have ALWAYS tried to be Kentucky and this thread only adds to that. "See, Kentucky has recognized them too at some point in time to some recruit on some plaque!"
Kansas. It's okay that you're NOT Kentucky and never will be. Nobody else is either. There is ONLY ONE Kentucky basketball program.
Kansas and its fanbase have ALWAYS tried to be Kentucky and this thread only adds to that. "See, Kentucky has recognized them too at some point in time to some recruit on some plaque!"
Kansas. It's okay that you're NOT Kentucky and never will be. Nobody else is either. There is ONLY ONE Kentucky basketball program.
I am glad you like the Kansas Coaching Tree. Coach Cal was my coach at the Jayhawks Summer Camp. He beat me in H-O-R-S-E.
By far the most compelling response from a Wildcat fan. I thank you for civil tone. And I wish you a blessed day.
And we wish you to learn the Heimlich Maneuver before March. I've heard Jayhawks always choke on mid/major sized objects.
Actually UK football has never been awarded a Helms title, retroactive or not.
You're probably thinking a few years ago Jeff Sagarin ran his model for past years and determined UK and the best team in 1950 but at the time Helms still went with Oklahoma for the 1950 season.
The quote by Rupp in 1935 was during a time when it was generally acknowledged by virtually everyone that any claim to being a national champion was mythical at best, for any number of valid reasons (which are still valid today IMO). Rupp understood this very well and that's part of what led him to propose a national tournament to remedy the situation.
The thing to keep in mind with respect to Helms and this particular quote is that it wouldn't be until nearly a decade later (in February 1943) that Bill Schroeder would release his picks for the top teams from 1920 to 1942. It would take Schroeder even longer (1957) for him to release his list of the top teams from 1901 to 1919.
Kentucky did indeed publicize Schroeder's picks in the years immediately afterwards and still list them today, although their relative importance has faded over the years, especially in comparison to the publicity of NCAA championship teams.
How Rupp personally felt about the honors, I don't really know. I'm sure he took pride in playing on the two teams in Kansas which were awarded this title along with the teams he coached. I don't off-hand remember reading any particular quotes about how much stock he put into the picks however.
Maybe I'm missing something but I checked Russell Rice's book (Adolph Rupp: Kentucky's Basketball Baron) in the chapter about Rupp's time at Kansas and didn't see any quote from Rupp concerning what he thought about the Helms title being bestowed on those teams he played on at Kansas.
The only thing I did see that was potentially relevant is the following (from Page 11 of the Chapter entitled 'Jayhawker'):
"The Jayhawkers, undefeated in collegiate play, claimed the nation's championship. [Paul] Endacott and Charlie Black were named All-America, and Endacott was named Player of the Year by the Helms Foundation."
A couple of things about this:
1.) None of this was a direct quote from Rupp
2.) the passage doesn't directly say whether the claim of 'the nation's championship' was attributed to Helms (which would have occurred in 1943) or more probably it was a claim Jayhawk boosters made at the time, which was not uncommon to occur although as Rupp acknowledged over 10 years later in his quote such a claim during that era was ungrounded.
3.) Rice is a great historian but his comments about All-Americans are frankly a little sloppy in this case. I don't know that All-Americans were named until College Humor and Christy Walsh started in 1929, followed a few years later in 1932 by Converse. Assuming that's the case, any All-American honors that Endacott and Black received would have been retroactive in nature which was not made clear by Rice (although that's a common mistake that's made).
4.) As has been mentioned already this book was in no way authorized by Rupp, who had been dead for at least 15 years when Rice wrote this. I think Rice recognized (which he hints at in his forward) that he really was the most qualified person to write a biography of Rupp.
5.) there is no index in this book so perhaps the Helms was mentioned elsewhere.
Having said all that, I did also check Rice's book "Big Blue Machine" and did indeed find a quote from Rupp where he states (in the Chapter entitled 'Time Out: Adolph Rupp):
"I played on two national championship teams at Kansas. I was a member of what Phog called his 'meatpackers,' which meant that we got in the game when things were pretty settled, one way or the other. I had the misfortune of playing behind two fine All-Americans, Paul Endacott and Charlie Black. When we had a class reunion many year later and were lining up for a picture, I told Paul, 'Let me hold that ball. I never got a chance to hold it while I was playing.'"
Was Rupp referring to the Helms? Probably he was. Does it fundamentally change anything about this current debate ? Not really IMO.
Just curious where did you discover Bill Schroeder's notes for the specific criteria detailing why he chose one school over another that year. A great historical find. /sarcasm
I agree with your humble opinion, it doesn't change anything about the debate over the Helms Foundation or how they should or shouldn't be referred to or displayed. My mention of the book and in addition to the quote that you provided was only to say that Coach Rupp at one point referred to the ('22 and) '23 Jayhawks teams as 'National Champions'. That was the sole purpose of the many posts back and forth. The issue of whether or not teams should or shouldn't display or display them in a different way was never my point. Thanks for your input.
Ok chuckwagon, in your opinion, what is the appropriate handling of a Helms title by a blueblood?
Do we have common ground in that the specific "Helms" recognition came from one man, not a committee, not the press, but just one marketing guy trying to impress his money man?
Can we agree the award came decades later from a bread factory nonetheless..?
This is deceptive , they are made to look alike and convey the message that they are the same or equal in merit . There is nothing wrong with displaying a title that is awarded but it is wrong to elevate a title by misrepresentation , Helms bestowed Kansas an honor and they won't reciprocate by labeling a banner .
If you will amend your statement to two men: Bill Schroeder and Paul Helms, we can agree to that. Yes, we can agree the awards came 1-year to 35-years after the season had ended. The foundation was funded by Paul Helms who made his money with his bakery. Bill Schroeder was more a baseball man. He was the President of three minor league baseball teams over a span of 3 decades.
I think (hope) we can agree that Coach Rupp and Coach Phog Allen were the two strongest voices that led to the NCAA tournament. And, I know we both agree that the best place to settle who wins the championship of the sport is on the court.
Here is where we may part, I think there is a place for the Helms titles. I think there should be a difference in how these national champion banners are displayed. But whether it is a Helms Title or a NCAA Title, they honor the athletics that once played the game and they have a honored place in the arena and history.
I think (hope) we can agree that Coach Rupp and Coach Phog Allen were the two strongest voices that led to the NCAA tournament. And, I know we both agree that the best place to settle who wins the championship of the sport is on the court.
Here is where we may part, I think there is a place for the Helms titles. I think there should be a difference in how these national champion banners are displayed. But whether it is a Helms Title or a NCAA Title, they honor the athletics that once played the game and they have a honored place in the arena and history.
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But, RC Texas, I thought you said over and over that Rice's book was an authorized biography? And everybody told you it wasn't. You keep arguing, and then Jon Scott handed you your ass on a plate. I'd suggest you stick to Kansas history on THEIR board.
I said the book is/was described as the 'authorized biography' of Coach Rupp. I still think it is/was. I have no reason to doubt Rice in his claim that the book was authorized by Rupp. It is clear that Rice was a close friend and very knowledgeable about Coach Rupp. JPScott was helpful. He was able to provide something that I hadn't, a direct Coach Rupp quote in his own words about the Helms Foundation Title being a 'national championship'. As I have stated, that was my point; it was not to debate the merits of the Helms Foundation Title.
And, by the way, Coach Rupp is part of the Kansas basketball history.
And, by the way, Coach Rupp is part of the Kansas basketball history.
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Rupp's quote came before the Helms titles were announced; therefore, he could not possibly have been referring to a Helms title.
Even the JPScott, who couldn' be confused by anyone as a Kansas supporter acknowledged that Rupp was most likely referring to the Helms Foundation title. JP, if I am wrong in my understanding of your post, I am sure that you won't mind correcting me.
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Coach Rupp moved from the state of Kansas in 1925, never to return. He was a rare-played reserve in his 3 years there. He took virtually NOTHING in basketball philosophy from Phog Allen. He treated his players completely differently from Phog Allen, and played a VASTLY different style of basketball. For years, he refused to schedule Kansas, but when he relented, he want to beat their ass so hard they couldn't walk.
And yes, I've got the book you are lying constantly about. In no place in that book does it say that Coach Rupp "authorized" his own biography. That a load of crap, and also an outright lie. As stated above, Rice wasn't even planning on writing the book, and was retired. He was approached and even had to be talked into it some 17 years later. Largely most of the stories and history are what was in Rice's Big Blue Machine anyway.
Coach Rupp may have been born in Kansas, and gone to school there, but that's it. Coach Rupp's legacy will always be at Kentucky. He LOVED Kentucky, both the state and the University, with all of his heart. As he once stated, he gave his LIFE to Kentucky Basketball. He did much for the state of Kentucky, and he died as a Kentuckian. He is buried here. His family lives here. He and Kentucky Basketball are forever linked. By the way, Kentucky beat Kansas in Allen Field House just seconds before his death. Fitting, isn't it?
The day you know more about Coach Rupp than I do will be a cold day in Hades. Stop with your outright lies and obsessions or get the hell of out of here. Your shtick has gotten old. Fact is, the Unversity of Kansas tries to trick people into thinking they have 2 more legitimate National Championships than they really do. They do this in their very own arena, on the very own athletics website, in their very own media guide, and on many items of their very own licensed apparel. You can song and dance and try to deflect about Adoph Rupp all you want, but last time I checked, no one saw him on a ladder hanging your bullshit banners.
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@Alumni Gym, no shtick, no song and dance. We see the world differently. And, if you only want to read posts that only shares your point of view, you may want to skip my posts. By acknowledging Coach Rupp's Kansas roots doesn't take anything from Kentucky or Coach Rupp's love of the state.
Therein lies a contrasting difference:
I use facts, and you don't.
You claim things that are100% not true. Worst, you try to cite works, and then claim they say something else than they actually say. I've got the book right in front of me right now, buddy. This attempt at deception makes you either an idiot, or a liar with an agenda. Which is it? I vote BOTH. In the meantime, I'm just fine having a different point of view from you, as you are both LYING and DEAD WRONG. It doesn't sound like you have much rational sense, either.
Be proud of those mythical Helms National Championships, though. You know, the ones that the University of Kansas tries to portray on the same level as on-court won NCAA Championships? Keep on trying to challenge this board with your propaganda. It's nothing more than comedy for us, and nothing more than mere deflection, along with a deep-seated inferiority complex, from you.
Why not simply talk with Kansas fans? Why come over here? You won't win. You CAN'T win. Give up the ghost. You have been OWNED in every thread you've posted in. Facts are a nice thing to have, you know? Do you understand this simple elementary logic?
No, actually, you don't.
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