Former Louisville star Wes Unseld recalled for his power and his example.
www.courier-journal.com
There you go covers both sides in print
Well looks like you insist on keeping this narrative so I will play along.
In the above article you quote the most relevant section states the following:
Unseld’s own decision was complicated by cultural change and segregationist sympathies. As the first African American athlete to be recruited by the University of Kentucky, Unseld was targeted for abuse. According to retired Judge Janice Martin, Unseld’s sister-in-law, a spectator attempted to stab the player at an all-star game.
“The UK fans had heard that he was the chosen one and he would be the first,” Martin said. “He was showered with boos to deter him from coming.
“Wes never talked about that publicly, but there were chickens (left) in his mailbox. He had to have security part of his senior year because of the death threats.”
Martin said Unseld’s mother asked UK coach Adolph Rupp if he could ensure her son’s safety.
“And he told her, ‘No,’” Martin recalled. “Now what kind of recruiting pitch is that?”
It is stated that Unseld's mother asked Rupp about whether he could ensure Wes' safety traveling in the South. This is expected and something that my page mentions as well in an excerpt from Clarence Matthews of the
Lousiville Defender on 28-MAY-1964 after Unseld signed with Louisville where Matthews noted:
"The athletes parents reportedly weren't easy about the prospects of their son playing before 'hostile' audiences in Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia as a member of the U of K team."
So while I don't dispute that it was an issue, I still have yet to see any evidence backing your claim that Unseld's mother advised him not to attend UK. If anything, there's multipe quotes by Unseld's parent's that they left the decision to Wes.
As I mentioned previously, the entire recruitment of Unseld by UK and in particular Rupp's visit to Unseld's home is one of the most discussed and frankly bizarrely reported recruiting visit I've ever seen.
For starters, there's a lot of professional sportwriters who over the years have stated as fact that Rupp never recruited Unseld, which is crazy since Rupp's visit and scholarship offer to Unseld was one of the most publicized and discussed recruiting visit in history. [This includes the then President of UK John Oswald who claimed he visited Unseld as well (a claim I haven't been able to substantiate) but seems to not know of Rupp's visit.]
Then you've got the claim by Louisville's Head Coach John Dromo that he was hanging out in the kitchen during the visit. (along with claims that Unseld's high school coach Bob Mulcahy tried to sabotage the visit by setting up a conflict causing Unseld to have to leave the visit early.)
And the claim by then-Kentucky State coach John McLendon that after Rupp left the visit he talked to Rupp in the Unseld's front yard before making his own recruiting pitch to Unseld (who as mentioned had already left) (particularly strange because in other interview's McLendon claimed he never met Rupp during those times even though the two were participants in coaching roundtables held at HBCU Tennessee A&I in the early 1960s).
Of course you've also got the claims made later by Unseld that Rupp dissed Unseld publicly in the newspaper for not staying for the visit (something which I have never been able to substantiate from checking the newspapers at that time, including all the Louisville newspapers include the black newspaper the
Louisville Defender). FWIW, what I did find which hasn't been mentioned by today's sportswriters is that a few weeks after the visit Rupp travelled to Unseld's high school banquet where he personally presented Unseld an award for being named the top high school basketball player in the country (an award that Rupp himself was key in securing for Unseld).
So there's been a lot of information (and quite a bit of misinformation) about Unseld's recruitment and this visit in particular, which was publicized in the newspapers. Of course one important fact that has been glossed over is that prior to formally offering Unseld, he and the school had already made arrangements to avoid playing in Mississippi by moving those games to Memphis, something his parents were well aware of.
Unfortunately this type of misinformation continues. I'll note that the article you linked provides a particularly explosive claim that a specatator tried to stab Unseld during an All-star game. That's the first I've heard of something like that. I would have expected something that outrageous to be well publicized (both at the time and later) if true. I'll reserve judgement on that pending additional information. I'll just say that this article was written by Tim Sullivan who frankly doesn't have a great track record of verifying claims made in his articles over the years.
