Pardon the Inter-Rupp-Tion

I decided to read a little bit about what Wikipedia has to say about the Mennonite demonination because of Floyd Landis's recent win. As anyone who's followed his story knows, he was raised Mennonite, then "rebelled" so he could pursue a biking career. He's had to backpedal (so to speak) on this story, pointing out that he had good parents who cared.

Of course, rather than read the history of Mennonitism (is that even a word?), I looked at the list of famous Mennonites. One of them was Adolph Rupp.

For those who follow college basketball, Rupp should be a famous name. Rupp was the winningest college basketball coach at the University of Kentucky for many years. He's famous for coaching against Texas Western University against a team that started five African American players. This was in the mid-50s, when there were all-white teams. Rupp's Kentucky team was all-white.

Over time, Rupp was branded a racist, someone who refused to bring along African American athletes onto his team. The famous final, held at the University of Maryland's Cole Field House in 1966, has since been elevated in people's minds as a symbol of the changing of race relations.

People have argued that Rupp has been unfairly branded as a racist. He had assistant coaches who were black, played against other teams that had black players (and there were teams, during the day, that refused to play teams with black players), and recruited black players (including Wes Unseld, who was from Kentucky), although there is some question how much he was committed to the cause.

His name probably didn't help matters. After all, how many other people do you know named Adolph? (Sure, the other guy spells it differently).

More than likely, he wasn't racist, but wasn't ready to challenge attitudes of his day. The SEC was all-white at the time, and several black athletes were simply not ready to be the Jackie Robinson of their times, and sought to play elsewhere. In 1969, Rupp signed Tom Payne to Kentucky, the fourth SEC team to have a black player on its roster. Rupp wasn't necessarily ready to be a hero either, though he was more open minded than some in terms of who he played and who he hired.

To be fair, Rupp wasn't the most pleasant person to be around. He cared mostly about basketball and winning, rather than being a symbol of civil rights.

It's been said that nobody much thought about the fact that Texas Western (now UT, El Paso) started five players. There were teams that could start four players. And, Duke, who made the final four that year, was also all-white. Kentucky wasn't alone in this attitude, but bears the brunt of the issue since they were so successful.

Rupp was eventually forced into retirement at the age of 70 (state employees of Kentucky, including coach of the state university's basketball team were forced to retire at 70).

Rupp gets a bad rap, and probably one that's not fully deserved.