Former UK head coach Joe B. Hall took over for Rupp in 1972 and was an assistant coach during
the 1966 season when the Cats lost to Texas Western. He is afraid the film will attempt to
perpetuate the view of Rupp as a racist to add to the entertainment value.
"The producers of this movie have an agenda of what they want this movie to be," Hall said.
"Without the negativity, it would be a feel-good story, and they're not interested in that. They're
looking for a controversial issue.
"Coach Rupp is going to suffer, and his family is going to suffer."
The film's director, James Gartner, said race will play a "fairly significant part" in the movie but
promised Rupp would not come away looking like a racist.
"I don't believe anyone will leave the theater believing Rupp was a racist at all," Gartner said. "I
think Rupp simply represents a game that was changing. He's not portrayed as a racist in this film
whatsoever."
Gartner received the script during last year's NCAA Tournament and said the importance of the
story is what enticed him to join the project. He said he was unaware of the 1966 game before
seeing the script and did not know much about Rupp before he started working on the movie,
which has no release date yet.
Hall said Rupp treated it like any other signing, and Payne's parents didn't once
inquire about their son's safety.
"He was seven feet tall," Hall said. "I guess they figured if something happened he
could take care of himself."
Vanderbilt's Perry Wallace had become the first black player in the conference two
years earlier and - as Rupp and others predicted - encountered racial slurs, thrown
objects and even physical abuse on the court when traveling to other SEC cities.
After dispatching Dayton and Michigan in the opening rounds of the 16-team
NCAA Tournament, the Cats defeated Duke 83-79 to set up a game with No. 3
Texas Western for the national championship.
Media Credit: UNIVERSITY ARCHIVES AND RECORDS PROGRAM, SPECIAL
COLLECTIONS AND DIGITAL PROGRAMS, UK LIBRARIES
(From left) Larry Conley, Coach Adolph Rupp, Tom Kron, Thad Jaracz, Pat Riley
and Louie Dampier after UK defeated Michigan 84-77 in the quarterfinals of the
1966 NCAA Tournament. "Rupp´s Runts" - as the team was commonly known -
went on to defeat Duke in the semifinals before losing 72-65 to Texas Western in
the NCAA championship game.
Media Credit: Ken Weaver
From his arrival in Lexington in 1930 to his last game in 1972, Rupp accumulated 876 wins,
captured 27 Southeastern Conference titles and led the Cats to four national
championships.
But in spite of those accomplishments, some remember Rupp for his role in a game that
would forever change the public's perception of race in college athletics, and his failure to
recruit a black player to UK until the end of his career.
A series of articles written in the years following Rupp's death in 1977 led basketball fans
who weren't familiar with the UK coach to believe he was a racist, and future press reports
perpetuated that notion. Many of the sources used in those stories appear to have had no
personal relationship with Rupp.
the brown suit