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Have I ever mentioned that I’m from Kentucky? The Bluegrass State, home of fast horses and beautiful women? (Or is that fast women and beautiful horses?)
Well I am a proud native of the Bluegrass with both sides of my family there for six or seven generations. And today, Kentucky gets to say it has made a bit of progress that some other states can only talk about.
Kentucky has three colleges that play football at the highest level of NCAA, the Football Bowl Division. These are the University of Kentucky, University of Louisville, and Western Kentucky University (the newest member of the FBS – Go Hilltoppers! We’re Number 120!).
All three of these schools are known far more for basketball than football with UK being the winningest college basketball program of all time, WKU the 14th winningest, and UL the seventeenth winningest program. All three schools have traditionally dominated their conferences in basketball.
Today though, all three schools are taking the lead in another area with their football programs. You see, each of these schools will have an African American as the head football coach starting this year. Joker Phillips at UK is a Kentucky native and graduate. Charlie Strong comes to Louisville from Florida where he had been the Defensive Coordinator. Willie Taggart is a Florida native and WKU grad returning to lead the program he lead as quarterback.
Are any of these schools going to be in the BCS game next year? Probably safe to say no and bet accordingly. But there are 120 colleges in the FBS with 12 of them having African American head coaches and three of those programs are in the Bluegrass. We natives of the Bluegrass don’t always get to lead on issues and as trivial as sports are in the overall scheme of things, it still is a wonder when we are the trailblazers.
13 Comments
Progress comes when and where you least expect it. Good on Kentucky.
We’ll miss Charlie here in Gainesville, but he was waaay overdue getting his own team to run.
Thanks for sharing this terrific news. I’m also pulling for Texas Tech to promote Ruffin McNeill to take Leach’s place.
wow Dakine – hopefully with football, Coach Phillips will probably have it easier and with more leeway than Tubby Smith –
and as a sign of how involved I’ve become with politics, I didn’t even know Calipari had left Memphis
Good for Kentucky. All this good stuff is obviously the result of my brother moving there in August.
Yeah, I’m one of those who liked Tubby but you’re correct that a lot of folks kept on almost hoping he would fail it seemed.
Joker will probably have it a little better at least partly because “he’s from around here” as it were (although from reading the columnists at the Lexington Herald-Leader, it also sounds like the folks who are never happy were not happy with his play calling the last year – they’ll get over it.)
Where’d he move to?
Danville. A beautiful little postcard-picture of a town, not far from Lexington. He’s miserably happy. It’s good to hear he’s had such a positive impact.
BTW, dakine, are you back in FL?
Ah, the home of Centre College. (My hometown is about the same distance from Lexington only north)
And yeah, I’ve made it back to the “Sunshine State” although the employment prospects are still just as crappy as they’ve been for the last few years. I’ve reached the point that I’m about to start selling everything I own (through some combination of Craigslist ads and yard/garage sales) in some small hope of keeping going.
UK basketball and Coach Rupp are sure a great source of Pride.
Adolph obviously wasn’t the most progressive of coaches but he was of his era.
And in fact, his being who and what he was, actually helped WKU and UL to win a few games as Kentucky high school players like Wes Unseld (Louisville Seneca) and Butch Beard (Breckenridge Co.) at Louisvile and Clem Haskins (Taylor Co.) and Jim McDaniels (Allen Co.) at Western were recruited by Kentucky and went to their respective schools instead.
UK’s loss in those recruiting battles were definitely the gain for Louisville and Western.
It is possible to honor someone without actually liking all the aspects of their life doncha know?
Not to bust your chops, but Rupp was what he was and was ordered to recruit blacks in 1966 and didn’t land one till 69.
Both Butch Beard and Wesley Unseld have said that Rupp didn’t really give them the impression that he was sincere.
And if you weren’t sincere in wanting Unseld….
(quotes from beard and Unseld are found in And the Walls Came Tumbling Down F Fitzpatrick.
But he could coach real good, no question.
True. Tom Payne only played one year before going pro (’70-’71) as freshmen were not eligible at the time.
And I’m aware of the quotes from Beard and Unseld both.
But since this diary is not about Adolph Rupp but IS about how Kentucky colleges are going into next year with African American head football coaches, why don’t we concentrate on the positive aspects rather than continuing to rehash the stories of Adolph Rupp as a racist coach, mmm-kay?
Edit: And for the record, Kentucky was the first SEC school to recruit black football players and was not the only SEC school to have their first black basketball player on the court in ’70-’71. The schools were all a product of their time and locations, for good or ill, just as Adolph was a product of his times.
I’m off the soapbox.