Adolph Rupp
Rupp in 1930
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| Sport(s) | Basketball |
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| Biographical details | |
| Born |
September 2, 1901 Halstead, Kansas |
| Died | December 10, 1977 (aged 76) Lexington, Kentucky |
| Playing career | |
| 1920–1923 | Kansas |
| Coaching career (HC unless noted) | |
| 1926–1930 | Freeport HS |
| 1930–1972 | Kentucky |
| Head coaching record | |
| Overall | 876–190 (.822) |
| Accomplishments and honors | |
| Championships | |
| 4 NCAA Championships (1948–1949, 1951, 1958) 6 Regional Championships - Final Four (1942, 1948–1949, 1951, 1958, 1966) 27 SEC regular season championships (1933, 1935, 1937, 1939–1940, 1942, 1944–1952, 1954–1955, 1957–1958, 1962, 1964, 1966, 1968–1972) 13 SEC Tournament championships (1933, 1937, 1939–1940, 1942, 1944–1950, 1952) 1 SoCon regular season championship (1932) |
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| Awards | |
| 5x National Coach of the Year (1950, 1954, 1959, 1966, 1970) 7x SEC Coach of the Year (1964, 1966, 1968–1972) |
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Basketball Hall of Fame Inducted in 1969 |
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College Basketball Hall of Fame Inducted in 2006 |
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Adolph Frederick Rupp (September 2, 1901 – December 10, 1977) was one of the most successful coaches in the history of American college basketball. Rupp is ranked fourth (behind Mike Krzyzewski, Bob Knight, and Dean Smith) in total victories by a men's NCAA Division I college coach, winning 876 games in 41 years of coaching at the University of Kentucky. Rupp is also second among all men's college coaches in all-time winning percentage (.822), trailing only Clair Bee. Rupp was enshrined in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame on April 13, 1969.
Rupp was born September 2, 1901 in Halstead, Kansas to Heinrich Rupp, a German immigrant, and Anna Lichi, an Austrian immigrant. The fourth of six children, Rupp grew up on a 163-acre farm that his parents had homesteaded. He began playing basketball as a young child, with the help of his mother who made a ball for him by stuffing rags into a gunnysack. "Mother sewed it up and somehow made it round," he recalled in 1977. "You couldn't dribble it. You couldn't bounce it either."
Rupp was a star for the Halstead High School basketball team, one of the first in the area to play with a real basketball. He averaged 19 points a game. Former teammates described Rupp as the team's unofficial coach.
After high school, Rupp attended the University of Kansas from 1919 to 1923. He worked part-time at the student Jayhawk Cafe to help pay his college expenses. He was a reserve on the basketball team under legendary coach Forrest "Phog" Allen from 1919 to 1923. Assisting Allen during that time was his former coach and inventor of the game of basketball, James Naismith, who Rupp also got to know well during his time in Lawrence.
In Rupp's junior and senior college seasons (1921–22 and 1922–23), Kansas (KU) had outstanding basketball squads. Later, both of these standout Kansas teams would be awarded the Helms National Championship, recognizing the Jayhawks as the top team in the nation during those seasons.
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