Glory Road - Rupp Portrayal

[Wildcat Larry]

At the end of my review of Glory Road, you might have noticed that I stated that I was annoyed at the portrayal of Rupp in this film. I thought I might need to explain myself and this forum seemed to be the best spot.

There were not a lot of scenes in the movie that included the Rupp character so I can see how developing the character would be a bit difficult. However, I thought the movie portrayed Rupp very poorly. One of UK fans greatest fears was that Rupp would be portrayed as a racist, but that didn't really happen in the movie (thank goodness).

If I were not familiar with Rupp, I would have come away from the movie thinking that Rupp was a clueless, bitter, arrogant coach. I'll buy the arrogant part, but the rest just didn't fly with me. In the movie, the first time we saw Rupp was at an airport in Texas where the UK team and Texas Western team accidentally crossed paths in the middle of the season on the way to one of their games. The event never even occurred (another incident of the movie-makers straying from reality), but the Rupp I was familar with would not have been standoff-ish and rude to Haskins when Haskins introduced himself. Everytime that I ever saw Rupp away from the court he was very gracious to anyone around him. There's was no reason for the movie to portray him that way other than to make it look like Haskins wanted to "get back" at Rupp in the title game.

One of the other scenes that was totall unrealistic to me was the pre-tournament press conference. It was just plain silly. They had the four coaches of the teams in the tournament sitting at a table answering reporter's questions. That's the only part that was legitimate to me. Both UK and Texas Western had a team to beat before they could meet in the finals, and the UK game was a game between #1 (UK)and #2 (Duke). I don't believe for a minute that reporters would be asking a bunch of question of Rupp about how he was going to handle Texas Western. Then to top it off, they had Haskins firing back retorts to Rupp's answers (neither protocol or reality in a press conference). Just a poor scene altogether.

During the game, I had still more annoyance at how Rupp was portrayed. In time outs they showed Haskins mapping out how he wanted his team to play. In the UK huddle they showed Rupp stupid one liners like "we're going to win this game" instead of strategizing (is that a word) how to deal with Texas Western's speed. At the end of the game, it showed Rupp on the bench with his head in his hands while all the players and other coaches mingled and congratulated each other at midcourt. All pictures that I've seen of the end of the game (granted I've only been able to locate about 4 or 5) have shown Rupp up and shaking Haskins hands and congratulating the Texas Western players.

All in all, a very disappointing look at Adolph Rupp through the eyes of these movie-makers.

[trublu]

Thank you Larry. I love to hear what really happened from people that were there.
I just hope that most people realize when stories have been disneyed. I think if anyone has watched a few of these sports films, they realize that there always has to be a favorite portrayed as a villain and an underdog portrayed as 'good' guys.
It's the same good vs. evil saga everytime, and they had to make us the villains.
Hey, if Rupp was arrogant; I think he earned the right to be so. I'd rather call it confidence.

[JPS]

Wildcat Larry wrote:
During the game, I had still more annoyance at how Rupp was portrayed. In time outs they showed Haskins mapping out how he wanted his team to play. In the UK huddle they showed Rupp stupid one liners like "we're going to win this game" instead of strategizing (is that a word) how to deal with Texas Western's speed. At the end of the game, it showed Rupp on the bench with his head in his hands while all the players and other coaches mingled and congratulated each other at midcourt. All pictures that I've seen of the end of the game (granted I've only been able to locate about 4 or 5) have shown Rupp up and shaking Haskins hands and congratulating the Texas Western players.


If you have a photo of Rupp and Haskins shaking hands, I'd like to see it. I haven't seen such a photo (and neither have I seen Rupp congratulating the Texas Western players.)

But I do think you're right. It's been claimed by many writers that Rupp was devastated after the loss etc. and some have insinuated that he didn't even shake hands with Haskins after the game.

Haskins himself admitted that Rupp shook his hand after the game. Also, audio of a post-game interview with Claude Sullivan was released a couple of months ago and in it, Rupp actually seems to be somewhat upbeat (although he did seem to be agitated by the free throw differential etc.)

http://www.bigbluehistory.net/bb/1966twaudioclip.html

One interesting aspect of this is that its been said by Haskins that he felt slighted because Rupp did not come to the Texas Western lockerroom to congratulate his team. (although Haskins does admit that some of the Kentucky players did come to the lockerroom and were very gracious in defeat.)

I discuss this on my Rupp page, but one thing that struck me initiallywas when was it considered the norm for an opposing coach to go to the winning team's lockerroom ? I don't know that has ever been the norm ?

But the more interesting thing is that I was searching through the New York Times one time and found, not one, but two articles by George Vescey (the good one, not his imbecile brother) where he explicitly states that he distinctly remembers Rupp going to the Texas Western lockerroom to congratulate the team.

Here's what I wrote on the Rupp page:

Said Vescey in a 1985 column, "Some people swear Rupp was furious about losing to a team from the border. I only remember an old gent in a brown suit working the Texas Western clubhouse afterward, shaking hands and putting his arm around sweaty kids and telling them they played a fine game." [New York Times, "A Tale of Two Homes," March 22, 1985.] Vescey repeats this assertion a number of years later in another article. Vescey writes, "Even the losing coaches leave memories. I saw Adolph Rupp, the gruff old baron of Kentucky, working the winning locker room in 1966, congratulating the eight black players from Texas Western." [New York Times, "The Coaches Makes Hoops So Special," March 18, 1992]

I find this very interesting, especially in light of Haskins' and other's claims in the past. (although FWIW, after going through a lot of articles etc. concerning Texas Western and the 1966 championship, I've pretty much concluded that Haskins' memory of past events is largely worthless in terms of finding accurate historic details.)

(Or put another way, on a scale of 1-10, my weighting in terms of historical accuracy toward what George Vescey says he distinctly remembers in 1985 about an event in 1966 is about a 8 or 9. What Don claims in the 1990's to today about an event in 1966is abouta 2.)

Jon