Man in the Brown Suit

The University of Kentucky has its own special brand of Southern hospitality. When visiting basketball squads arrive in Lexington, they get full red-carpet treatment (which often includes a tour of nearby horse farms). Then, like condemned men whose last hours on earth have been made easier, the visiting athletes are led off to the gym--and the execution.

Last week, Kentucky's grim basketballers took the ax to Alabama (74-32), then ran Mississippi through the grinder (85-31). Next on the list was Georgia Tech. One man from Tech heatedly denied that the team was worried about the trip to Lexington. Said he in a slow drawl: "We adore playing them, because when they get beat they take it so hard." But Kentucky, currently ranked No. i by the nation's sportwriters' poll,* hadn't lost a home game in seven years. Down went Georgia Tech (78-32).

In the bluegrass country, folks look upon the Kentucky team as the most exciting thing to come along since Man o' War. But elsewhere in the U.S., there were growls and sour grapes from the basketball cult. The accusations ranged from "outright professionalism" to doctoring home-court baskets, and all of them were aimed at heavy-jowled Adolph Rupp, the Kentucky coach.

Vitamins & No Secrets. Rupp, a University of Kansas man, who doesn't mind being called "the most hated coach in Dixie," is an organizing genius. His enemies like to say that he hog-ties promising young talent developed back in the hills, puts shoes on them, and before anybody knows what is happening, they are Kentucky basketball stars.

Actually, the competition for earning a basketball scholarship at Kentucky is pretty stiff. Each spring and summer (basketball is a year-round proposition at Kentucky), as many as some 200 eager candidates dribble in to work out with the varsity. Rupp selects about a dozen who fit his requirements as the "cool pro type." They get board, room, tuition, dry cleaning, laundry, books; $10-a-month spending money and rigid Rupp discipline. Boss Rupp, who wears brown suits because he thinks they bring good luck, is even fussy about his players having dates.

Like most successful coaches, Adolph Rupp is a painstaking worrier. Although he has recently written a book, Championship Basketball (Prentice-Hall; $3) cautioning against overworking players, he works his own hard. He feeds them vitamin pills, keeps weight charts, advocates squeezing a small rubber ball to develop arm and finger muscles. "There are no secrets in the game," he says with a straight face.

Basketball in 20 Plays. There are three big reasons--not in any sense secret--why Coach Rupp's team has been burning up the courts for four seasons. One of them is blond, 5 ft. 10 1/2 Ralph Beard, his gum-chewing "quarterback." A master dribbler and playmaker, Beard usually starts the play pattern, picking one of Kentucky's basic 20 (ten for each side of the court), featuring ball-handling and the inside-screen. The other two: 6 ft. 7 Alex Groza and 6 ft. 4 Wallace ("Wah Wah") Jones, who do the heavy scoring up front. What rival coaches kept asking themselves: would they ever graduate?

Rupp's boys, who last summer with the amateur Phillips Oilers won the Olympics, breezed through their first eight games this season. Then Kentucky trembled to its bluegrass roots; fast-breaking St. Louis University (TIME, Jan. 24) beat them, 42-40. Coach Rupp, who can rant & rave or quote the Bible in defeat, said philosophically: "It's like your dead grandmother. You know -- she just died."

But as Kentucky rolled on, taking such bigwigs as Notre Dame and De Paul in stride, Rupp lived mostly for another crack at St. Louis. His only chance was to meet them in a post-season tournament. He planned cagily. As of last week, he was practically committed to play in Madison Square Garden's National Invitation tourney, because it looked as if St. Louis, winner of last year's Invitation (in which Kentucky didn't play), would turn up again. But he also had a string on the National Collegiate Athletic Association tourney, in case St. Louis entered that one. Rival coaches hoped and prayed this would be Rupp's last big season for a while (Beard, Groza and Jones graduate in June). Their prayer might not be answered. Kentucky had a freshman team which had run up over a hundred points twice this season, paced by a 7-ft. giant named Bill ("Grits") Spivey. Adolph Rupp had had to go all the way to Georgia to get him.

*Next in line: St. Louis, Oklahoma A. & M., Illinois, Tulane.

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