Guy Strong (Keith Taylor/Kentucky Today)
Former Kentucky basketball player Guy Strong was at UK when the transition was made from playing in Alumni Gym to Memorial Coliseum under coach Adolph Rupp.
He appreciates UK basketball history even though after playing three years at UK he left to serve in the Korean War and then finished his career at Eastern Kentucky.
He still remembers just how tough Rupp could be with his comments.
“We played Auburn and coach Rupp said, ‘You guys out to have 20 points on the board before these farmers can count how much hay they could put in here.’ He was always putting down players and teams. He told us once the Ole Miss basketball coach was just the football coach who drew the short straw and had to take the job.”
Strong said is was “BS” to call Rupp a racist and said UK players were subject to plenty of abuse.
“We would go down south and teams would sit the football team behind us and they would berate and call us everything you could imagine the whole game,” Strong said.
“We played at Georgia and they upset us. They had fans follow us to the restaurant and hotel after the game making remarks. Coach Rupp told us to forget it because they had one day and we had all year.
“That’s how he was. He never mentioned blacks or ace. He was a horse’s rear end and jackass. He was for whoever could win.”
