Thoroughbreds, Bourbon and Basketball

(Author's Note: this was originally published on my own blog, but I thought it'd be appropriate to share. Yes, I know I wax poetic. No, I'm not going to apologize.)

"They have a big, big horse race, they play very good basketball, they have babies like everyone else." -Roy Scheider (as Dr. Heywood Floyd) in 2010: The Year We Make Contact, when asked "What else do they do in Kentucky?"

That’s the only part I remember from that movie. It amazed my young mind that, hey, twenty-four years from now, when humanity finally leaves its earthly home and begins finding its place in the stars, Kentucky basketball will still be talked about!

Now it’s actually 2010 and we aren’t appreciably closer to exploring the Solar System, let alone the galaxy. What about the rest? Is Kentucky basketball still great, its destiny still written in those stars that we haven’t gotten around to exploring?

The short answer is yes, Kentucky basketball is every bit as great as it was when 2010 was in the theaters.

The long answer is that it wasn’t always great in that span. Or even good.

A bit of history for those that don’t know: First, there was basketball played with bottomed-out peach baskets, created by Dr. James A. Naismith, a Canadian-born naturalized American. Then there was the University of Kansas, whose basketball program Naismith created in 1898. Naismith begat Forrest "Phog" Allen, the man who brought basketball into the modern times and is heralded as the "Father of Basketball Coaching". Allen begat Dean Smith and Adolph Rupp, who then created their own basketball dynasties at the University of North Carolina and the University of Kentucky, respectively.

Adolph Frederick Rupp coached the University of Kentucky Wildcats for forty-two years, winning four NCAA national titles during his tenure. History has written that he was slow to integrate Kentucky’s basketball program, using the "fact" as fuel to fire the notion that he was racist. History doesn’t often mention that he had previously coached black players during his Kansas high school coaching days. That somehow got left out of the movie Glory Road.

(NOTE: The game presented in Glory Road, the 1966 NCAA Tournament title game between Texas Western College (whose starting five were all African-American) and the University of Kentucky (whose starting five were all Caucasian) is an important piece of civil rights history, and it effectively broke the color barrier for college basketball. I’m not denying that, it can’t be denied. They just took a few more liberties with Rupp than I believe are necessary).

Kentucky basketball was a dynasty. It was more than that: it was social lubricant in a state that often found itself lacking points of pride. Yes, there is the Kentucky Derby. Yes, there is bourbon. And yes, once you get out of the Bluegrass Area you find farmland to the west, and poverty and coal mining to the east. You find an educational system that has never been elite in the United States. You find hard-working people that can take pride in the fact that their state has an amazing basketball program. You find young boys who dream of playing for Kentucky. You occasionally find the young boy whose dream comes true, and that just makes it even better.

Rupp died on December 10th 1977, the day that the University of Kentucky beat the University of Kansas. There have been coaches since him, coaches that have won, coaches that have lost. They have all carried the mantle of greatness that was tailor-made for Rupp. There have been times of devastation, and times of just plain mediocrity. At the end of last year’s basketball season, when we missed the NCAA Tournament for the first time in many young fans’ lives, we would have found comfort, or at least knowing bitterness, in the words and monument for Ozymandias.

That changed this year. We got a new coach, John Calipari. We knew he’d win in Lexington. He’d won everywhere he’d been. Controversy seemed to follow him, though it could never seem to attach itself to him. He brought in a group of young men who knew basketball like a fish knows water. In short, he came ready to play, and ready to win.

And win he has. It took one short year, but Kentucky ended this season ranked #2 in the nation. They earned a 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament. Many people expect them to be in the Final Four, and the entire Bluegrass State hopes to hang its eighth national title banner in Rupp Arena. It’s insanity, but we feel it as a return to our rightful throne.

It’s only fitting that, in the year 2010, we return to the greatness heralded in a movie set in the same year. Science fiction can be prophetic in that it predicts new ideas, new technologies, a different life for us all. But what is future, if it is not built on a foundation of the past?

Go ‘Cats. Build that future.