Rupp Alums Say He’d Still Want Record
Adolph Rupp was all about winning, not records, some former players say. Others, however, say his ego was so big that he would have wanted to keep the record as the winningest NCAA basketball coach of all time.
North Carolina’s Dean Smith passed the legendary Kentucky coach in victories on Saturday when the Tar Heels beat Colorado 73-56 in the NCAA Tournament.
“Winning was important to him but I never heard him say anything about (the record), even long after I finished playing,” said Frank Ramsey, a Hall of Famer and member of the 1951 Kentucky national championship team.
“He probably didn’t even think about it,” Ramsey said. “The players had a certain sense of pride, but numbers never had any great significance for us either.”
Cliff Hagan, also a Hall of Famer and member of the 1951 team, said Rupp was just interested in winning as many games as he could. But he also was a “fierce competitor.”
“I have a feeling he’d hate to see it fall,” Hagan said of the record. “He might come out of retirement for something like this.”
Rupp died of cancer in 1977.
Too tall to mess with
Serge Zwikker, North Carolina’s 7-foot-3 senior center made sure he didn’t commit a turnover when it counted most.
Zwikker grabbed the ball as soon as the Tar Heels’ 73-56 victory over Colorado ended.
“We had decided that if we won, one of us would grab the ball and run off with it to give it to Coach Smith,” he said.
There was nearly a problem. A security guard wanted the ball to return it to the game officials.
“She wanted that ball pretty bad,” Zwikker said. “She kept running after me and told me she’d give me the ball to him later. I told her, ‘No. We’ll give it to him now.”’
The fish that saved Coppin State
Some players grow up wanting to play in Madison Square Garden or Rupp Arena. Coppin State’s Antoine Brockington always had the desire to play in - Pittsburgh’s Civic Arena?
Best known as the home of the Pittsburgh Penguins, and by its nickname, the Igloo, the Civic Arena was the site of the late 1970s basketball movie “The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh,” starring Julius Erving.
The story of a rag-team pro team called the Pittsburgh Pisces, it is Brockington’s favorite movie.
“It was about a team like this team, a bunch of misfits that come together as a good team,” Brockington said.
Don’t throw mama from the bus
Temple coach John Chaney admits he has a saying to fit every occasion. One of his players’ favorites is, “I left my mama in Georgia.”
“That’s what he tells us when he wants us to hurry up and get on the team bus,” forward Lynard Stewart said. “It means you’ll get left behind if you don’t hurry.”
Did he really leave his mama in Georgia?
“He really did,” Stewart said, laughing.
Footnotes
Five Coppin State players have played at other schools, including most of the key players: Antoine Brockington (Ohio Valley College, a tiny church school in Parkersburg, W.Va.), Reggie Welch (Cleveland State), Terquin Mott (La Salle) and Julian King (Temple)… . Texas is the first team in NCAA Tournament history to get an at-large invitation with only 16 victories. The main reason? A challenging schedule that included four teams ranked in the Top 10 at the time they played Texas… . North Carolina guard Vince Carter injured his right groin midway through the first half against Colorado and never returned. Tar Heels coach Dean Smith said he is hopeful Carter will be ready for the next round. … St. Mary’s center Brad Millard (7-3, 345 pounds) says he has no thoughts about the NBA right now… . Utah coach Rick Majerus was an assistant at Marquette and North Carolina Charlotte coach Melvin Watkins a player for UNCC when the 49ers and Warriors met in the 1977 Final Four. Utah plays UNCC today at Tucson, Ariz.