Well, I've been here before and, sadly, history tells me it
won't be the last time. After enjoying a
rare five-year run where it was beginning to feel as if the University of
Kentucky had been onto something and was really making strides in its football
program, I'm afraid the real Kentucky is back following a 32-31 loss to Western
Kentucky. The hot seat on Coach Joker
Phillips could melt steel and there is virtually no way for him to save his job
barring a miracle like the one that happened on 34th Street. And, regardless of my opinion on the matter,
if Santa Claus brings Phillips another season as head coach, the faithful (and
I use that term loosely) will be seething.
So what is the problem with UK football? Why can't they establish long-running success
as a football program? One obvious
answer is they play in the most brutal conference in college football; the
SEC. But really, the true nature of
Kentucky's dismal gridiron tradition has its roots firmly planted six decades
in the past. Let's take a look back at
the seminal moment that forever altered two different programs within the
University of Kentucky athletic department.
In 1946, a man named Paul Bryant was hired as the new
football coach for the Wildcats. He was
coming from Maryland where he had only spent one year. He was a tough-nosed, unforgiving 33 year-old
coach who preferred to go by his nickname, Bear. (Legend has it that he earned the nickname
from wrestling a captive bear for a theater promotion at the age of 13.) His success was immediate, winning seven ball
games in his first season. He led UK to
eight wins the next season and their first ever bowl appearance, The Great
Lakes Bowl, which the Wildcats won. His
best run came from 1949-51 when his teams won 28 games and appeared in the
Orange, Sugar, and Cotton Bowls. In the 1950 Sugar Bowl, Bryant's Wildcats
defeated an Oklahoma team that had won 31 consecutive games. According to some polls and modern computer
rankings, the University of Kentucky can claim a national championship for that
season. In total, Bryant spent eight
seasons at Kentucky and finished with a career record of 60-23-5 and never had
a losing season. Bryant remains the
all-time leader in career victories at the University of Kentucky.
Bryant was not the only coaching legend at Kentucky at that time,
though. Prowling the bench on the hardwood
for the Wildcats was an irascible veteran coach named Adolph Rupp, who had a nickname
of his own; the Baron. Rupp had already
been at Kentucky for 16 years by the time Bryant was hired and had led the
basketball Cats to several conference championships and a Final Four. It was while Bryant was at UK with Rupp that
the basketball program began to assert itself as an elite program. From 1948-51, Rupp was able to lead his teams
to three NCAA championships, coinciding with the same years that Bryant was
having his best run on the football field. (Even though Florida is credited
with becoming the only school to ever hold the NCAA football and basketball championships
in the same scholastic season, it can be argued that Kentucky did it in the
1950-51 season.) The University of Kentucky was poised to become the
predominant school in all of college athletics.
So what happened?
The answer, it seems, is complicated and murky. One legendary tale has it that Bryant was offended
when the university bought Rupp a brand-new, four-door Cadillac and he was only
given a fancy cigarette lighter. While
this story is rather funny and was told tongue-in-cheek by Bryant, there is
nothing to corroborate its validity.
Another tale is that Bryant was upset by a scandal that had taken place
with Rupp's teams involving point shaving.
In 1951, a story broke about Kentucky legends Alex Groza and Ralph Beard
being involved in a points shaving event during the 1948-1949 season. The subsequent investigation resulted in multiple
NCAA rules violations and the first ever death penalty as the Wildcats were not
allowed to have a basketball team for the 1952-53 season. It is speculated that Bryant became antsy due
to the increased NCAA scrutiny of all Kentucky athletic programs and decided to
go elsewhere where the NCAA would not be sniffing around so much. This theory seems to make much more sense. But in a 1966 interview with Sports Illustrated, Bryant said, "When
I try to put my finger on it I can't say exactly why I left Kentucky, but one
thing I want to make clear. I never tried to get Bernie Shively's job as
athletic director, and the athletic directorship had nothing to do with what
you could call a clash of objectives between me and Adolph Rupp." He also went on to say that leaving UK was
one of the biggest mistakes he had ever made; this coming after winning three
NCAA championships at Alabama. To
further dispel myth and legend, many accounts show that Bear Bryant and Adolph
Rupp remained amiable towards each other and considered themselves to be
friends until Rupp passed away in 1977.
So, to put it simply, the best guess as to what derailed the
Kentucky football program was the points shaving scandal from 1951 that
involved the Wildcat basketball program.
In an odd sort of way, the program that was not punished now suffers from
the Curse of the Bear akin to the Red Sox' Curse of the Bambino. In the years after Bryant left Kentucky to go
to Texas A & M, the Wildcat football team has struggled to maintain any
semblance of success. UK has had ten
head coaches since Bryant departed 59 seasons ago and only one (Blanton
Collier) has left the university with a winning record, and he had the benefit
of replacing Bryant and having some of the Bear's recruits play for him. The only other time the football program has
come close to making a splash on the national scene was under Fran Curci when
his 1976 team finished 9-3 with a Peach Bowl win and followed it up with a 10-1
season in 1977. But, as the Curse would
have it, the Wildcats were ineligible for postseason play due to NCAA
violations. The UK football program was
once again beset by NCAA violations during the Hall Mumme era. It was only recently when Rich Brooks was
able to lead the Wildcats to four consecutive bowls, winning three, did people
begin to think that the Curse had been broken.
But as this past weekend shows us, that has not been the case after all.
In what appears to be a long season ahead for the Wildcats football program, athletic director
Mitch Barnhart and the powers that be at Kentucky have a lot of tough decisions
to make. With an unsettled fan base and
empty seats in the stadium, Joker Phillips's future may have as much to do with
performance off the field as on it. One
thing that Barnhart and company will have to consider when deciding on whether
or not to replace Coach Phillips is who can reverse this relentless curse? So far, that question has seemed to stymie
countless ADs and boosters for the past six decades.
I believe that the university needs to try and hire a big name coach to come and get the program headed back in the right direction... I agree it is hard to keep up with tough schedule of the sec.I believe it is best conference in the country but you have to win the out of conference games...Joker is def.on hot seat....i was reading this morning where 3 players were caught with marijuana possession.Good luck joker! Another nice read!
ReplyDeleteI am all for giving Joker a couple of years to get things turned around. After all, he does have a bunch of young guys and some of them are pretty talented. But, in reality, I see no way that Joker survives this season. I hope the university goes after some coach with a name, experience, and a successful record. I know Jim Tressel has a black eye from what happened at OSU, but I would like to see them go after him. He'd be better than Bobby Petrino as I have heard many say they'd like to see hired.
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