Kenneth Spencer Research Library

Each week we’ll be posting a photograph from University Archives that shows a scene from KU’s past. We’ve also scanned more than 1,700 images from KU’s University Archives and made them available online; be sure to check them out!

This year’s Big 12 home opener will be played on Saturday against Texas Tech, so today we’re highlighting the first time the Jayhawks faced the Red Raiders. The game was held at Allen Field House on December 7, 1959; it was a KU victory, with a final score of 85-71.

Rock Chalk!

Selected pages from the Official Souvenir Program for the first-ever game between KU and Texas Tech, 1959.
Note the price of tickets. University Archives. Call Number: RG 66/13/1 Programs. Click images to enlarge.

Two pictures from the game against Texas Tech, 1959. University Archives Photos.
Call Number: RG 66/13 1959-1960 Games Texas Tech Negatives: Athletic Department:
Basketball (Photos). Click images to enlarge.

Caitlin Donnelly
Head of Public Services

Brian Nomura
Public Services Student Assistant

Tensions are high this week as two of college basketball’s winningest and most storied teams, the University of Kansas Jayhawks and the University of Kentucky Wildcats, face off tomorrow in Indianapolis. During March Madness these schools are rivals, but younger generations may not realize that they share a history through the sixth winningest Division I coach of all time, the “Baron of the Bluegrass” Adolph Rupp.

Lexington, Kentucky, my hometown and home of the UK Wildcats, boasts Rupp Arena, named after legendary coach Adolph Rupp. It is the largest indoor arena ever built expressly for basketball, as well as the largest indoor sports arena in the country and sixth largest in the world. Its sheer size pays homage to Rupp’s tremendous and immutable impact on UK and college basketball, but he would not have reached this level of success without his beginnings at KU.

Adolph Rupp was born in Halstead, Kansas, in 1901. By the time he attended Halstead High School, James Naismith had moved to Kansas and introduced his newly invented game of basketball to the area. Rupp attended KU and, under direction from Naismith and head coach Forrest C. “Phog” Allen, played as a reserve from 1919 to 1923, including the 1922-1923 team that went undefeated in conference play and was voted national champions.

KU national champions basketball team, 1922-1923. Top left: Adolph Rupp.
Middle row, second and third from left: Phog Allen and James Naismith.
Call number: RG 66/13 1922-1923 Team Prints: Athletic Department: Basketball (Photos).
Click image to enlarge.

After college, Rupp spent several years coaching at high schools in Kansas, Iowa, and Illinois before taking a coaching job at UK in 1930. He remained head coach at Kentucky until being forced into retirement at age seventy due to university policy. Throughout his time at UK, his teams faced the Jayhawks many times, but Rupp remained cordial with his former coach and alma mater.

Phog Allen (left) and Adolph Rupp (right), undated. Call number: 66/13 Rupp, Adolph (Photos).
Click image to enlarge.

Rupp died from cancer on December 10, 1977 in Lexington, Kentucky. Ironically, his former Wildcats played the Jayhawks that night in Allen Fieldhouse and reigned victorious. Rupp is most often associated with UK and commemorated by Kentuckians, but UK would not be on top of the basketball world without Rupp’s outstanding leadership fostered by his Kansas upbringing. His legacy is not lost on Kansans either; his high school hosts the Annual Halstead Adolph Rupp Basketball Tournament, now approaching its 45th year. Rupp’s family remained in the Lawrence area after he moved away and have provided insight into Rupp’s early life and basketball career. For more information about his home life in Halstead, see the article “His Hometown” in the Rupp section of the Courier-Journal, Monday, December 12, 1977 (call number: PP 221).

So in celebration of this week’s showdown, come to Spencer Research Library to read more about Adolph Rupp’s Kansas origins and subsequent time at rival UK (both the glory and controversies) in our collection of his personal papers (PP 221).

Megan Sims
Public Services and Processing Student Assistant
KU Museum Studies Graduate Student

Each week we’ll be posting a photograph from University Archives that shows a scene from KU’s past. We’ve also scanned more than 1,700 images from KU’s University Archives and made them available online; be sure to check them out!

The Kansas men’s basketball team begins its regular season schedule tomorrow night, and next Tuesday (November 18th) marks Forrest C. “Phog” Allen‘s 129th birthday. In celebration of these two events, this week we’re sharing some photographs of the legendary KU basketball coach. Allen was the Jayhawks’ head coach for thirty-nine years (1907-1909, 1920-1956), compiling a record of 590-219.

As kids/teenagers, Forrest and his brothers formed a family basketball team
known as the Amazing Allen Brothers. They’re shown here in 1904, around the time
Forrest (A4) became a student at KU. His nephew Homer Jr. was the team’s mascot and
went by the nickname Little Ham. University Archives Photos. Call Number: RG 66/22
Forrest C. Allen Family 1904 Prints: Athletic Department: Coaches and Staff (Photos).
Click image to enlarge (redirect to Spencer’s digital collections).

Coach Allen, 1928. University Archives Photos. Call Number: RG 66/22
Forrest C. Allen 1928 Prints: Athletic Department: Coaches and Staff (Photos).
Click image to enlarge (redirect to Spencer’s digital collections).

Coach Allen, 1950. University Archives Photos. Call Number: RG 66/22
Forrest C. Allen 1950 Prints: Athletic Department: Coaches and Staff (Photos).
Click image to enlarge (redirect to Spencer’s digital collections).

Caitlin Donnelly
Head of Public Services

Brian Nomura
Public Services Student Assistant

Each week we’ll be posting a photograph from University Archives that shows a scene from KU’s past. We’ve also scanned more than 1,700 images from KU’s University Archives and made them available online; be sure to check them out!

Next Monday former KU basketball coaches Ted Owens, Larry Brown, and Roy Williams will gather with current coach Bill Self at Allen Fieldhouse for a program celebrating the sixtieth anniversary of the facility. In anticipation of this special event, we’re sharing two photographs of the Fieldhouse under construction in 1954. To learn more about its origins, planning, construction, and dedication, see the article “Field House of Dreams” on the KU History website.

Allen Fieldhouse under construction, 1954. University Archives Photos.
Call Number: RG 0/22/1 1954 Prints: Campus: Buildings: Allen Fieldhouse (Photos).
Click image to enlarge (redirect to Spencer’s digital collections).

Caitlin Donnelly
Head of Public Services

Brian Nomura
Public Services Student Assistant

Public Services Student Assistant Jessie Meiers explores the pioneering career of basketball coach and KU Alumnus, John B. McLendon.

John B. McLendon, Jr. was born in Hiawatha, Kansas and graduated from KU in 1936 with a degree in Physical Education. While at KU, he studied basketball under its creator, Dr. James Naismith.  Though not allowed to play on the varsity team at KU due to the university’s color line, he would go on to an impressive career as a basketball coach.  He won eight CIAA (Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association) championships.  He also invented several facets of the game, including the fast break, zone press, and four corners offense.

John B. McLendon at the time he was coaching the Cleveland Pipers; detail from a photograph
“New Members of Pipers Team.”  Call number: RH MS-P 586, Box 1, Folder 14

McLendon became the first African American to win an integrated national championship, lead the National All-Star Team, coach at a predominately white college (Cleveland State), and coach a professional basketball team (the Cleveland Pipers in the American Basketball League).  He was also the first coach to win three consecutive National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) championships (1957, 1958, and 1959).

On August 6, 1960, John B. McLendon coached his Cleveland Pipers to victory over the U.S. Olympic team in the lead
up to the Rome Olympics. Left: Detail from one of John B. McLendon’s scrapbooks: a completed scorecard from Cleveland
Pipers vs. U.S. Olympic Team game. Call number: RH MS E198 vol. 13, page 21 (verso, detail); Right:  Page from one of
John B. McLendon’s scrapbooks documenting the win.  Call Number: RH MS E198 vol. 11, page 24 (recto). Click images to enlarge.

In 1964, McLendon became the first African American coach appointed to the U. S. Olympic Committee.  McLendon would also act as a scout for the Olympic team, starting in 1966 and continuing until 1976.  In 1968, he would join the coaching team of the USA’s gold-winning Olympic team in basketball and would return in 1972 to coach the team again.

McLendon’s copy of the U.S. Olympic Committee Basketball
Scouting Scoring Book. Call Number: RH MS 586 Box 1, Folder 3.

John McLendon donated a series of scrapbooks to the Spencer Research Library covering his career from 1954 to 1979 (RH MS E198).  They feature newspaper clippings, pamphlets, and letters and cards from players, coaches, and major names in basketball congratulating him on his many honors.  His personal papers include his “United States Olympic Committee Basketball Scouting Scoring Book” (RH MS 586, Box 1, item 3.8) and a typescript of “The Chronological History of Basketball in Black Colleges in the USA, Period IV 1950-1960” (RH MS 586, Box 2, item 12), which he wrote in 1980.

Jessie Meiers
Spencer Research Library Public Services Student Assistant

Want to explore further?  Consult the online Guide to the John B. McLendon Collection