University of Kentucky faculty group demands renaming of Rupp Arena

The faculty of the University of Kentucky’s African American and Africana Studies department Thursday wrote a letter to school President Eli Capilouto demanding the school hire more black teachers, increase support for black students and remove the names of any“enslavers, Confederate sympathizers . . . and other white supremacists” from school buildings. It also called on the school to change the name of Rupp Arena, the downtown Lexington stadium where Kentucky’s basketball teams play.

“The Adolph Rupp name has come to stand for racism and exclusion in UK athletics and alienates Black students, fans, and attendees. The rebuilding of the arena and the convention center offer an opportunity to change the name to a far more inclusive one, such as Wildcat Arena,” the AAAS faculty wrote in the letter, noting the stadium’s 2019 renovation.

Public perception of Rupp, who led Kentucky to four national titles over his 42-year tenure, has been shaped in part by the 2006 film “Glory Road,” the story of how a Texas Western team with an all-black starting five took down Rupp’s all-white Kentucky team in the 1966 NCAA Tournament championship game.

But in his 2019 biography “Adolph Rupp and the Rise of Kentucky Basketball,”James Duane Bolin writes that Rupp’s supporters think the former coach’s racism has been overplayed. While Rupp was basketball coach at Freeport High School in Illinois in the 1920s, he started William Mosely, the school’s first black basketball player and second black graduate.

Rupp Arena opened in 1976.

It is not owned by the school but rather by an arm of the local Lexington government.