A friend of mine at school who happens to be an Alabama football fan always likes to remind me that for a few fleeting years Kentucky not only had Adolph Rupp coaching our basketball team, but also the legendary Paul “Bear” Bryant coaching football. He also never fails to add that following national championships by both teams in the 1950-51 season, Rupp was given a new Cadillac while Bryant received only a watch. Fan sites rollbamaroll.com and bamacrimsontide.com tell nearly the same story, with the exception being that Bear was given a lighter, not a watch. Whatever he was given, the fact that his gift was significantly less significant than Rupp’s Cadillac did not surprise me and had led me to accept this story as fact. That is until now, when I decided to seek counsel with the omniscient Google search.
I found that the story of the lighter and the Cadillac stems from the lead-up to Kentucky’s Sugar Bowl matchup with #1 ranked Oklahoma. On December 8, 1950, Bryant gave a speech at the Quarterback’s Club luncheon in Oklahoma City and was quoted by the Associated Press as saying, “The other night we had a joint basketball-football banquet and Adolph Rupp was presented with a big four-door Cadillac. All I got was a cigarette lighter.” Bear Bryant wouldn’t leave Kentucky for another three years, casting doubt over the theory that this incident was the reason for his exit. But it is possible that even though Bryant didn’t leave immediately, such a slight by the University caused him to build up resentment to Kentucky over the years. First, however, we must determine whether the incident ever actually occurred.
There is no evidence that a joint basketball-football banquet took place that year. On December 13th of 1950 there was a football banquet, and on December 9th there was ceremony honoring the basketball teams that had played in Alumni Gym (Memorial Coliseum had its first year in 1950), but there wasn’t a joint event as Bear had claimed. Furthermore, it seems that only the national media, who were unfamiliar with Bear, saw his quote as newsworthy. On December 12th, 1950, Ed Ashford wrote in the Lexington Herald, “Actually, Bryant's remarks at the Oklahoma City luncheon were in a light vein. They were made in a kidding, off-the-record manner and he didn't think anyone would take him seriously. He has made the same, or similar remarks before - even in Lexington - without causing consternation. Coach Bud Wilkinson of Oklahoma told Sports Scribe Larry Boeck of the Louisville Courier-Journal that Bryant 'made one of the best and most amusing talks ever heard by the Oklahoma City Quarterback Club. He even kidded us about our No. 1 rating. Nobody took him seriously except the reporter who covered the dinner.” Amusingly, in 1956 Rupp did in fact receive a Cadillac from Kentucky boosters in commemoration of his 25th year as head coach. Although this occurred two years after Bryant left for Texas A&M, its proximity in time to his exit helps explain why so many perceive this myth to be reality.
Although this incident never actually occurred, I still believe that it was why Bear Bryant left Kentucky. Everyone in Kentucky saw Bear’s statement as a joke, and rightfully so, but the joke wouldn’t be funny, and wouldn’t be told, if there wasn’t some truth to it. In 1950, same as in 2012, Kentucky was unequivocally a basketball school in a basketball state. Bear could make jokes about it all he wanted but at the end of the day he was one of the greatest coaches in the history of college football and he couldn’t play second fiddle to Rupp forever. So while he was never given a lighter at a banquet where Rupp got a Cadillac, those gifts could very well serve as metaphors for the programs each man was running and the level of fan and university support they received. And to bring this post full circle, let’s see if we can start a fire with that lighter this fall, and if not, we always have the Cadillac to take us into early April.
A quick thanks to bigbluehistory.net for making it easy to find the 2 quotes I used and some of the background information. If you’ve never been there it’s a great site and they have more information on Bear and the Baron and a ton of articles and statistics covering the entire breadth of Kentucky Basketball history. If you need to be productive today I’d probably stay away though, the site is like a black hole filled with Kentucky basketball knowledge.
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