players and once asked the UK president to leave the SEC so he could recruit black players. Rupp tried his best to sign in-state black players Wes Unseld (the first black player Rupp made a formal scholarship offer in 1964) and Butch Beard before both picked Louisville. Rupp signed his first black player, troubled 7'2" center Tom Payne, who played in the 1971 season. After his lone varsity season, Payne, who was on the verge of flunking out of school, joined the NBA's first-ever supplemental draft. Career after Kentucky In April 1972, Rupp was named Team President of the Memphis Pros, soon to become the Memphis Tams, of the American Basketball Association. In June 1973 Rupp quit as Tams president, calling the ABA "bush league" and saying it "would never survive". Three months later, Rupp was hired as Vice President of the Board of the Kentucky Colonels of the American Basketball Association. Death Rupp died of spinal cancer at age 76 in Lexington, Kentucky, on December 10, 1977, on a night when Kentucky defeated his alma mater, Kansas, at Allen Fieldhouse in Lawrence, Kansas. The game that night was promoted as "Adolph Rupp Night". He is buried in Lexington Cemetery. Rupp Arena, the current home of the Kentucky men's basketball team, is named in his honor. Head coaching record College ** Record includes SEC playoff tiebreaker games The team did not play in the 1952–53 season because of involvement in a point shaving scandal. See also List of college men's basketball coaches with 600 wins List of NCAA Division I Men's Final Four appearances by coach References External links 1901 births 1977 deaths 20th-century American businesspeople American Basketball Association executives American Mennonites American men's basketball players American people of Austrian descent American people of German descent Basketball coaches from Kansas Basketball players from Kansas Deaths from cancer in Kentucky Neurological disease deaths in Kentucky Deaths from spinal cancer College men's basketball head coaches in the United States High school basketball coaches in the United States Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball players Kentucky Colonels executives Kentucky Wildcats men's basketball coaches Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame inductees People from Harvey County, Kansas Sportspeople from Marshalltown, Iowa Teachers College, Columbia University alumni