When you're recruiting, when you're having teams come in here to play and people come in here, this is Rupp Arena. In January, when the naming rights deal was announced, Wildcats athletic director Mitch Barnhart said, 'It has to be Rupp Arena. The arena is part of the $53 million Lexington Center complex, which also includes a convention-exhibition hall, enclosed shopping mall and a hotel. Rupp Arena opened in the fall of 1976 and was built by the city of Lexington. Three years later, Rupp signed his first African American player, 7-foot-2 center Tom Payne from Louisville, Kentucky. In 1966, Rupp's all-white UK team lost 72-65 to an all-Black starting five from Texas Western (now Texas-El Paso) in the championship game of the NCAA tournament. He was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1969. Rupp guided UK to four NCAA national championships and 27 SEC regular-season titles.

His teams won 82.2% of their games, and he ranks sixth in NCAA Division I history with 876 victories. Rupp, who died in 1977 at the age of 76, coached the Wildcats for 41 seasons from 1930 to 1972.

The project is expected to be completed in time for the 2021-22 season. The arena, which is now called Rupp Arena at Central Bank Center after a naming rights deal, is undergoing a $275 million renovation.

Chasing Ghosts: Adolph Rupp built Kentucky, and his legacy persists.

Senior officials have been meeting and corresponding with them to address their specific concerns, which speak forcefully to the systemic and institutional racism that we must thoughtfully and urgently address as a campus.' Editor's Picks We thank them for their continued passion and commitment to advancing equity at UK. The school, in a statement, said, 'The faculty and students who have expressed these concerns are deeply valued members of our community. '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 Adolph Rupp name has come to stand for racism and exclusion in UK athletics and alienates Black students, fans, and attendees,' the AAAS faculty wrote in the letter. In addition to removing Rupp's name from the UK basketball arena in downtown Lexington, the faculty requested that names of 'enslavers, Confederate sympathizers, and other white supremacists' be removed from campus buildings as well. In a letter to Capilouto on Thursday, the African American and Africana Studies program faculty outlined additional steps it wanted Kentucky to take to eradicate racism on campus. The faculty of the University of Kentucky's African American and Africana Studies program has asked UK president Eli Capilouto to change the name of Rupp Arena because the legendary basketball coach's name 'has come to stand for racism and exclusion' and 'alienates Black students, fans, and attendees.'

Rupp arena