LEXINGTON, Ky. _ In the ongoing effort to combat systemic racism, longtime Lexington pastor C.B. Akins does not consider renaming Rupp Arena a high priority.
"I'm focusing on more important things," said Akins, a former member of Kentucky's Board of Trustees (2011 to 2017) and chair of the Trustees' University Athletics Committee (2017).
When asked to identify those more important things, Akins texted, "Academic brain drain among faculty of color, and cultural and climate deprivations are major barriers to UK's progression from ad nauseam espousal of valuing diversity to a fleshed out exhibition of the same."
Symbolic versus tangible change was part of Rupp Arena at the beginning. In his book, "Changing the Game," released this year, Lexington businessman and sports marketing pioneer Jim Host described the process that led to the naming of the proposed arena in downtown Lexington after the de facto founding father of Kentucky basketball, Adolph Rupp.
As the first executive director of what became known as Rupp Arena, Host attended the meeting of what was then known as the Lexington Civic Center Board in 1972. When it was proposed that the arena be named after Rupp, the motion was seconded by the only Black member of the board, Howard White.
Why did White support the motion? "He wanted Black members of the community to be hired to work on construction of the facility," Host and co-author Eric Moyen wrote.
White was on the board because he worked in construction, thus would be knowledgeable about issues that arose in the building of the Civic Center complex, and he would represent Lexington's Black community, Host said in a follow-up telephone conversation. (The book can be ordered at jimhostbook.com.)
DeWitt Hisle, the board member who made the motion to name UK's new home court Rupp Arena, recalled White seconding the motion.
"Howard White was a good man," Hisle said. "He was doing the right things for his community."
The perception of Rupp as a racist was not raised at the meeting to name the arena. "Absolutely zero," Host said when asked how much Rupp's reputation was discussed.
Nor was any other name proposed for the arena.
"It was a tribute to Rupp," Hisle said of the arena name. "We felt like Rupp had been instrumental in everything with UK basketball. And we wanted to do something to respect what he had done."
Board member Garvice Kincaid, who controlled major radio and television outlets in Lexington, strenuously objected to naming the arena for Rupp.
Kincaid's objection? In what the book describes as an "expletive-ridden tirade," he told the board he considered Rupp arrogant. "Over my damn dead body," Kincaid said of UK playing home games in a Rupp Arena.
White was the first board member to object to Kincaid's condemnation of Rupp, Host said.
Kincaid was the only board member to vote against naming the arena for Rupp, the Host-Moyen book said. Ultimately, Kincaid asked that the record show he voted to name the arena for Rupp.
"He wanted a unanimous vote," Host said this week. "He didn't want it to appear that he lost."
At a testimonial dinner for Rupp in January of 1975, the UK coaching icon said he was "shocked" to learn the name of the future arena. "I thought they had already named the thing," he was quoted as saying. "I had forgotten about it."
Last week the faculty of UK's African American and Africana Studies department sent a letter to school president Eli Capilouto asking that more Black teachers be hired and support increased for Black students. The letter also called for the removal of names of any "enslavers, Confederate sympathizers ... and other White supremacists from school buildings."
The letter also asked that Rupp Arena be renamed.
Bob Elliston, the chair of the Lexington Center Corporation board, pointed out that the Facility Right of Use Agreement between LCC and UK dated Feb. 7, 2018, prohibits a name change through 2033.
Article 7.3 reads: "The parties agree that the current name of the arena _ 'Rupp Arena' _ shall not be changed, although the name 'Rupp Arena' may be associated with or combined with the name of the LCC Facilities, such as 'Rupp Arena at ABC Center.'"
UK asked for the prohibition of a name change in the new lease agreement, Elliston said.
Jay Blanton, the chief communications officer for UK, explained in an email. "In 2018, we wanted to ensure that there was not a corporate name on the arena itself," he wrote. "That's why we asked for the provision in the use agreement."
Both UK and LCC would have to agree to a change to rename Rupp Arena.
As of this week, "we have not actually received any formal request to consider a name change," Elliston said.
