A 22x39 three-tiered bookshelf in my office contains more than 100 books about UK sports, 95 percent basketball. The list begins with Greg Stanley's Before Big Blue, University of Kentucky Press, 1995, which chronicles the early history of organized sports at the University. Stanley covers the half-century (1890-1940) when football ruled the athletic department. The most competition was with cross-town rival Kentucky University (now Transylvania) and the Thanksgiving Day football game was the biggest event of the season. Its gate receipts essentially funded the entire department.

Basketball first arrived on campus as a women's team. In the beginning, the gals were more popular than the boys. Their transfer out of the women's physical education department in 1903 led to an intense 20-year turf war, which the men won.

Women's basketball returned to UK as a varsity sport and reached giddy heights under Debbie Yow, who produced Valerie Still, UK's all-time leading basketball scorer. Inter-departmental jealousies resulted in the departure of Yow and the decline of UK women's basketball. There are no books about women's basketball on my shelves.

An autographed copy ("I hope that you enjoy every page of this book. To a real friend, Adolph F. Rupp") of Rupp's Championship Basketball occupies a place of honor. It is mostly an Xs and Os publication that delves into passing, shooting, dribbling and other intricacies of the game.

Rupp was a poetry buff, along with many other pursuits, so it was natural for him to preface the book with the following:

A mighty monarch in the day of old

Made offer of high honors, wealth, and gold

To one who should produce in form concise

A precept soothing in his hours forlorn,

Yet one that in his prosperous days would warn,

Many the maxim sent the King, men say,

The one he chose ... "This too shall pass away!"

Abraham Lincoln followed the same philosophy, Rupp said, and what was good enough for "Honest Abe" was good enough for him; however, many years after the fact Rupp still had nightmares of his "Runts" losing to Texas Western in the 1966 NCAA championship game.

In 1979, Harry Lancaster penned Adolph Rupp as I Knew Him, with Cawood Ledford. The only memorable thing about this paperback is Lancaster crediting Rupp with a racist remark after UK president John W. Oswald ordered Rupp to recruit black players:

Since Lancaster's book hit the shelves two years after Rupp's death, irreparable damage had been done; feelings were hurt, and Rupp was further branded a racist. My office was across the hall from Adolph in Memorial Coliseum and I communicated with him almost on a daily basis; never did I hear him refer to black people in the manner Harry suggested.

That same year, Simon & Schuster published Frank Fitzpatrick's And The Walls Came Tumbling Down: Kentucky, Texas Western, and the Game that Changed American Sports. That picked up where Lancaster left off and further darkened the image of Rupp as a modern day Simon Legree. Again, I traveled to and from College Park with the team and sat on press row for the game, and the big racial overtones did not hit the limelight until several years later. In 2006, Disney produced a movie, Glory Road, about the game.

Two valuable books in our collection are UK Professor Bert Nelli's The Kentucky Tradition, UK Press, 1998, and Tom Wallace's The Kentucky Basketball Encyclopedia, Sports Publishing, Champaign, Ill., 2001. Both are lengthy chronicles of the complete Wildcat basketball program. Nelli takes a more academic approach while Wallace gives us many facts and figures that are most valuable to researchers.

The professor does not treat Rupp kindly, which is to be expected. During the days of "The Fabulous Five," Rupp was closer to the UK president than any individual professor or staff member. In fact, he often berated them for not doing their jobs.

Rupp was a professor with an advanced degree from Columbia University and also taught a basketball class at UK. He reportedly gave all his students A's because he said it was a poor professor who taught his students otherwise.

The offices of Rupp and football coach Paul Bryant were so close in Alumni Gym that they could hear each other's conversations. One year, a faculty group investigating UK athletics interviewed Bryant and then visited Rupp, who was ready for them.

"By gawd, you expect me to take these pine knots and make All-Americas out of them and I send you a B student and he's making a goddamn D!"

"He just ate their fannies, and they haven't sat down yet," Bryant said. "They haven't opened their mouths. They're in there trying to investigate athletics and he's attacking academics. They got out of there in a hurry."

Bryant's book is in the football case, whose cupboard is almost bare. The only other real UK-related football publications to note, besides UK media guides, are biographical sketches of George Blanda, Tim Couch and Brenda Duff Frazier, the rich debutante who married UK's Shipwreck Kelly, and June Mumme's Play by Play. Newton's Laws with Billy Reed swings both ways.

Lonnie Wheeler's Blue Yonder gives an intimate look into the Wildcat phenomena, which Rick Pitino, in association with Dick "Hoops" Weiss, also covers in Full Court Pressure: A Year in Kentucky Basketball. The setting for Pitino's book is the 1991-92 season, when the Wildcats lost a heartbreaker to Duke in the NCAA Regional final. The back cover of Pitino's book contains an explanation of his strategy in closing minute of that game.

Jim Host is the most productive publisher of UK books, with at least 10 in our case. His stable of authors includes such well-known Kentucky sports personalities as Cawood Ledford and John McGill, both deceased; Billy Reed, Oscar Combs, Mike Embry and Tom Wallace. Former UK sports information directors Chris Cameron and Brooks Downing and former assistant basketball coach and athletic directors Harry Lancaster and C. M. Newton also contributed to Host's mixture. Educators Bert Nelli, of UK, and Jamie Vaught, of Southeast Community College, also are represented.

Billy Reed is an award-winning journalist who has been covering sports in Kentucky since 1959. A native of Mt. Sterling, he is a 1966 graduate of Transylvania University, which awarded him a distinguished alumni award in 1980. Reed has worked for the Lexington Herald-Leader, the Courier-Journal and Sports Illustrated. He has many works to his credit.

Cawood Ledford, legendary "Voice of the Wildcats," was working on his seventh book for Host when he died of cancer in 2001. Ledford broadcast University of Kentucky football and basketball for nearly four decades; calling UK games for various radio stations from 1953-79. Cawood then formed a production company where he remained "the critical eye of Wildcat fans" until his retirement after the 1991-92 basketball season. He is one of a handful of non-players to have a jersey hanging in Rupp Arena.

Tom Wallace, who has penned three books for Host, is a veteran sportswriter who has covered Kentucky basketball for more than a dozen years. He once served as editor of Cawood on Kentucky and is a former columnist for The Cats' Pause.

Jamie H. Vaught has written four books containing interviews with players, coaches and others associated with the UK basketball program. He spent 13 years as a columnist for The Cats' Pause and currently "strings" for The Daily News in Middlesboro and several Kentucky newspapers. Jamie is an associate professor of accounting at Southeast Community College.

Kentucky's two major newspapers, the Courier-Journal and the Herald-Leader, have been major contributors to the list of UK publications, especially in coverage of championships won or nearly won. They are included in the following list of books on our basketball shelf:

THE RUPP YEARS, by Tevis Laudeman, the Courier-Journal, 1972. Laudeman was a staff writer for the Courier-Journal when he wrote a series that featured the individual years in the Baron's 42-year tenure as UK basketball coach. The newspaper then put the articles together and produced a best-selling book.

BASKETBALL: The Dream Game In Kentucky, by Dave Kindred, Data Courier, Inc., 1976. "Basketball is truly a dream game for our entire country. I used to think it was just Indiana, then Illinois and Kentucky, but now it is truly nationwide."…John Wooden, in a letter to the author, July, 1975.

A YEAR AT THE TOP, by John McGill and Walt Johnson, photography by Walt Johnson, Jim Host and Associates Inc., 1978. This is a forerunner to many fine books on UK basketball published by the Jim Host organization, The technique is simple and effective: contract special writers and photographers with a working knowledge of the Wildcats, go heavy on personalities and very light on statistics and box scores. This prototype is coffee-table size (8 ½"x 11") with color designated to the cover and middle six pages; later productions would feature four-color art.

BASKETBALL IN THE BLUEGRASS STATE: The Championship Teams, by Mike Embry, Leisure Press, New York, 1983. Embry devotes chapters one and eight of his 18 chapters exclusively to the University of Kentucky; of course, the Wildcats play an important part in other chapters.

MARCH MADNESS: The Kentucky High School Basketball Tournament, by Mike Embry, Icarus Press, South Bend, 1985. Embry allots a chapter to each tournament through 1984, featuring participating teams and their star players. He does a thorough job.

RICK PITINO: Born to Coach, A Season with the New York Knicks, with Bill Reynolds, New American Library, New York, 1988. "With an update that answers the question: Why I went to Kentucky?" It boiled down to a clash of personalities between Pitino and Knicks general manager Al Bianchi. Kentucky was looking for a coach while Pitino sought release from the stifling pressure cooker that is New York basketball. It was a matter of two parties being at the right place at the right time.

Basketball PITINO Style, with Cawood Ledford, by Chris Cameron, Host Communications, Inc., 1990. This 146-page paperback is filled with color photos and text glorifying a 14-14 team that "put the fun back" in Kentucky Basketball. It also glamorizes the showy Coach Pitino and lets all know that everything is right in the world of UK basketball. Amen!

THE MAKING OF CHAMPIONS: Kentucky Basketball 1979-1980, by Oscar Combs, Photography by Bill Straus and Alen Malott, Lexington Productions, Inc. "To the thousands and thousands of youngsters who idolize the University of Kentucky and the basketball Wildcats, and who someday will be responsible for carrying forward a great tradition … O.C."

MACY, by Kyle Macy as told to Cawood Ledford, Lexington Productions, Inc., 1980. This large (7"x11 ½") 130-page paperback pays homage to one of the most popular players ever to wear the UK Blue & White. Macy and Ledford predictably take Kyle from playing for his dad at Peru High in Illinois to a leadership role in UK's march to the 1978 NCAA championship. If nostalgia is your bag, there's much here to enjoy.

LIVING IN THE JOE B. HALL WILDCAT LODGE: A Personal View of the Kentucky Basketball Program, by Mark A. Sherfey, Tompkinsville Printing Co., 1980. The title is self-explanatory. Sherfey was one of the "regular" students who moved into Wildcat Lodge under an NCAA mandate in 1979.

BIG BLUE MANIA: Kentucky Basketball 1981-82, by Oscar Combs, Lexington Productions, Inc., 1982. The prolific Mr. Combs, one of UK's most dedicated fans, lets his love shine through in this 144-page tribute to the 1982 Wildcats.

A LOVE TO LIVE BY: One Couple's Courageous Fight for Life, by Ed Beck, Here's Life Publishers, San Bernardino, CA, 1983. Ed Beck was starting center and honorary captain of UK's "Fiddlin' Five." His wife Billie died of cancer during his junior year at the University. When the Wildcats defeated Seattle and the great Elgin Baylor in the 1958 NCAA championship game, they "won it for Billie." Beck is a Methodist minister living in Colorado.

THE LIVES OF RILEY, by Mark Heisler, Macmillan USA, 1984. "He had gone from James Dean to the All-American boy to wandering minstrel-hoopster to beach dropout to announcer to coach's helper to coach to star, reinventing himself at every stage. He knew his life would look all right if he could see it on the silver screen. He won. Now he has to deal with that."…From The Lives of Riley.

HEART OF BLUE, by Cawood Ledford, Host Communications, Inc. 1995. Cawood has chosen his favorite memories as the "Voice of the Wildcats (1953-1992). From the Fiddlin' Five to the Unforgettables. From the heart-stopping 1978 NCAA title game to the heart-breaking Duke game of 1992, the memories are vintage Cawood.

The Legacy and The Glory: Greatest moments in Kentucky Basketball History, edited by Mike Bynum, AdCraft, 1995. This 224-page work consists mostly of reproductions of newspaper stories and columns dating back to Arthur J. Daley and the New York Times, UK vs. NYU Jan 4, 1935 in Madison Square Garden.

THE OFFICIAL UNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY BASKETBALL BOOK, by Randall S. Baron and Russell Rice, Devyn Press, 1986. "It wasn't until after we had 11,000 fans at our midnight practice, packed houses at our intrasquad scrimmages, 14,000 fans at a morning shooting practice in Louisville, that I realized the impact of the UK program." – Eddie Sutton.

UNTOUCHABLE: The Crowning of the Commonwealth, presented by GTE, Host Communications, Inc., 1996. This is the "official book" of the 1996 national champion Kentucky Wildcats. "I told Rick yesterday before the game that as an alumnus of the University and as athletics director of the University, I could not in any way find the words to express my gratitude for his willingness to take this job on seven years ago. We wanted to build a program that truly put the student athlete at the heart of the program, that was totally compliant and that won, and won with class. And Rick has done that. Rick, I thank you"… C.M. Newton.

BRAVO BIG BLUE: Relive Kentucky's Memorial 1995-96 Season, by the staff of the Lexington Herald-Leader, Lexington Herald-Leader Co., 1996. "Perhaps only the three surviving Beatles could fully appreciate what Kentucky's basketball team accomplished in 1995-96 Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr attempted to create the Beatles' magical legacy at roughly the same time Kentucky went one-on-one with its daunting basketball tradition."…Jerry Tipton, H-L Columnist,

JOURNEY TO GREATNESS: The 1995-96 Kentucky Wildcats' National Championship, edited by Francis J. Fitzgerald, AdCraft. 1996. "In a place that has seen more than its share of sorrow and fear, frustration and exploitation, the Cats have lifted spirits and raised hopes for generations. On Pompey and Jonican, up Big Willard, at the head of John's Creek, and across Kentucky." … David Hawpe, editor of The Courier-Journal, in Forward to Greatness.

A YEAR WITH THE CATS: From Breathitt County to the White House, by Dave Kindred, Jim Host & Associates Inc., 1997. The combination of Dave Kindred and photographer Bill Luster is a winner as the two Courier staffers spend a season with the 1977 Wildcats.

A LEGACY OF CHAMPIONS, Edited by Mike Bynum, Epic Sports, 1997. Published by Masters Press, Indianapolis. This superlative work was written by Rick Bozich, Pat Forde, C. Ray Hall and Mark Woods of the Louisville Courier-Journal staff. It is billed, rightly so, as "The Story of the Men Who Built University of Kentucky Basketball." Illustrated by 135 photos.

BLUE GRIT: A Review of Kentucky's Courageous 1996-97 Season, by the staff of the Lexington Herald-Leader, the Lexington Herald Co., 1997. "We're not last year's team. But I've never coached a team with this much heart in my life…I'm blown away (by) their grit."…Rick Pitino, March 30, 1997.

University of Kentucky National Champions 1998, UMI Publications, Inc., which the publisher bills as "the most detailed account of this national championship season."

COMEBACK CATS: The 1997-98 Kentucky Wildcats' Unforgettable National Championship Season, edited by Mike Bynum, from the Sports Pages of the Courier-Journal.

BLUE YONDER, by Lonnie Wheeler, Orange Fraser Press, Inc., Wilmingham, Ohio, 1998. Wheeler gives us an intimate look into the Wildcat phenomena.

A DREAM COME TRUE, by Cameron Mills & Brooks Downing, Addax Publishing Group, Lenexa, Kansas, 1998. Mills followed in his father Terry's footsteps at UK and was a key player in a championship season

HEART OF A CHAMPION, by Jeff Sheppard and Tom Wallace, Addax, Inc., Lenex, KS. 1998. Jeff Sheppard wears two NCAA championships at UK. He won MVP honors in the 1998 Final Four as he led his Kentucky teammates in one of the most memorable comeback stories in college basketball history.

CATS UP CLOSE: Champions of Kentucky Basketball, by Jamie H. Vaught, McClanahan Publishing House, Cutaway, Ky., 1999. This 290-page paperback is the third in Jamie's series. It contains interviews with Dan Issel, Tubby Smith and Jack Givens, et al.

NEWTON'S LAWS, The C.M. Newton Story as told to Billy Reed, Host Communications, Inc., 2000. "C.M. Newton has been a winner his entire life and has won while playing by all the rules. He has never been touched by even so much of a hint of a scandal. He has solidified the Kentucky program and he has done so within the rules."…Cawood Ledford.

BARON OF THE BLUEGRASS: Winning Words of Wisdom by and about ADOLPH Rupp, Legendary Kentucky Basketball Coach, by Mike Embry, TowleHouse Publishing Co., Nashville, 2000. Mike Embry has been a sportswriter for more than 25 years, working for newspapers in Madisonville and Lexington. as well as a national news service.

The Kentucky Basketball Encyclopedia, by Tom Wallace, Sports Publishing, L.L.C. 2001. Much TLC went into this lengthy chronicle of the complete Wildcat basketball program. It belongs on every researcher's shelve.

100 YEARS OF KENTUCKY BASKETBALL: University of Kentucky, Publishers Mitch Barnhart (UK) & Host Communications. This is the "official" 100 years of Kentucky basketball magazine published by the UK Athletics Department and Host Communications. Full-page ads grace the outside back and inside front and back covers, and some inside pages, but they don't distract from the total package. Many old-time black-and-whites along with latter day color. Thick paperback cover.

KRAZY ABOUT KENTUCKY: Big Blue Hoops, by Jamie H. Vaught Wasteland Press, Louisville, 2003. Vaught leads off this fourth in his series of paperbacks with "Between (Larry) Ivy and (Mitch) Barnhart" and closes twelve chapters later with "Tubby and First Lady (Coach and Mrs. Tubby Smith)." He fills the intermediate chapters with interviews ranging from Mike Casey to Jamal Mashburn to Herb Sendek.

BIG BLUE: 100 Years of Kentucky Wildcats Basketball, by Michael Bradley, Sporting News, 2002. This 194-page hardback is resplendent with color photos, along with an excellent layout and the professional writing of Michael Bradley.

UK 100: A CENTURY OF BASKETBALL: A commemorative publication by the Lexington Herald-Leader sports staff. "Here in this centennial celebration, has anything united this commonwealth, or given it more reason to stand, than Kentucky basketball?"...John Clay, H-L Sports Columnist.

KENTUCKY BASKETBALL CENTURY OF CHAMPIONS, by TCP staff members, edited by Darrell Bird, The Cats' Pause, 2002. A well-written publication that contains many pictures. It's hard to do anything wrong when writing about 100 years of Blue Mania.

TALES FROM THE KENTUCKY HARDWOOD: A Collection of the Greatest Kentucky Basketball Stories Ever Told, by Denny Trease, Sports Publishing LLC, 2002. Denny Trease was the play-by-play voice of Kentucky basketball on television from 1972 to 1980. He hosted a weekly show with Coach Joe B. Hall and anchored nightly sportscasts for the CBS affiliate in Lexington.

KENTUCKY BASKETBALL'S BIG BLUE MACHINE, by Russell Rice, Strode Publishers, Huntsville, Ala., 1976. "This is the first complete history ever written about basketball at the University of Kentucky, and what a glorious story it is."…Adolph Rupp. Forward to K.B.B.M.

JOE B. HALL, My Own Kentucky Home, by Russell Rice, Strode Publishers, Huntsville, Ala., 1981. "Joe B. got his 'Big Arch' in St. Louis in 1978, so then obviously settled in and in my opinion has a dynasty perking even greater that in the days of the great Rupp. As the years accelerate, he will get closer to this legend…Al McGuire, forward to J.B.H.

THE WILDCAT LEGENCY,: A Pictorial History of Kentucky Basketball, by Russell Rice, JCP Corp. of Virginia, Virginia Beach, Va., 1982. "Webster's defines 'Legacy' as, 'something received from an ancestor or predecessor.' As publishers of pictorial histories, we look for photographs to tell the story…The Wildcat Legacy. It's a grand one, indeed".

KENTUCKY'S BASKETBALL BARON, by Russell Rice, Sagamore Publishing, Champaign, Ill., 1994. "I'm glad I had the opportunity to play basketball for the University of Kentucky. He was one of the great coaches. Many of the offensive philosophies we had in the '60s in college basketball would not apply in the NBA, but the discipline, structure, and organization are very important. Adolph had a lot to do with that"…Pat Riley, forward to KBB.

FIRST CATS: Amazing Origins of the UK Sports Tradition, by Tom Stephens, Oakleaf Publishing, Inc., 2006. Tom Stephens is the editor of Kentucky Ancestors –the genealogical publication of the Kentucky Historical Society. In this, his first book, Tom plows some old ground, which he presents in a nice package. His best chapter discusses the integration of UK's football team.

Echoes of Kentucky Basketball: The greatest Stories Ever Told, by Scott Stricklin, (Foreward by Tubby Smith), Triumph Press, 2006. Scott Stricklin is the assistant athletics director/men's basketball contact at the University of Kentucky. Former Wildcat Coach Tubby Smith is the new basketball coach at the University of Minnesota.

The Thin Thirty: The Untold Story of Brutality, Scandal and Redemption for Charlie Bradshaw's 1962 Kentucky Football Team, by Shannon Ragland, The Set Shot Press, Louisville, 2007. Ragland gives a detailed account of a faithful UK football season, providing intimate portraits of the key participants, from the coaches to the players to the corrupting predators off the field. This is the true story of a football team that overcame the darkest of scandals to become forever known as legends.

Russell Rice is the former Sports Information Director for the University of Kentucky.