Rupp-Kentucky Committee Still Looking for Museum Site

A group that wants to establish a museum in honor of Kentucky basketball coach Adolph Rupp is still looking for a site eight years after announcing its plans.

The Rupp-UK Basketball Museum Committee formed in 1978 and began raising money to honor the late coach, who guided the basketball team for 42 years. But so much material was collected, the requirements for space grew.

There was also a dispute over who controls a site that head been suggested for the museum in Lexington Center.

“There have been several different plans and or proposals, but none of them ever was really concrete,” said Tom Minter, a committee member and director of the Lexington Center.

Jim Host, one of the organizers of the effort, said the plans came to a stop about two years ago because of the questions about the use of space in Lexington Center.

But that does not mean the museum will not be built.

“I’d love to see it happen,” Host said. “I’m as enthused as I was before.”

Minter said interest increased when Lexington hosted the 1985 NCAA Final Four. The plan at the time called for using the lobby of Rupp Arena which is attached to Lexington Center.

But questions were then raised on who had control of the lobby, the Lexington Center or the Stearns Co., which owns the Hyatt Regency Hotel.

The dispute “took some steam out of everyone, . . . Rupp Museum is not dead,” said Gerry Calvert, a committee member and an attorney who has represented the Rupp family.