Despite a recent surge in the quality of the
University of Louisville football team, and all UofL sports during the "
year of the cardinal" or "
Louisville slam", college basketball remains the sport of choice in most of
Kentucky.
Western Kentucky University's men's basketball program is one of the ten most winning in the history of the NCAA, and has one Final Four appearance (1971).
Murray State University is a perennial threat to win the
Ohio Valley Conference and appear in the NCAA Tournament, having done so 13 times. However, the question in Kentucky college athletics is most often "Red or Blue?" referring to the primary colors of its two flagship universities – the
University of Kentucky (blue) and the
University of Louisville (red). In recent years, the
Louisville Cardinals have further proven themselves, not only as one of the state's best organized college athletic programs, but elite on the national stage. The University of Louisville Cardinals are consistently the most profitable college sports franchise in the nation, ranking first in Kentucky with a basketball revenue of $42,434,684 during the 2012 fiscal year. Kentucky came in at 5th on the list making $21,598,681. The Cardinals' program has been deemed to have the most equitable fanbase of any school in the country, according to a study conducted by
Emory Sports Marketing Analytics. The University of Kentucky is ranked 7th on the list.
The Battle for the Bluegrass The rivalry between the
North Carolina Tar Heels and the
Duke Blue Devils is perhaps the only in-state basketball rivalry that compares on a national scale to the rivalry between the
Kentucky Wildcats and
Louisville Cardinals. A 2006
Lexington Herald-Leader article stated that interest in UofL sports is surging across the state of Kentucky, especially in
Hopkinsville and
Owensboro. An October 21, 2006
Louisville Courier-Journal article also stated that the total sales of UofL merchandise has tripled since 2001 and that the school now ranks 32nd nationally in sales, up from 41st in 2001. UofL ranks 2nd in the
Big East Conference and the 3rd highest among all urban universities (to
Southern California and
Miami) in merchandise sales. UK's merchandise sales have steadily remained around 14th in the nation, by far the best in the state. UofL now has more registered collegiate license plates than the
University of Kentucky (18,300 to 17,000); a fourfold increase since 2004. In 1995 UK had a 15,000 plate lead on UofL. It is also important to note that in the last few years the
Louisville Cardinals have been the most profitable college sports franchise in the nation and have been deemed to have the most equitable fanbase of any school in the country according to a few studies. Fuel was added to the fire of this rivalry when
Rick Pitino, the UK coach who led the Wildcats to their 1996 National Title before leaving to become coach of the
NBA's
Boston Celtics, returned to the Bluegrass State to coach the Cardinals in 2001. Many in the state compared the move to the treachery of
Benedict Arnold. The situation was exacerbated by the transfer of underachieving Wildcat
power forward/
center Marvin Stone. Stone's best season with the Cats was his sophomore season, when the former
McDonald's All-American averaged 6.0 points and 4.6 rebounds per game. Under Pitino, however, Stone averaged 10.7 points and 7.3 rebounds for the Cards, including a 16-point, 7-rebound, 2-block performance against the Wildcats in an 81–63 Louisville win on December 28.
College basketball Basketball is the iconic sport in Kentucky today. However, the first organized team on campus is the women's basketball team. Because after the establishment of the sports department, girls often carry out sports activities in response, and female physical educators also take action quickly. Provide professional assistance to any student run sports club. In the past, the relationship between basketball and the Department of physical education was very bad. Florence Stout, director of women's physical education, tried to make this sport a very limited part of her whole teaching plan. There has been no similar project for female students for nearly 20 years. It was not until the end of 1901 that the school council voted to establish a sports department with both men and women. The origin of basketball is very humble. It took almost 20 years to establish itself as a viable sport and the main element of school. Basketball was invented in 1891. Its origin is similar to college football. Charles Eliota repeatedly called for the end of football and basketball when he was president of
Harvard. And football, like basketball, is short of resources and often can't buy the necessary equipment. The famous coach
Adolph Rupp held many positions in the university before basketball was slowly proved. It was many years later that the sports department let him focus on basketball training.
Basketball and race Apartheid also existed in sports for a long time. From the first season in 1930 to his retirement in 1972,
Adolph Rupp signed only one black player throughout his career in Kentucky. It was not until the 1960s that
African American athletes began to be recruited in most regions. Even in the south, where apartheid lasted longer, schools such as
Louisville signed their first black players in the early 1960s.
College football College football started late in Kentucky. Sports historian Ronald Smith pointed out that as early as the 1850s, football originated from the bullying and entrance ceremony of Freshmen in some schools in the eastern United States. Teachers at universities such as
Harvard and
Yale were so shocked that they voted to ban the ceremony. The sport was born in the late 19th century. In 1924, the University of Kentucky's school newspaper, the
Kentucky Kernel, reported that a group of students from the University of Transylvania had football they had seen for the first time in the blue grass area. In 1880, with the efforts of this group of college students, they ordered a football and a rule book and organized an internal game. And in the following ten years, people knew little about these competitions, and sports "had no special management". The first student sports association was established in 1892. Although the team ushered in the first winning season in 1893, it was plagued by various financial problems in the following decades. In the same year, the school council was disturbed by the informal status of sports on the university playground and the violence of football. Raised objections to the existence of the team. In 1900, it was the only team to beat the powerful
Louisville sports club. But with success, more and more accusations came out of thin air that a team in
Lexington hired professional players to play at festivals. Then, in view of these dark statements, football became a valuable symbol of masculinity in America's best universities. As Buck became president, the uncertain status of college sports has changed. He said that football is a symbol of good qualities such as courage and perseverance. For all their success in basketball, the
Kentucky Wildcats have been unable to remain consistently competitive in football. The last two Kentucky football seasons have resulted in an embarrassing 2–10 record. Playing in the brutally competitive
Southeastern Conference, the Wildcats won an SEC title in 1950 under legendary coach
Paul "Bear" Bryant and shared SEC titles in 1976 and 1977 under
Fran Curci. Bryant left the school in 1953; some attribute the move to a conclusion that the football program's popularity would always remain a distant second to the basketball program, at that time coached by
Adolph Rupp, a legend in his own right. UofL hired legendary coach
Howard Schnellenberger in 1984. The team has continued to rise under coaches
John L. Smith,
Bobby Petrino, and
Charlie Strong. On November 2, 2006, the 5th-ranked
UofL football team defeated the 3rd-ranked
West Virginia Mountaineers in what was dubbed "The Dream Game", the second time in
Big East history that two top-5 teams had ever met. The game was ranked as the most-viewed
ESPN Thursday night football game ever. The game marked a new high in a program that had been on the rise for several years. Only one week later the Cardinals were defeated by a third undefeated
Big East team, the upstart and 15th-ranked
Rutgers Scarlet Knights, in what was billed as the biggest college football game in the New York City Metro Area
in 60 years; with the
Empire State Building even being lit with the Rutgers team colors. The game was also one of the highest rated ESPN Thursday Night games ever as a record crowd in
Piscataway, New Jersey stormed the field in celebration. The loss ended the Cardinals' national title hopes, but the team did receive a bid to the FedEx
Orange Bowl. On January 2 the Cardinals defeated Wake Forest 24–13 in the Orange Bowl to claim the team's first BCS Bowl win. More recently, the state has been at the forefront of coaching integration in Division I FBS football. Following the 2009 season, all three of the state's FBS programs filled their coaching vacancies with African Americans. The first to do so was Western Kentucky, who hired
Willie Taggart to replace the fired
David Elson. Louisville followed suit by hiring
Charlie Strong to replace the fired
Steve Kragthorpe. Finally,
Joker Phillips, who had been the designated successor to
Rich Brooks at Kentucky, took over after the latter announced his retirement. The first African American head coach at any of the Division I football programs in Kentucky was
Ron Cooper, who coached at Louisville between 1995 and 1997. The Division I Football Championship Subdivision (FCS)
Eastern Kentucky Colonels have held a long tradition of football success. Until the 2009–2010 season, the Colonels were tied with
Florida State University for the most consecutive winning seasons (32). In that season, EKU finished 5–6. Eastern returned to the FCS Playoffs in the 2011 season, in which it lost to #17 James Madison 20–17 in the opening round. The Colonels have won 20
Ohio Valley Conference (OVC) titles and two FCS (formerly I-AA) National Championships, in 1979 and 1982. Much of Eastern Kentucky's success came during the long tenure of head coach
Roy Kidd, who led the team from 1964 through 2002. The program has continued its success under more recent coaches
Danny Hope and
Dean Hood. In 2022,
sprint football, a variant played under standard NCAA football rules but with a strictly enforced weight limit of (also with a minimum of 5% body fat), came to Kentucky with the establishment of the Midwest Sprint Football League. Two of the six charter MSFL members are the
Bellarmine Knights and
Midway Eagles.
List of NAIA teams List of NJCAA Teams ==Professional sports teams==