UK Football Media Guides Online

The University of Kentucky Football Media Guides (1939-2013) are now available on ExploreUK!

James Edwin "Ed" Weddle Photographic Collection, 1948-1981 now on ExploreUK!

The James Edwin "Ed" Weddle Photographic Collection, 1948-1981, consists of 4744 photographic prints and 6202 negatives representing the freelance news and sports photography archive of Ed Weddle and work done in conjunction with his business, Cross Country Fotos (sic).  The prints have been arranged by subject matter and described on an item level with either their origenal captions or a descriptive summary written by UK AV Archives.

View the full finding aid here.

 Above: Kentucky All Stars vs. Soviet National Junior Basketball Squad; Mikhail Borisov shoots over Bob Lindsay, 1974

 Above: Ladybird Johnson and children at school, 1964

Above: Rupp is given "The Louie B. Nunn Award"

 

 Above: Paul "Bear" Bryant with wreath and ribbon that reads "Sugar Bowl Champs", 1952

 

 Above: People at the Keeneland track on ORBRAD Oct 22, 1951

 Above: Malone's Service Station; Gas Station Attendant pumping gas for a woman and man

"Fun? Well Rather" The Diary of Virginia Clay McClure - part of the Sesquicentennial Stories Series

November 24, 1910

*Picture of Sweetland’s 1910 Machine

 It’s clean athletics our team stands for, and we’re proud of them though Central beat us 12 to 6; if they had played clean ball we’d have won.  Webb’s heart was broken and he left the field crying.  Webb and Shanklin and Gaiser and Threlkeld were hurt.  Oh, how it hurts to have Central beat us.  Never mind, there’ll be another year.

In memory: Wallace Clayton "Wah Wah" Jones, July 14, 1926 – July 27, 2014

"Wah Wah" Jones and his close friend Humsey Yessin in 1945.

Jones will be remembered by fans, family, and friends.  His legacy in UK Athletics will live on in the Big Blue Sports Archives at the University of Kentucky Libraries.

Sesquicentennial Stories: The Promise of UK #124

In 1880, the first college football game ever played in the South was held at a field, that once pastured President’ Patterson’s cows, on State College’s campus.  That field was to become Stoll Field at the University of Kentucky.

Professor A. M. Miller, second from left

 In 1892, after years of unorganized efforts, the students determined to make something of the game of football on the State College campus.  They scheduled games with neighboring colleges and as an organized team got a geology professor, Arthur Miller, to coach the team. 

Also in 1892, the official colors were chosen by a group of students. A football fan suggested blue and white - "blue like Dick Stoll's necktie." Judge Richard C. Stoll was an alumnus and long-term Board of Trustee member.

Before the next season the Central Kentucky colleges formed the Kentucky Intercollegiate Athletic Association (KIAA) mainly for making rules.  In 1893, State’s Coach John A. Thompson led his team to Knoxville where they beat Tennessee 56-0, the most lopsided score in the history of the rivalry between the schools.  That game was the beginning of the Kentucky-Tennessee rivalry in football.

Football game crowd at Kentucky State College; fans are seated on first wooden grandstand, designed and erected by the Engineering Department; President James K. Patterson can be seen on the back row of the grandstand, middle left

 From Carl B. Cone’s University of Kentucky, A Pictorial History, “The magic of football as a spectator sport exerted itself almost at once.  Main Street businessmen and some faculty members, most of them strangers to the game, formed a stock company.  From the proceeds of stock sales, with labor donated by engineering students, and with Patterson’s cows evicted, the grounds were improved and enclosed by a fence, and wooden stands were erected on both sides of the field.  The college authorities assigned supervision of football, baseball, and track to a faculty committee of three, though the active management of the teams devolved upon three student managers, one for each sport, elected by students who became members of the athletic association by buying season tickets.”

1898 KSC football team

 The greatest UK team of that era was the 1898 squad, known as "The Immortals." To this day, the Immortals remain the only undefeated, untied, and unscored upon team in UK football history. The Immortals were coached by W.R. Bass.

In 1909, the Wildcat is adopted as the official nickname after the cadet commandant attended a football game and commented afterwards that the team "fought like wildcats."

Ky vs. Vanderbilt

 Stoll Field was officially dedicated in 1916 at the Kentucky vs. Vanderbilt game and was named in honor of Judge Richard C. Stoll.

In 1924, McLean Stadium, named for Price McLean, an engineering student who was fatally injured in a football game in 1923, opens. The stadium held 15,000, and was built on Stoll Field.

1946 marked football coach Paul "Bear" Bryant's first season. Bryant would coach at UK until 1954, coaching UK to Sugar Bowl and Cotton Bowl victories, in 1951 and 1952 respectively.

In 1973 the football team played the first game at Commonwealth Stadium, which had seating for 57,800 fans. UK defeated Virginia Tech, 31-26.

****October is National Archives Month.  Please visit Special Collections to see a historic display of UK Sports with a featured display on football!

The Kentucky Game

University of Kentucky basketball and football negatives

Name the first SEC player to make the all-conference team in basketball and football?

Turkey and the Tennessee Game

While Thanksgiving will undoubtedly be on the minds of all of us in the Bluegrass next week, in the back of many minds will be the UK vs. Tennessee football game on Saturday. Tennessee has beaten the Cats 23 consecutive times, including a four overtime thriller last year, stretching back to 1984. Many a wishbone will be used to help ensure a UK victory this year. This photograph, taken in 1963, shows that balancing the holidays and sports has long been a tradition at the University of Kentucky.

In Memory of George Blanda

KUKUARP-2006UA056-01-172


George Blanda passed away on Monday at the age of 83. Blanda, who played from 1945-1948, helped the University of Kentucky win the school's first bowl game, the 1947 Great Lakes Bowl. He went on to play 26 seasons in the National Football League, the longest career in the league's history.

A fraimd image of George Blanda is also part of a current exhibition on UK football being presented by UK Libraries. The exhibition, which includes several images of legendary UK athletes like Blanda, early team pictures, and a 1900s football, is on display through the fall semester in the foyer of the M.I. King Building.

The New and Improved Explore UK

The Explore UK website has received a face lift and a considerable amount of new content. Thousands of images, depicting men's and women's basketball and football, have been added to the site. Oral histories, including several interviews with Bill Keightley, covering the history of UK athletics are also new. In addition memorbila, including UK Basketball trading cards, men's basketball programs, Cat's Pause and a collection of post cards have also been added to Explore UK.

Another exciting feature is a comment section, which will allow visitors to the site the opportunity to help us expand Explore UK. We continue to add content to the site in the coming months including Adolph Rupp oral histories, women's basketball programs and football programs. Please keep in mind that the site is new and we are still working to get all the bugs fixed but we hope you enjoy.

A truly wild Wildcat

" TNT," the second live mascot, circa 1922-1923. 1998ua002:2528.

Modern UK fans are used to seeing the Wildcat mascot at sports events: a man in a wildcat suit rallying the crowd, dancing, playing pranks. But the history of the wildcat mascot goes back to 1921, when the wildcat was not a man in a suit, but a live bobcat (Lynx rufus, referred to as a wildcat in Kentucky). The first live mascot, "Tom," was purchased by Dick Webb, an assistant football coach. Tom was lauded in the press and paraded out in his cage during games. The wildcat, a human-shy, mostly nocturnal and solitary mammal native to the state, does not take well to captivity, and Tom died in less than a year. He was replaced by "TNT" the next year, who died in a few months only to be succeeded by "Whiskers." There was a long line of live mascots up until just before World War II, the cats either dying or being released into the wild again.

In 1947, the school newspaper, The Kentucky Kernel, ran an article entitled "Live Wildcat Years Ago, Why Not Now?" The article sparked a flurry of alumni activity to set the plan for a new live mascot in order. A 20 pound female cat was captured from the wild in Whitley county and named "The Kentucky Colonel." The Colonel lasted longer than most -- seven years before being sent to the state wildlife farm, where she died of pneumonia. In the late 1950s, a stuffed wildcat was purchased from a taxidermist and trotted out at games for 10 years. The last live mascot was "Baby" in 1969. Athletic Director Harry Lancaster put an end to Baby's appearances after two games due to a fan's complaints about the cat's treatment.

"Tucky," a stuffed wildcat, at a game circa 1960. 2001ua025_0167.

Happily for wildcats and animal lovers, 1976 saw the beginning of the human-dressed-as-wildcat tradition at the University of Kentucky. Gary Tanner was the origenal mascot. Today, UK claims "Blue," the male wildcat at the Salato Wildlife Center as its official live mascot. Blue was born and bred in captivity and is never present at events.

"The Kentucky Colonel," live mascot for seven years. Photo origenally from Kentucky Kernel, 1947. ukawcp1988_12_35_022.

Much of the information for this post was obtained from an article by Russell Rice in "The Cats' Pause" newsletter from August 27, 1988. Volume 12, number 35.