UK’s Gerald Smith featured on ESPN’s SEC basketball special
LEXINGTON, Ky. (Feb. 14, 2023) — “I was actually introduced to University of Kentucky basketball in 1971. My African American boy scout troop, Troop 399, sold hotdogs, cokes and popcorn throughout Memorial Coliseum that year as a fund raiser. That's when I saw Tom Payne, a UK basketball player, for the first time. I was 11 years old, growing up in what we called the east end of Lexington. Not until years later would I learn that he was UK's first Black basketball player to receive a scholarship to play on Adolph Rupp’s team.”
That experience led University of Kentucky history professor Gerald Smith to a lifelong exploration of race and sports. Earning all three of his degrees at UK, Smith returned to his hometown and joined the history department in 1993. During his tenure, his interest in analyzing the relationship between race and sports expanded, offering a class on the subject for the first time in 2005.
Because of his research of UK sports, Smith was invited to interview for the ESPN film series “Southern Hoops: A History of SEC Basketball.” During this year’s college basketball season, ESPN’s SEC Network premiered the seven-part documentary, chronicling the origin and progression of the sport for both men and women in the conference, as the sport approaches the 75th anniversary of the first NCAA Championship won by an SEC institution. New episodes debut every Monday night at 9 p.m. through March 13.
Smith is featured on episodes one and two. If you miss any of the episodes, they’re available on https://www.espn.com/watch/ .
The series, directed by “Saturdays in the South: A History of SEC Football” filmmaker Fritz Mitchell, spans the history of SEC basketball, from Vanderbilt participating in the first men’s college game (1893) and Adolph Rupp leading Kentucky to the SEC’s first national title (1948), to basketball through the lens of the civil rights movement, and the emergence of powerhouse women’s programs such as the Tennessee Lady Vols, led by legendary head coach Pat Summitt, and the reigning SEC and NCAA champion South Carolina Gamecocks under Dawn Staley.
Smith’s body of work includes several recorded interviews with members of the 1966 Texas Western team, which are available in the Louie B. Nunn Oral History Center. He also recorded several interviews with former UK Basketball coach Tubby Smith. The history professor has organized panel discussions on race and sports at UK dating back to 1999. In 2015, Smith hosted a panel featuring Nat Northington, the first Black player UK signed to a scholarship and the first in the SEC, and Wilbur Hackett, UK’s first Black football captain.
Recently, Smith completed editing the book “Slavery and Freedom in the Bluegrass State: Revisiting My Old Kentucky Home,” published by University Press of Kentucky. In a chapter titled “Give Us Something to Yell For! Athletics and the Black Campus Movement at the University of Kentucky, 1965-1969,” he focuses on the role of the Black Student Union in recruiting Black student-athletes to UK, their protests at Memorial Coliseum and their interactions with Coach Rupp.
Other works by Smith include:
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