Mark Pope and Adolph Rupp will make a good trivia question in the near future.
Other than playing or coaching hoops on national championship teams at UK, the duo of Pope and Rupp will have something else in common some day.
When Pope completes his medical degree, he would join the legendary coach as the graduates of prestigious Columbia University in New York City.
Rupp, the second-winningest coach in NCAA basketball history with 876 victories at this writing, received his master's degree in educational administration in 1930 before arriving at Kentucky.
The likeable Pope, who recently retired from NBA where he spent several years mostly as a backup 6-10 center, had decided to eventually enter a new but challenging career in medicine a few years ago. This past spring he learned that he was accepted into Columbia's College of Physicians and Surgeons and enrolled there several months ago. Two other institutions, Yale and the University of Colorado, also wanted him.
“I never considered medicine as an undergrad at UK (in the mid-1990s). It wasn't until midway through my pro career that I really took the possibility seriously,” the 34-year-old Pope said in an e-mail interview with this columnist. “My growing interest was really a confluence of several different factors. I had two good friends while I was playing with the (Milwaukee) Bucks. One was a med student and the other was a resident. I loved the stories that they would tell me about their work and they later encouraged me as I began the process.
“I had always loved the work that we did in hospitals through the NBA. I knew that I loved working with people and hearing their stories. I also loved that the work was all about helping people. Unbelievably cliché, I know, but true nonetheless. In the NBA I spent 90 percent of my time working on my very limited game and 10 percent of my time working in the community. That 10 percent was the good stuff.
“I'm confident that medicine will flip-flop those percentages so that most of my time will be focused on the good stuff. The heart of medicine is service. The work is personal, intimate and important.”
Pope, who was nominated as one of UK's two Rhodes Scholarship candidates in 1995, also knew that he need a challenge in his life after his NBA career.
“I love that feeling of not being quite sure whether or not you can do it -pushing the envelope. I love to compete on the floor and I love to compete in the classroom,” explained Pope, whose best NBA season was in 2000-01 when he started 45 of 63 games played with the Bucks.
“I really do look at a test in the same way I look at matching up with Syracuse. I want to kick its tail - take no prisoners - and talk a little trash along the way. I'm sure some of my classmates think I'm nuts, but I love it. I expect that when I'm practicing medicine I will feel the same way about disease. I love the challenge. I love the idea of competing against disease with patients as my teammates.”
And his family, especially his wife, Lee Anne, is very pleased that they are living in the Big Apple and that Pope, who is known for his humorous one-liners, has another career on the way. His wife spent four years in New York City where she worked as comedian David Letterman's personal assistant.
“Lee Anne is just relieved that I'm doing something,” said Pope, who calls his wife the smartest, most able person that he has ever met. “As we have considered retirement (from basketball) over the last few years, she has had a recurring nightmare where I'm laying on the couch at 4:00 in the afternoon, unshaven, unbathed, still in my pajamas holding a bag of potato chips, a soda, and the remote control watching Dr. Phil.
“While she thinks her husband is nuts, she couldn't be more excited about this adventure. My daughters are excited, too. My oldest daughter, Ella, has started kindergarten (about a couple of months ago). She was so excited that she and I would be able to come home and do our homework together!”
In recent years, while he was in the NBA, Pope had to take some courses like physics and chemistry to meet the pre-med requirements.
“It was tough but fun to take the classes during the season,” commented Pope. “The guys (teammates) thought it was hilarious. It was actually a little easier then, because there were always a few students in class who didn't care about science and they would help the curve. I'm now surrounded by classmates who have spent the last four years working at NASA or the NIH (National Institutes of Health) or with Doctors without Borders (medical humanitarian organization) in Nigeria and they all love me because of what I do to the curve!”
While at UK, Pope was not a typical basketball player. He had many other interests. He loved to read. He loved to write essays. He loved cycling. He loved milking cows. He was an honor student with a bachelor's degree in English. He didn't allow his Wildcat popularity to cloud his proper perspective on life.
He also thought about teaching English at a four-year university after his playing days had ended. Even a chapter about Pope in a 1998 UK hoops book (authored by this columnist) was titled “Professor Pope.”
Scoring wise, Pope's best game at Kentucky came against Maryland when he had a career-high 26 points in UK's come-from-behind 96-84 victory as a senior in the 1995-96 season opener. Pope, one of the team's three captains, and his teammates dominated the nation with a remarkable 34-2 mark that season and led the Cats to the national championship.
Pope, who also played a couple of years at Washington in the Pac-10 Conference before transferring to Kentucky, said he doesn't really have any favorite NBA memories, but he enjoyed seeing his former Wildcat teammates when their pro teams faced each other.
“I would get to see everyone (from UK) at least a couple of times a year and I loved talking smack about college basketball,” said Pope. “Many people don't realize that NBA guys don't have much loyalty to the pro teams that they are with because most guys have been with several different teams.
“So what the guys argue about is who had the best college program. Thanks to Coach P, Walter, Tony, Derek, Ron, Nazi, Jeff, Antoine, Scott, Anthony, Allen, Jared, and all the UK players that came before and after me, the conversation basically ends whenever I come in the room because everyone - whether it is Carmelo Anthony, Reggie Miller, Ray Allen, Sam Cassell, Latrell Sprewell, Kenyon Martin, especially Marcus Camby and Andre Miller - all know and readily acknowledge that there is NOWHERE like the University of Kentucky.”
Jamie H. Vaught, a longtime sports columnist in Kentucky, is the author of four books about UK basketball. He is currently a professor at Southeast Kentucky Community and Technical College in Middlesboro and can be reached by e-mail at CatsUpClose@yahoo.com.
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