Tom Payne was a 7'1" All-State senior at Louisville's Shawnee High School. A lanky, easy-going kid, Tom told reporters he loved to block shots. He wanted badly to play for the major power in the state, the Kentucky Wildcats. Only one problem. The year was 1968. Tom was African-American. UK's coach was 70-year-old Adolph Rupp. And in his 40 years in Lexington, "The Baron" had never had a black player on his team. However, he recruited Tom to be his first. Payne's parents paid his $2,000 tuition to attend Kentucky his freshman year (1969-70) so that he could become academically eligible to earn a basketball scholarship. The university had been integrated for some time. In fact, black players had participated in football and track. With a wife and infant daughter, Tom made the grades to play his sophomore year. Considered a racist in many quarters and known to be very difficult on all his players, Rupp did his best to shield Payne. Vanderbilt had already graduated an African-American player, and three other SEC schools had black players. Nevertheless, the young giant faced tremendous pressure. He endured vicious racial epithets during games at Ole Miss, Mississippi State, and Alabama. Even at home games, his family overheard slurs from the Wildcat fans. Despite the distractions, Payne had a good year, averaging 16.9 ppg as UK won another SEC championship during a 22-6 year. Tom scored 34 against Georgia and 39 against LSU. His future looked bright.

But behind the scenes, the picture was not so rosy. He had nine hours of incomplete course work that would have to be made up to keep him eligible. And in the summer of 1971, he was stopped for speeding in his new Cadillac. Having been drafted by the Atlanta Hawks, Payne decided to turn pro.

On the morning he was to leave for Atlanta, police arrived at his home in Louisville. A rape victim had identified him as her assailant after seeing his picture in the newspaper. However, since the police report listed her attacker as 6'3" and not 7'2," he was allowed to play the 1971-2 season for the Hawks, where he averaged only 4.1 points in 29 games.

History of the Metro Conference

The Metro Conference was formed in 1975 by six schools that did not belong to any conference. The six charter members were Cincinnati, Georgia Tech, Memphis State, Louisville, St. Louis, and Tulane. The name was chosen because all were city (metropolitan) schools. They remained independent in football (with St. Louis not fielding a gridiron team). The primary sport for the new league was basketball because that same year the NCAA expanded its basketball tournament to 32 teams and included at-large teams that were not conference champs for the first time.

Changes in conference makeup started immediately.

• 1976: Florida State joined but remained independent for football.
• 1978: Georgia Tech left for the ACC.
• 1979: Virginia Tech joined.
• 1982: Southern Mississippi joined. St. Louis left for the Midwest City Conference.
• 1983: South Carolina joined.
• 1984-1989: Tulane dropped its basketball program as a result of a point-shaving scandal but remained a conference member in all other sports.
• 1991: Florida State left for the ACC, South Carolina joined the SEC, and Cincinnati and Memphis transferred to the Great Midwest Conference, another league that emphasized basketball. UNC Charlotte, South Florida, and Virginia Commonwealth joined the Metro.

The conference succeeded in its goal of becoming a force in basketball.

• Denny Crum's Louisville Cardinals reached five Final Fours in 11 years, with two national championships (1981 and 1986).
• Memphis made the Final Four in 1985.
• Basketball attracted lucrative TV contracts and March Madness payoffs.
• The Metro held a well-attended basketball tournament each season from 1976-1995.

As football revenue began to dominate athletic departments' plans in the early 1990s, the Metro tried to capitalize on the impending changes in the NCAA landscape to expand and add football at the same time. The conference held a two-day meeting with eight possible new members: Boston College, East Carolina, Miami, Pittsburgh, Rutgers, Syracuse, Temple, and West Virginia. Miami called the Metro a "viable option" that would unite them with their in-state rivals, the Seminoles.

However, two months later Louisville football coach Howard Schnellenberger publicly opposed conference affiliation for his sport, saying it would hamper his ability to play a national schedule. He specifically wanted no part of a conference with such lackluster football schools as Cincinnati, Memphis, Tulane, and Virginia Tech.

Another blow came in September 1990 when FSU announced it would join the Atlantic Coast Conference for all sports. Then the Big East, one of the Metro's rivals in basketball, announced it would start a football league that would include most of the schools the Metro had targeted for expansion.

In 1995, what was left of the Metro merged with the Great Midwest Conference, another conference that didn't sponsor football, to form Conference-USA. A year later C-USA became a football league also, although a number of members did not participate on the gridiron.

If you followed all the comings and goings listed above, you will notice that the only school that stayed in the Metro all 20 years of its existence was Tulane.