Ralph Boren

Ralph Boren was born on September 4, 1901, in Paducah, Kentucky, where he attended Paducah High School. A 5-foot-10 guard, Boren enrolled at the University of Kentucky and pursued a demanding course of study in civil engineering while participating in both basketball and baseball.

Boren played class basketball during his freshman year before joining Coach George Buchheit’s varsity basketball team as a sophomore in the 1922–23 season. Although he was not a major scorer, he earned recognition for his reliability and defensive play. The university yearbook reported that Boren had “shown up to advantage at guard,” could always be depended upon to give his best and produced work of “stellar quality.”

His defense was particularly evident in two decisive Kentucky victories. In a 33–13 season-opening win over Vanderbilt, Boren joined Captain A. T. “Chuck” Rice and Foster Helm in holding the Commodores’ forwards to only two field goals and disrupting their offense so thoroughly that Vanderbilt was forced to shoot from near midcourt. During Kentucky’s 50–15 victory over Sewanee, Boren replaced Helm and delivered what the Kentucky Kernel described as an “impregnable” defensive performance, combining with Rice to allow the Tigers few uncontested shots.

Boren remained a member of Kentucky’s varsity basketball program throughout his junior and senior years. The 1925 Kentuckian credited him with varsity basketball participation during his sophomore, junior and senior seasons and described him as an especially valuable back guard when called upon to play. His recorded Kentucky career totals were 14 games, two field goals and four points, an average of 0.3 points per game, though those modest offensive statistics do not reflect the defensive responsibilities expected of guards during that era. He also represented Kentucky in varsity baseball during his sophomore and junior years.

Beyond athletics, Boren was active in several campus organizations. He belonged to Triangle, a fraternity for engineering students; the Dicker Engineering Society; the American Society of Civil Engineers; and Mystic Thirteen, an honorary campus society. During his senior year, Boren joined fellow engineering students on an industrial inspection trip that included stops at manufacturing plants in Pittsburgh, Niagara Falls and Buffalo.

That trip produced one of the more colorful episodes of Boren’s college years. He and four classmates—Robert Giovannoli, Fred Chappell, H. P. “Buck” Hedden and J. F. Stevens—purchased a secondhand Ford in Buffalo and drove it back to Lexington. Once they got the temperamental automobile running, they were reportedly “afraid to stop,” completing the journey in two days at a cost of three inner tubes and nine dollars.

Boren graduated from Kentucky in 1925 with a Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering and subsequently worked as a civil engineer. He eventually settled in Decatur, Georgia, where he died on April 1, 1978, at the age of 76. He was laid to rest in Decatur Cemetery.