Kentucky basketball legend Cotton Nash dies at age 80

A Kentucky basketball icon and multi-sport legend has died.

Cotton Nash, who played for Adolph Rupp in Lexington between 1961-64, passed away Tuesday at the age of 80. His son, Patrick Nash, told the Lexington Herald-Leader the former Wildcat had been battling “significant medical issues around Thanksgiving” and was unable to bounce back.

Nash racked up 1,770 points and 962 rebounds over the course of his three-year varsity career in Lexington, leaving as the program’s all-time leading scorer before Dan Issel claimed the record six years later. The 6-foot-5, 220-pound athlete would not only go on to play in the National Basketball League, but Major League Baseball, as well. He is just one of 13 people in history to play both.

A consensus first-team All-American in 1964 and two-time consensus second-team All-American in ’62 and ’63, Nash averaged a double-double over the course of his career at Kentucky, putting up an impressive 22.7 points and 12.3 rebounds per contest.

He was a second-round pick by the Los Angeles Lakers in the 1964 NBA Draft, while the Los Angeles Angels signed him to a professional baseball contract, the start of his multi-sport professional career. Nash would go on to play with the Lakers from 1964-65, then the San Francisco Warriors in 1965 and Kentucky Colonels from 1967-68. Following his time with the Angels, he played with the Chicago White Sox in 1967, then the Minnesota Twins from 1969-70.

“If I had my choice of one man in the country to build my team around, it would be Cotton Nash,” Adolph Rupp once told Sports Illustrated, the multi-sport star gracing the magazine cover.

“As far as I’m concerned, they ought to build a monument to the guy,” the late Cawood Ledford, Voice of the Wildcats from 1953 to 1992, added. “He absolutely carried the program on his back.”

His No. 44 jersey hangs in the rafters of Rupp Arena.