44 Cotton Nash

Cotton Nash was born Charles Francis Nash on July 23, 1942, in Jersey City, New Jersey. He discovered basketball after his family moved to Indiana, where former Kentucky national champion Cliff Barker coached him at Jeffersonville High School. Nash later became a multi-sport sensation at Lake Charles High School in Louisiana. Nicknamed “The Bayou Bomber,” he averaged 34 points per game as a senior, earned Parade All-America honors and received scholarship offers from more than 30 colleges. He also excelled in football, baseball and track and field before choosing Adolph Rupp and Kentucky.

Although only 6-foot-5, Nash could score inside or from long range, rebound against taller centers and handle the ball well enough to play virtually every position. After setting seven Kentucky freshman-team records, he led the varsity in scoring and rebounding during each of his three seasons. Nash earned All-America and first-team All-SEC honors three times, twice led the conference in scoring and helped Kentucky capture two SEC championships. He remains the only Wildcat to average at least 20 points per game as a sophomore, junior and senior. Nash finished his career averaging 22.7 points and 12.7 rebounds in 78 games and was Kentucky’s career scoring leader when he graduated.

Nash scored 25 points in his varsity debut and produced one of the greatest rebounding performances in Kentucky history when he collected 30 rebounds and scored 20 points against previously unbeaten Temple in December 1961. Later that season, he overwhelmed Vanderbilt with 38 points and 16 rebounds. As a sophomore, he averaged 23.8 points, won the SEC scoring championship and became the first sophomore unanimously selected to the All-SEC team. He finished second in the national Player of the Year voting as a senior, while his popularity helped transform Memorial Coliseum into “The House that Cotton Filled.”

Selected 14th overall by the Los Angeles Lakers in the 1964 NBA Draft, Nash played professionally for the Lakers, San Francisco Warriors and Kentucky Colonels. He also spent nine seasons in professional baseball, including parts of three major-league seasons with the Chicago White Sox and Minnesota Twins, becoming one of only 13 athletes to play in both the NBA and Major League Baseball. A three-sport athlete at Kentucky, he earned All-SEC Eastern Division honors in baseball and competed in the discus. Kentucky retired his No. 44 jersey in 1991, and he was later inducted into the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame, Kentucky Sports Hall of Fame and UK Athletics Hall of Fame. Nash died in Lexington on May 23, 2023, at age 80.