- Name
- George Yates
- Position
- Center
- Class
- Senior
- Hometown (Last School)
- Elizabethtown, KY
- Ht
- 6'4"
- Wt
- 183
- Seasons
- 1929-30, 1930-31, 1931-32, 1932-33
- Birthday
- May 3, 1910
George Yates was born George Milton Yates in Elizabethtown, Kentucky, on May 3, 1910, to Charles Milton Yates and Mattie Cecil Yates. Yates was a member of the University of Kentucky men’s basketball team during the early 1930s, a significant era that saw the Wildcats emerge as a southern powerhouse under legendary head coach Adolph Rupp.
Yates starred in football and basketball at Elizabethtown High School.
Yates, known as “Big George” or “Bull,” participated in basketball, track, and football at Kentucky. He played on the first Kentucky team coached by Adolph Rupp, and he was named All-Southern in the 1931 Southern Conference Tournament. He was co-captain of the basketball team for the 1932 season but was forced to sit out due to appendicitis. He was also a member of Sigma Alpha Epsilon, a social fraternity.
He graduated from Kentucky in 1933 with a bachelor of arts in education. His first teaching and coaching gig was at Shepherdsville High School in Kentucky.
George Yates retired as principal of St. Augustine (Florida) High School and was a former member of the St. Johns County (Florida) School Board. Before moving to St. Augustine in 1952, he was a coach, teacher and superintendent of schools at Versailles, Kentucky. In St. Johns County, he was first a teacher at Ketterlinus and then principal at St. Augustine High School, and later was elected to the School Board.
Yates passed away on June 4, 1988, at the age of 78 in DeLand, Florida.
