Cliff Hagan, the first ex-Kentucky Wildcats player selected to the Basketball Hall of Fame, has died, according to multiple media outlets.
The news was first reported by Cats’ Pause founder Oscar Combs.
The former University of Kentucky athletics director (1975-88) was 94 years old.
A 6-foot-4 forward, Hagan was the first player to achieve what is essentially “the grand slam” for a Kentucky-born basketball player.
In 1949, Hagan led Owensboro High School to the boys’ basketball state championship.
Two years later, Hagan was a key player as a sophomore for Coach Adolph Rupp on the University of Kentucky’s 1951 NCAA championship team.
With the NBA’s St. Louis Hawks, Hagan averaged 27.7 points and 10.5 rebounds in the 1958 playoffs to lead that franchise – now located in Atlanta – to what is still its only league championship.
In 1978, Hagan became the first former UK player enshrined in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Massachusetts.
After his playing days concluded, Hagan returned to Lexington and, in 1975, became athletics director at UK.
As Kentucky athletics director, Hagan presided over the opening of 23,000-seat Rupp Arena in 1976, UK’s 10-1 football season in 1977, and the Wildcats’ 1978 men’s basketball national title.
However, Hagan’s tenure ended on a sour note.
On Nov. 11, 1988, with Coach Eddie Sutton’s UK men’s basketball program engulfed in scandal, the Herald-Leader reported that then-University of Kentucky president David Roselle had decided to fire Hagan.
The athletics director resigned four days later.
In a life of good fortune, that was one of the few times Clifford Oldham Hagan did not come out on top.
Like ‘your first kiss’
Hagan was born on Dec. 9, 1931, the son of Wilbur and Mable (Ashley) Hagan of Owensboro.
As a teen, Hagan’s accomplishments on high school basketball courts for the Owensboro Red Devils earned him statewide renown.
In 1949, Hagan led Owensboro to the final day of the Sweet Sixteen. After the Red Devils beat St. Xavier in Saturday morning’s semifinals in the Louisville Armory, they went back to their hotel to rest before that night’s championship game against Lafayette.
Hagan began to cramp. When it came time to return for the state finals, he had to be lifted off the hotel room floor.
“I wasn’t sure I would even be able to play in the finals,” Hagan said in a 2017 interview.
That night, Hagan scored a then-state-finals-record 41 points to lead Owensboro to the state championship.
Late into his life, Hagan said winning the Sweet Sixteen was the hoops accomplishment he held most dear.
“It’s sort of like your first love, your first kiss,” Hagan said in 2017. “Something that shapes you when you are young has an impact that is hard to match.”
An NCAA champion
Because of his December birth date, Hagan started first grade in the middle of the school year. “My birthday was Dec. 9th,” Hagan said in 2018. “Back then, you started school when you became 6. So I started in January.”
It set the pattern for the rest of his education.
Hagan graduated from high school in December 1949, and enrolled at the University of Kentucky in January 1950. Mid-semester, he joined the Wildcats freshman basketball team that already featured standouts Frank Ramsey and Lou Tsioropoulos.
That meant for the 1950-51 season, Hagan would not be eligible to join Adolph Rupp’s Kentucky varsity until the second semester.
The very strong team Hagan joined was led by star 7-foot center Bill Spivey. It also featured starting guards Bobby Watson and Ramsey and forwards Shelby Linville and Tsioropoulos.
In the 1951 NCAA championship game, Kentucky fell behind Kansas State 20-12. An ill Hagan was on the UK bench with a 102-degree temperature.
Against doctor’s orders, Rupp inserted Hagan into the game.
Hagan made five of six shots and scored 10 points to spark a 68-58 comeback victory for Kentucky (32-2) that gave Rupp his third NCAA title.
The following season was Hagan’s first full year on Rupp’s varsity. He became a full-fledged star. Hagan averaged 21.7 points and 16.5 rebounds on a team that went 29-3 but lost to St. John’s in the NCAA Tournament Eastern Region finals.
The undefeated season
What should have been the senior season for the celebrated UK senior class of Hagan, Ramsey and Tsioropoulos was postponed a year.
For the 1952-53 season, the NCAA forbid its member schools from playing Kentucky. It was punishment for improprieties discovered within the Wildcats program during the point-shaving investigation that ensnared several late 1940s UK stars.
What was essentially a redshirt year for the entire Kentucky team paid benefits in the classroom.
“I actually enjoyed that year off,” Frank Ramsey said in 2015. “There was more time to put into your studies. Lou, Cliff and I graduated. Some of the other guys were able to (eventually) get master’s degrees because of all the academic hours they were able to carry that year.”
UK basketball would pay a steep price for its players’ academic diligence.
Angered by the year’s suspension, Rupp was determined to send college basketball a message when Kentucky returned.
Led by Hagan (24 ppg), Ramsey (19.6) and Tsioropoulos (14.5), Kentucky did just that. UK bested all 25 teams it played in 1953-54 by an average margin of 27.12 points a game. Only Xavier (six points) and LSU (seven) played the Wildcats within single digits.
Alas, Kentucky and its 25-0 record did not advance to the NCAA Tournament.
A little-known NCAA rule of that era forbid graduate students from postseason competition. Hagan, Ramsey and Tsioropoulos were all grad students.
Rupp refused to go to the NCAA tourney without his team’s three best players.
LaSalle – a team Kentucky had beaten by 13 points during the season – won the NCAA championship.
Traded for Bill Russell
Hagan was selected in the third round of the 1953 NBA Draft (the 24th overall pick) by the Boston Celtics. Red Auerbach’s Celts also chose Ramsey (first round, sixth overall pick) and Tsioropoulos (seventh round, 60th pick) in the same draft.
Once Hagan’s UK days ended, however, he had to serve a two-year Air Force commitment.
Before he got a chance to play for Boston, the Celtics traded Hagan and forward Ed Macauley to the St. Louis Hawks for the rights to center Bill Russell.
“Why (the Hawks) traded Bill Russell was (to get) Ed Macauley, who had been an All-American at Saint Louis University, a big-time player,” Hagan said in 2018. “I was just thrown in on the deal. The (Celtics) didn’t know what to do with me at my size.”
Initially, St. Louis and Coach Red Holzman – the future New York Knicks coaching icon – did not know how to use the 6-4 Hagan, either.
Holzman pointed out to Hagan that “‘Frank Ramsey is your size and he plays guard. We need a guard, so why don’t you play guard?’” Hagan recalled in 2018.
That did not work. “I’m not a guard,” Hagan said.
Eventually, a coaching change from Holzman to Alex Hannum and an injury to starting forward Bob Pettit gave the Kentuckian a chance to play forward in the NBA.
“I get a chance to play with Macauley at forward. We do pretty well,” Hagan recalled. “Pettit comes back, but I had added some quickness to the team that the Hawks hadn’t had before. So I became a regular (at forward) with Pettit.”
Playing together for nine years in St. Louis, Hagan and Pettit, the former LSU star, would become one of the best forward combinations in NBA history.
In the 1958 NBA Finals, the duo carried the Hawks past a hobbled Russell (sprained ankle) and the Celtics, four games to two, for the championship.
No player in the 1958 NBA playoffs scored more overall points than Hagan’s 305.
The Hagan hook shot
Hagan could shoot his signature hook shot with either hand and from different spots on the court.
“He didn’t even have to look at the goal (to make a hook shot),” Ramsey said of Hagan in 2018. “He could tell from where he was on the floor how he needed to (direct) his shot.”
Bob Lavoy, a 1940s Western Kentucky University player, was the first pivot man Hagan saw employ the hook.
But it was a trip to Madison Square Garden in New York City for the 1949 NCAA Tournament East Region that expanded Hagan’s concept of what could be done with a hook shot. There, he saw Yale University star Tony Lavelli shooting hook shots from all over the floor.
“I had a little more distance with the right hand,” Hagan said of his own hook shot. “With the left hand, it was usually 5 or 8 feet. I could go 17, 18 feet with the right hand. I remember being on the free throw line at Kentucky and just going out to the top of the key and hooking.”
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar – whose “sky hook” was arguably the most unstoppable shot in basketball history – has said that seeing Hagan succeeding in the NBA with a hook shot in the 1960s impressed on him as a teenager in New York City that the shot was worth developing.
“I have read that,” Hagan said in 2018. “But I have never talked to Kareem.”
Athletics director at Kentucky
Hagan’s tenure with the St. Louis Hawks ended after the 1965-66 season. In 10 NBA years, he made the All-Star Game six times and was twice voted Second Team All-NBA.
He subsequently spent three seasons as player/coach of the Dallas Chaparrals (the franchise that is now the San Antonio Spurs) of the American Basketball Association.
In 1967-68, at age 36, Hagan averaged 18 points and 6.0 rebounds and made the ABA All-Star Game. It made him the first player to play in both the NBA and ABA All-Star Games.
Once his tenure in Dallas wrapped up, Hagan returned to Lexington.
“I started work with a developer for the Lexington Mall,” Hagan recalled in 2018. “A year later, I joined Central Bank, vice president of business development. Then I came to (UK) as a fundraiser for the athletics department. I started the Blue-White fund. That’s the story.”
In 1975, Hagan replaced Harry Lancaster as UK Athletics Director. At the time, the total budget for UK Athletics was $3.5 million.
Hagan’s tenure was punctuated with high points.
Kentucky men’s basketball moved into Rupp Arena (1976) and won an NCAA title (1978).
UK football earned an SEC co-championship (1976) and produced a 10-1 season (1977).
Under Hagan, the Center for Academic and Tutorial Services – CATS – was started to help the academic performance of UK athletes.
Hagan hired successful coaches such as Dennis Emery (tennis), Keith Madison (baseball), Jerry Claiborne (football) and Debbie Yow (women’s basketball).
By 1988, UK’s athletics budget had grown to $13.7 million under Hagan.
As AD, Hagan’s management style was often described as detached. Some believed that UK President Otis Singletary (1969-87) was content with that approach because he wanted control of athletics in the president’s office.
“(Hagan) was Singletary’s man and Singletary was known as the ‘jock’s president,’” said Humsey Yessin, a former UK golf coach, in 2017. “So all the decisions came through Singletary.”
During Hagan’s time as AD, Kentucky was the subject of three NCAA investigations – football and men’s basketball in 1976; men’s basketball in 1988 and then again in 1989.
The third investigation was prompted when a Los Angeles newspaper reported that an air-freight envelope sent from the UK basketball office to the father of a Kentucky recruit had “popped open” in L.A. to reveal $1,000 in cash.
By this point, Singletary was out of office. The new UK president, David Roselle, decided a different approach in the AD’s office was needed.
Via sources, word leaked in November 1988 that Roselle planned to fire Hagan as AD. In response, Hagan told the media he felt he was being made a scapegoat and that Roselle’s proposed dismissal of him was “premature and unfeeling.”
Four days later, Hagan announced his resignation as UK AD.
“I have always tried to do what was right and best for the university,” Hagan said in his resignation statement. “I believe that what I have done today was the right thing to do.”
In a separate statement, Roselle said of Hagan “in every respect, and at all times past and present, he has conducted himself with honesty and integrity, a fact that needs and deserves to be broadcast far and wide.”
A steakhouse, a youth club and a ballpark
Many Kentuckians who came of age in the 1970s and ’80s knew “Cliff Hagan” as a steakhouse.
“Cliff Hagan’s Ribeye” opened on Winchester Road in Lexington in 1972 and grew to include a second Lexington location on Alexandria Drive as well as restaurants in Louisville, Frankfort, Berea and Hazard.
For young people who grow up in Owensboro, “Cliff Hagan” is the local boys’ and girls’ club.
In 1968, Hagan was asked to attach his name to what is now the Boys and Girls Club in the town where he grew up.
“He has supported us financially through the years,” said Steve Winkler, CEO of the Cliff Hagan Boys and Girls Club in 2018. “And he has given his time by attending our annual fundraiser many years.”
For early 21st-century UK sports fans, “Cliff Hagan” was the Kentucky Wildcats’ baseball stadium.
On Aug. 17, 1993, UK renamed its baseball park “Cliff Hagan Stadium.” The Wildcats played in “The Cliff” through 2018 before moving into a new facility for the 2019 season.
Cliff Hagan married the former Martha Milton of Owensboro in 1954. The couple had four children, daughters Lisa, Laurie and Amy and son Cliff Jr. (Kip).
In addition to the Basketball Hall of Fame, Hagan is enshrined in the (state of) Kentucky Athletic Hall of Fame, the Kentucky High School Basketball Hall of Fame, the University of Kentucky Athletics Hall of Fame and the St. Louis Sports Hall of Fame.
In a state that relishes its homegrown basketball players, the name “Cliff Hagan” will always represent hoops royalty.
When Hagan shot a hook shot, he was “the best I ever saw,” said ex-Kentucky basketball coach Joe B. Hall in 2018.
This story was originally published October 16, 2026 at 7:40 AM.
