The UK basketball great who went on to play in the NBA, ABA and Major League Baseball
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We Meet Again
The Lexington Herald-Leader and Kentucky.com are publishing a series of stories catching up with former University of Kentucky athletes. Click here to read all of the installments published previously.
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Editor’s Note: This article is part of a series in which the Herald-Leader is catching up with former University of Kentucky athletes.
Cotton Nash peered across the baseball diamond. His boyhood hero was climbing out of the opposing dugout.
On one of his first days as a member of the Chicago White Sox, Nash, the former Kentucky Wildcats basketball star, sat in the visitors’ dugout at Yankee Stadium.
Across the way, wearing the familiar No. 7 on his New York Yankees pinstripes, was Mickey Mantle.
“My childhood idol,” Nash said. “That was a thrill for me, my gosh, yes.”
There is no way to definitely answer the question, “Who was the most versatile athlete ever to play basketball for the University of Kentucky?”
It is safe to say Charles Francis “Cotton” Nash would be high on that list.
UK matinee idol
What Rex Chapman was to the Kentucky Wildcats basketball experience in the 1980s, what Kyle Macy was to the 1970s, Nash was to the 1960s.
The UK hoops star who crossed over and became a statewide matinee idol.
Hollywood handsome with a distinctive thatch of blonde hair (the inspiration for his nickname), Nash was a star from the moment he joined Adolph Rupp’s varsity in 1961-62.
Forced to play pivot at 6-foot-5, 220 pounds on undersized Kentucky teams, Nash averaged a double-double for his UK career — 22.7 points and 12.3 rebounds.
“Cotton was a tremendous athlete. Really good speed for a guy his size,” says Nash’s former UK teammate Larry Conley. “He had a lot of strength, (and) great moxie about how to play the game.”
Nash was born and spent his early years in New Jersey. As a little boy, he fell in love with baseball — and Mantle.
Yet, when Cotton was 11, his father’s job transfer took the family to Indiana. The move to a place where basketball was king initiated the process that brought Nash to UK.
Cliff Barker, one of the starters on Kentucky’s 1948 and ‘49 NCAA title teams, coached Nash in Indiana. “(Barker) tipped Adolph off about me,” Nash says.
Before Nash’s junior season, his dad was again transferred. Cotton wound up playing his final two high school seasons in Lake Charles, La.
By his senior year, Nash’s athletic prowess was such that LSU recruited him for football, Kentucky and UCLA wanted him for basketball and major-league baseball scouts vied for his signature.
“I wanted to go in the SEC and the only place logical if you wanted to play basketball, at that time, was Kentucky,” Nash says.
At UK, Nash made the AP All-America team all three seasons. He left college as Kentucky’s all-time leading scorer (1,770 points, a record Dan Issel soon shattered).
Yet in Nash’s three seasons of varsity play, UK won only one NCAA Tournament game.
Still, Nash left a lasting mark on UK basketball.
In his 1976 book “Kentucky Basketball’s Big Blue Machine,” author Russell Rice noted that, before Nash, UK home games in Memorial Coliseum did not routinely sell out.
But when season tickets went on sale before Nash’s senior year, Rice wrote that the lines to buy them were longer than a city block.
“From that point on, there would be no season UK basketball tickets for sale to the general public,” Rice wrote. “‘The House that Rupp Built’ had become ‘The House that Cotton Filled.’”
NBA, ABA and MLB
In the 1964 NBA Draft, the Los Angeles Lakers selected Nash in the second round with the 14th overall pick. The Los Angeles Angels signed him to a professional baseball contract, too.
Nash was now a two-sport, professional athlete.
“Looking back on it, I’m not real sure how I did it,” he says. “I never had an offseason. I went consistently from one sport to the next with no off days.”
In his rookie season (1964-65) in the NBA, Nash averaged 3.0 points and 1.8 rebounds in 45 games split between the Lakers (25) and the San Francisco Warriors (20).
After that season, he made the decision to leave the NBA. “Baseball was always my first love,” he says.
In 1967-68, the Kentucky Colonels of the newly formed American Basketball Association put the full-court press on Nash to come back to the commonwealth to play hoops.
“I think the only reason they signed me, they wanted to see if the fans would still come out to see me play,” Nash says.
In 39 games with the Colonels, Nash averaged 8.5 ppg and 4.9 rpg. However, when baseball spring training fired back up, he left basketball behind for good.
Overall, Nash spent nine seasons playing professional baseball, mostly in the minors.
A power-hitting first baseman/outfielder, Nash had some monster years in Class AAA. He belted 28 homers for Indianapolis in 1967, 33 for Evansville in 1970 and 37 with 102 RBI for Portland in 1971.
Yet in “cups of coffee” with the White Sox (1967) and Minnesota Twins (1969 and ‘70), Nash logged only 16 career major-league at-bats and collected three hits and two RBI.
Back to Kentucky
After retiring from professional baseball in 1972, Nash made his life in Lexington. He and his wife, Julie, met as UK students.
The couple has raised three children, who have given them eight grandchildren.
Nash, 77, has kept his hand in competitive sports through breeding and racing standardbred horses.
Rock N Roll Heaven, a horse bred by Nash and associates, was a world-champion pacer and the 2010 Horse of the Year. Artistic Vision, a mare owned by Nash, was elected into the Harness Racing Hall of Fame in 2011.
Of all the players who have played basketball at Kentucky, it’s hard to imagine anyone has enjoyed a more varied athletics career than Nash.
According to Baseball Almanac, only 12 men have played in both the NBA and Major League Baseball.
Nash is one of them — and he played in the ABA, too.
“I’m on a very short list of guys,” Cotton Nash says. “And I’m grateful for that unique experience.”
Q and A
1. What do you remember most about Coach Adolph Rupp?
“Contrary to today’s coaches who run up and down the sidelines screaming, Coach Rupp prepared us in practice. He sat on the bench (during the games) and rarely got up except to yell at one of the officials’ calls.”
2. Was there ever a time when you questioned picking Kentucky?
“No, no, not at all.”
3. If you hadn’t picked UK, to which college would you have gone?
UCLA. “I was actually more heavily-recruited by John Wooden when I was in high school. And I was real impressed with their campus and the Southern California atmosphere.”
4. What is your favorite on-field memory as a Wildcat?
No. 1 Kentucky 81, No. 9 Duke 79, on New Year’s Eve, 1963, in the finals of the Sugar Bowl Classic in New Orleans.
5. What’s the most recent UK sporting event you attended?
Kentucky 38, Toledo 24, 2019 UK football season opener.
6. Who has been your favorite UK player to watch during the past few seasons?
Tyler Herro. “I really liked how he played, he really impressed me. ... He played similar to how I played. He could go outside. He could go inside. He could drive. And that was my game.”
7. Who was your sports idol growing up?
Mickey Mantle.
8. What do you wish someone had told you before you began your college sports career?
“My parents, I was destined to go to college. At the time, (my dad) wasn’t making that much money. He appreciated me getting a full scholarship, that’s for sure. He did everything possible to make that happen.”
9. What is your biggest regret from your time at Kentucky?
“I really didn’t have many. I enjoyed my stay (at UK), played basketball, baseball and I was even on the track team (throwing the discus) a couple of years. I enjoyed going to classes, playing three sports and enjoying the college experience.”
10. Which of your former UK teammates do you stay in contact with the most?
Ron Kennett, Randy Embry and John Adams.
This story was originally published April 13, 2020 at 7:27 AM.
