played freshman basketball and one year of varsity basketball in the "Fabulous Five" era at the University before transferring to the University of the South at Sewanee, Tenn., where he set a school single game scoring record and was team captain. Coach Lon Varnell, upon retirement, rated Hall as No. 1 of the three best players he ever coached.
After touring Europe with the Globetrotters in 1951, Hall returned to U.K. in 1955 to complete requirements for his B.A. and later (1964) received his MA. at Colorado State University.
Returning to U.K. again in 1965 as assistant coach and head recruiter, he was instrumental in adopting a running-conditioning program which obviously paid huge dividends as the Wildcats capitalized on speed and endurance to offset a lack of size and advance to the championship game of the NCAA Finals. Hall then successfully recruited six prep All-Americans, including all-time U.K. scoring leader Dan Issel, to form the nucleus of a varsity team that won three straight conference championships and was followed by a team that won three more consecutive SEC titles.
Hall became No. 1 varsity assistant and head freshman Coach to Rupp after Harry C. Lancaster was named permanent athletic director Feb. 1, 1969. His record with the freshmen was 60-15, including an undefeated (22-0) season (1971-72) which resulted in the Kittens being crowned National Freshman Champions by the Basketball News.
During his first season as head coach, the Wildcats won their last nine conference games to sew up the SEC title.
International Flavor
Hall's basketball renown has attracted world-wide attention in international circles and has catapulted him into a much sought-after clinician and guest speaker.
He has taken Wildcat teams on tours of Australia and Japan, where he conducted clinics and shared his basketball philosophy. Following a 1978 summer tour of Japan, the Japanese were so taken with Hall's approach they sent two coaches to study the "Kentucky Way"  Mototaka Kohama in 1979 and Suehiro Nishio in 1980.
Hall was instrumental in landing an invitation to the University of Alabama for a '79 summer tour of Japan and later accepted an invitation to join the Bama delegation.
Two weeks after returning to the U.S., the Japan National Team arrived in Lexington, where Hall, serving in an advisory role, put them through the same conditioning and practice routines that have kept the Wildcats at the top of the collegiate world.
Hall's efforts never shone more brightly when the Japanese team placed 11th at the 33 team World University Games in Mexico City this summer after finishing 25th the year before. The Japanese credited Hall and the month they spent in Lexington for their dramatic climb up the International ladder of success.
In 1978, Hall coached the United States All-Stars, a group of collegians that included five of his own players, to the first World Invitational Tournament championship with wins over Cuba, Yugoslavia and Russia. Later that summer, he conducted a series of clinics in Holland, Belgium, Yugoslavia, Israel, Greece and England.
Hall was a busy man in off-season 1979 as well, coaching the victorious East team in the East-West College All-Star game at Salt Lake City, and the Southeastern All-Stars in the Shoney Classic at Charlotte, N.C. And last Sept., he again was called upon to conduct clinics in Warsaw, Copenhagen and London.
Hall considers one of his major coaching honors came when he was named guest lecturer for the World Basketball Coaches Congress in the Canary Islands, July 1977, before some 400 coaches from the international set.
He was a member of the 1976 Olympic Basketball Committee, and in 1972 served under Hank Iba in the Olympic Trials at the Air Force Academy.
While at Regis in Denver, he also coached the Capital Federal host team in the 1964 AAU tournament and was selected as head coach of the AAU Stripes in the Olympic trials at Jamaica, N.Y.
In addition to the Globetrotters, and the Australian and Japan tours with the Wildcats, he has helped conduct basketball clinics for the U.S. Army in Anchorage and Fairbanks, Alaska (1968) and at Ramstein Air Base in Frankfurt, Germany and the RAF Base at Mildenhall, England in 1975.
He is married to the former Katharine Dennis of Harrison County, Ky. They have three children  Mrs. Rick Derrickson and Steve of Lexington, and Mrs. Mike Summers of Greenville, S.C.