Cliff Hagan

Cliff Hagan

Personal information
Born	(1931-12-09) December 9, 1931 Owensboro, Kentucky
Nationality	American
Listed height	6 ft 4 in (1.93 m)
Listed weight	210 lb (95 kg)
Career information
High school	Owensboro (Owensboro, Kentucky)
College	Kentucky (1950–1954)
NBA draft	1953: 3rd round, 21st overall pick
Selected by the Boston Celtics
Playing career	1956–1969
Position	Small forward
Number	6, 17, 16
Career history
As player:
1956–1966	St. Louis Hawks
1967–1969	Dallas Chaparrals
As coach:
1967–1970	Dallas Chaparrals
Career highlights and awards
NBA champion (1958) 5× NBA All-Star (1958–1962) 2× All-NBA Second Team (1958, 1959) ABA All-Star (1968) NCAA champion (1951) 2× Consensus first-team All-American (1952, 1954)
Career NBA and ABA statistics
Points	14,780 (17.7 ppg)
Rebounds	5,555 (6.6 rpg)
Assists	2,646 (3.2 apg)
Stats at NBA.com
Stats at Basketball Reference
Basketball Hall of Fame
Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame

Clifford Oldham Hagan (born December 9, 1931) is an American former professional basketball player. A 6-4 forward who excelled with the hook shot, Hagan, nicknamed "Li'l Abner", played his entire 10-year NBA career (1956–1966) with the St. Louis Hawks. He was also a player-coach for the Dallas Chaparrals in the first two-plus years of the American Basketball Association's existence (1967–1970).

University of Kentucky

Hagan played college basketball at the University of Kentucky under legendary coach Adolph Rupp. As a sophomore in 1951 he helped Kentucky win the NCAA Championship with a 68-58 victory over Kansas State.

A jersey honoring Hagan hangs in Rupp Arena.

In the fall of 1952, a point shaving scandal involving three Kentucky players (a fourth player, Bill Spivey, a teammate of Hagan's on the 1951 National Championship team, was alleged to have been involved in the scandal but denied the charge) over a four-year period forced Kentucky to forfeit its upcoming season, the senior year of Hagan, Frank Ramsey and Lou Tsioropoulos. The suspension of the season made Kentucky's basketball team, in effect, the first college sports team to get the "death penalty", which actually was nothing more than the NCAA asking members schools not to schedule Kentucky, and not mandating it.

Hagan, Ramsey and Tsioropoulos all graduated from Kentucky in 1953 and, as a result, became eligible for the NBA draft. All three players were selected by the Boston Celtics—Ramsey in the first round, Hagan in the third, and Tsioropoulos in the seventh. All three also returned to play at Kentucky despite graduating. In Kentucky's opening game that season, an 86-59 victory over Temple on December 5, 1953, Hagan scored what was a school single-game record of 51 points; this performance would not be surpassed until 1970. After finishing the regular season (one in which Hagan averaged 24.0 points per game) with a perfect 25-0 record and a #1 ranking in the Associated Press, Kentucky had been offered a bid into the NCAA Tournament. However, then-existing NCAA rules prohibited graduate students from participating in post-season play; the Wildcats declined the bid because their participation would have forced them to play without Hagan, Ramsey and Tsioropoulos.

Upon graduation from Kentucky, Hagan had scored 1475 points, which ranked him third in school history, and grabbed 1035 rebounds, which placed him second, three fewer than Ramsey. In 1952 and 1954, he was named both All-American and First Team All-Southeastern Conference. His uniform number 6 is retired by the University of Kentucky.

Pro basketball

Upon graduation, Hagan, like Ramsey before him, was drafted by the Celtics. Unlike Ramsey, however, Hagan served in the military for two years after being drafted (Ramsey had served in the military for one year after his rookie season). In both of his years in the military (1954 and 1955), Hagan, stationed at Andrews Air Force Base, won Worldwide Air Force basketball championships. After his military service, Hagan and Ed Macauley were traded to the St. Louis Hawks for the draft rights to Bill Russell. In 1958, his second season in the NBA, the Hawks, led by Hagan and Bob Pettit, won the NBA championship (one of the five Western Conference titles the Hawks won during his tenure with them), defeating the Boston Celtics 4 games to 2 in the NBA Finals. Hagan was named to play in five consecutive NBA All-Star Games from 1958 to 1962 (an injury forced him to miss the 1958 classic). In his 10 NBA seasons, Hagan played 745 games and scored 13,447 points for an 18.0 average. Hagan achieved renown and respect well after his career ended, when David Halberstam wrote in his classic book The Breaks of the Game that Hagan was the only white star on the Hawks who welcomed African American teammates like Lenny Wilkens to the team and did not treat them with prejudice.

In 1967, the Dallas Chaparrals of the newly formed ABA hired Hagan as a player-coach. He scored 40 points in his team's very first game. He also played in the very first ABA All-Star Game that season, becoming the first player to play in All-Star Games in both the NBA and ABA. He retired as a player after playing three games during the 1969–1970 season and remained as Chaparral coach until midway into the season. Hagan played in 94 ABA games and scored 1423 points for a 15.1 average. Hagan was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1978, the first ex-University of Kentucky player to be so honored.

Return to Kentucky

In 1972, Hagan returned to the University of Kentucky as the school's assistant athletic director and took over the top job in 1975. He was forced to resign due to recruiting and eligibility violations in November 1988 and was replaced by one-time Kentucky teammate C. M. Newton, the head basketball coach at Vanderbilt University the year before.

In 1993, the University of Kentucky renamed its baseball field in honor of Hagan. It had previously been known as the Bernie A. Shively Sports Center.

NBA/ABA career statistics

Legend

GP	Games played	GS	Games started	MPG	Minutes per game
FG%	Field goal percentage	3P%	3-point field goal percentage	FT%	Free throw percentage
RPG	Rebounds per game	APG	Assists per game	SPG	Steals per game
BPG	Blocks per game	PPG	Points per game	Bold	Career high

†	Denotes season in which Hagan won an NBA championship
*	Led the league

Regular season

Year	Team	GP	MPG	FG%	FT%	RPG	APG	PPG
1956–57	St. Louis	67	14.5	.361	.690	3.7	1.3	5.5
1957–58†	St. Louis	70	31.3	.443	.768	10.1	2.5	19.9
1958–59	St. Louis	72	37.5	.456	.774	10.9	3.4	23.7
1959–60	St. Louis	75	37.3	.464	.803	10.7	4.0	24.8
1960–61	St. Louis	77	35.1	.444	.820	9.3	4.9	22.1
1961–62	St. Louis	77	36.2	.470	.825	8.2	4.8	22.9
1962–63	St. Louis	79	21.7	.465	.800	4.3	2.4	15.5
1963–64	St. Louis	77	29.6	.447	.813	4.9	2.5	18.4
1964–65	St. Louis	77	22.6	.436	.799	3.6	1.8	13.0
1965–66	St. Louis	74	25.0	.445	.854	3.2	2.2	13.7
1967–68	Dallas(ABA)	56	31.0	.489	.789	6.0	4.9	18.2
1968–69	Dallas(ABA)	35	16.5	.510	.854	2.9	3.5	11.1
1969–70	Dallas(ABA)	3	9.0	.615	.500	1.0	2.0	5.7
Career		839	28.7	.454	.799	6.6	3.2	17.7
All-Star		5	17.8	.324	1.000	3.0	2.2	6.2

Playoffs

Year	Team	GP	MPG	FG%	FT%	RPG	APG	PPG
1957	St. Louis	10	31.9	.361	.730	11.2	2.8	17.0
1958†	St. Louis	11	38.0	.502*	.838	10.5	3.4	27.7*
1959	St. Louis	6	43.2	.512	.833	12.0	2.7	28.5*
1960	St. Louis	14	38.9	.422	.817	9.9	3.9	24.2
1961	St. Louis	12	37.9	.443	.812	9.8	4.5	22.0
1963	St. Louis	11	23.2	.464	.698	5.0	3.1	18.5
1964	St. Louis	12	32.7	.429	.833	6.2	4.8	16.3
1965	St. Louis	4	30.8	.453	.500	6.5	1.8	18.5
1966	St. Louis	10	20.0	.454	.926	3.4	1.8	11.3
1968	Dallas(ABA)	3	23.3	.378	.692	4.3	3.0	12.3
1969	Dallas(ABA)	2	22.5	.357	.800	3.0	7.0	9.0
Career		95	32.4	.451	.798	8.0	3.5	19.9

External links

• Template:Basketball-reference