Recruitment Banner

Basil Hayden ’20

Brother Basil Hayden was a June 6, 1920 initiate of Beta-Nu Chapter. He joined the Chapter Celestial on January 9, 2003 at the age of 103.

He was the University of Kentucky’s first All-American basketball player. He was born in Stanford Kentucky and was a graduate of Paris High School. He graduated from the University of Kentucky in 1921.

Of all the words said about Basil Hayden, the most poignant perhaps, were those written that appeared in the Atlanta Constitution after UK defeated the University of Georgia in the 1921 Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association’s first championship, “ Hayden, the Kentucky Captain, a blonde Apollo, a Kentucky thoroughbred, if ever one stepped on the turf, has been the thorn in the side of Kentucky’s opponents.”

From the time he first held a basketball, up until his death, he was a “True Blue, Kentucky Wildcat”. His jersey hangs fromtherafters of Rupp Arena. His basketball career began in the sixth grade in Paris, Kentucky, and he went on to play for Paris High School where he had been inducted into the Paris Greyhound Hall of Fame.

In the course of his life, Brother Hayden served in the U.S. Army during World War I , taught school, coached basketball at the University of Kentucky and Kentucky Wesleyan College, sold insurance, did tax work, was a bank officer, was a state bank examiner, and a hospital administrator. He retired in his seventies from the job of treasurer of the Interboard Council, Kentucky Conference of the Methodist Church, holding many leadership positions through the years. He was a member of Rotary International and a most proud and loyal Kappa Sigma.