Former NBA player and Wyoming star Kenny Sailors died Saturday at age 95.
Sailors died in his sleep at an assisted living home in Laramie, Wyoming, University of Wyoming athletic director Tom Burman said in a statement.
“He touched so many lives,” Burman said. “For years after he moved back to Laramie, he would come to Cowboy and Cowgirl practices and games. He was a great mentor for our student-athletes.”
Sailors, a college basketball Hall of Famer, is given credit by some as the first to shoot the jump shot.
Sailors led Wyoming to the NCAA championship in 1943 as the national player of the year and most outstanding player of the tournament.
From there, he played in the NBA for five seasons, with his final season coming in 1950-51 split between the Boston Celtics and Baltimore Bullets.
Sailors was inducted into the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame in 2012.