Larry Gay

Larry Dwain Gay died on Sunday, October 4, 2026, at UofL Health Jewish Hospital in Louisville, Kentucky, at the age of 75. The cause of death has not been made public. His death was announced by Magoffin County Funeral Home in Salyersville and reported by the Courier-Journal on October 5, 2026. The funeral home said arrangements were incomplete and would be announced later.

Larry Dwain Gay grew up in Winchester, Kentucky, the seat of Clark County. He played basketball at George Rogers Clark High School, whose teams were regional champions in 1968 and 1969. "We lost in the quarterfinals to Breathitt County my junior year, and we lost to Maytown my senior year in the quarterfinals," he recalled in 2023. Eastern Kentucky University was one of the last schools on his recruiting list before he chose Florida State. His high school teammate Bobby Newell went on to play for Eastern Kentucky, which Florida State met in the 1972 NCAA Tournament.

Gay played forward for Florida State from 1970-71 to 1972-73 under head coach Hugh Durham, earning three letters and wearing numbers 32 and 21. Over 64 games he averaged 3.7 points and 2.8 rebounds. In 1971-72 the Seminoles went 28-5 and reached the NCAA championship game, beating Eastern Kentucky, Minnesota, Kentucky and North Carolina before losing 81-76 to unbeaten UCLA on March 25, 1972. Gay appeared in the tournament wins over Eastern Kentucky and North Carolina, and the Daily Nebraskan later described him as the team's sixth man. Gay called the Eastern Kentucky game "probably the toughest game we played up until the Final Four game." As of 2023 that team remained the furthest any Florida State team had gone in the NCAA Tournament.

Gay started coaching as an assistant at Florida State from 1974 to 1978. When Hugh Durham moved to the University of Georgia, Gay went with him and spent 11 seasons in Athens, from 1978 to 1989. He worked with future NBA players Dominique Wilkins and Vern Fleming, and was on the staff of the 1983 Bulldogs, who beat North Carolina in the East Regional final and reached Georgia's first Final Four.

In 1989 he joined Denny Crum's staff at Louisville, where he spent seven years. Sports Illustrated named him one of the top ten recruiters in the country in 1992. After resigning from Louisville in 1996 he was out of coaching for several years, then returned as an assistant to Danny Nee at Nebraska, where he was on staff in 1999-2000. He later also had a stint as an assistant at the University of Colorado.

In 1995 the Courier-Journal reported, using telephone records, that Gay had apparently made improper phone contacts with at least two top Kentucky high school juniors during the 1994-95 school year. The paper's reporting began with calls from Jimmy Thompson, a volunteer strength coach and booster, who said he had made calls to recruit Mark Blount with Gay's help. Gay resigned in 1996 during the NCAA inquiry. The NCAA's letter of inquiry listed ten violations between 1991 and 1995 involving Gay, Thompson and former player Samaki Walker. Louisville self-reported nine of them and on November 20, 1996, was placed on two years' probation but kept its postseason and television eligibility.

In 2000 Gay told the Daily Nebraskan: "The bottom line is, we all make mistakes. I made mine, and it's not a big burden on me anymore." He also said that he chose to resign but felt media coverage had blown the violations out of proportion. He said he had become "more careful" in recruiting and never wanted to repeat the mistakes of the past.

Gay was married to Gayle Gay, who died before him. Their son, Dwaine Gay, played college basketball at LaGrange College in Georgia and Union College in Barbourville, Kentucky, then coached for about 30 years, including the Robert D. Campbell Junior High School boys team. Gay's granddaughter Trinity Gay started for the George Rogers Clark girls team, and his grandson Montez Gay was also coming through Winchester basketball. A nephew who went from student manager to Director of Basketball Operations at Louisville wrote in 2026 that his aunt Gayle and uncle Larry had helped open that door for him.

In later life Gay lived in Winchester and was often at George Rogers Clark games. "I'm proud of her as a player, but I'm still granddad," he said of Trinity in 2023.

Gay was known as a master of the living room, the recruiter who sat with families and convinced high school stars to pick his school. He described basketball as all he had ever done. "I missed the preparation, the bus rides, the locker room conversations, the nuts and bolts of it," he said of his years away from coaching. After Louisville he said he looked for overlooked players rather than chasing McDonald's All-Americans, and that he had become a stickler for the rules.

Gay was part of the two deepest NCAA Tournament runs in two programs' histories: as a Florida State player in 1972 and as a Georgia assistant in 1983. He helped recruit and develop players across more than two decades at five schools. In Winchester he was remembered as the patriarch of a basketball family that spans three generations at George Rogers Clark.

Gay was named one of the top ten recruiters in the nation by Sports Illustrated in 1992. He was a three-time letterman at Florida State and a member of the 1972 NCAA runner-up team.