Hall of Fame Professional Basketball Broadcaster, Professional Basketball Player. For six seasons (1957 to 1963), he played at the shooting guard and point guard positions in the National Basketball Association with the Minnesota/Los Angeles Lakers. For thirty-five years (1974 to 2009), he served as the voice of the New Orleans/Utah Jazz television and later radio broadcasts. Born Rodney Clark Hundley, he attended Charleston High School in West Virginia and played collegiate basketball at the University of West Virginia. While with the Mountaineers, he achieved All-American status and set a team record, when he scored 62 points as a freshman in a contest against Ohio State University in 1954. Additionally, he set a team single-game record with his 54 points, which came against Furman. During this period, he earned his nickname "Hot Rod" for his unorthodox way of dribbling and shooting the ball. His success as a collegiate player earned him the distinction as being the number one overall selection by the Cincinnati Royals during the 1957 NBA Draft. He was acquired by the Lakers and during the course of his career, he totaled 431 regular season games. Hundley contributed to the Lakers' reaching of the NBA Finals three-times (1959, 1962 and 1963) and individually achieved all-star status twice (1960 and 1961). Following his retirement as a player, he began a lengthy career as a broadcaster, initially with the Los Angeles Lakers and later the Phoenix Suns. Hundley joined the Jazz broadcast team in 1974, when the franchise was located in New Orleans and remained with them following their relocation to Utah in 1979. Hundley established himself as a beloved broadcaster who coined the phrase "You gotta love it, baby" as he called games during the era of Hall of Fame players Karl Malone and John Stockton. Hundley was acknowledged by the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, as the recipient of the Curt Gowdy Award in 2003. He was inducted into the University of West Virginia Sports Hall of Fame in 1992 and his uniform number 33 was retired by the school in 2010. He died of complications from Alzheimer's disease.