Rodney Clark "Hot Rod" Hundley (October 26, 1934 – March 27, 2015) was an American professional basketball player and television broadcaster.

Hundley played college basketball for the West Virginia Mountaineers and was selected by the Cincinnati Royals with the first overall pick of the 1957 NBA draft.

In 2003, Hundley received the Curt Gowdy Media Award from the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.

His love and talent for the game led him to achieve honors in high school and most notably during his college years.

His dribbling antics and daredevil maneuvers on the floor led to his popular nickname, "Hot Rod".

[1] A native of Charleston, West Virginia, Hundley showed evident talent for the game during his youth.

At Charleston High School in West Virginia he averaged 30 points per game, breaking the state's four-year scoring record in just three years.

Hundley was the fourth player in NCAA history to score more than 2,000 points during his career—and he did it in three years, because freshman then could not play varsity basketball.

He also often took hook shots at the free throw line and also would hang off the rim waiting for a lob pass from a teammate.

[2] In January 2010, WVU retired his number 33, making Hundley and West the only players in school history to be awarded the honor.

In 1957, the Cincinnati Royals made Hundley the first pick of the NBA draft and immediately traded his rights to the Minneapolis Lakers.

[5] Hundley played for the Lakers in Minneapolis and Los Angeles from 1957 until 1963, averaging 8.4 points per game and recording over 1,400 assists.

[7] That postseason, Hundley and the Lakers nearly made it back to the NBA Finals for the second year in a row, but lost in a tough seven-game series to Bob Pettit and the St. Louis Hawks in the Western Division Finals, where Hundley averaged 10.9 points, 6.6 rebounds, and 6.1 assists per game.

As the decade wore on, nearly all NBA teams eventually moved radio broadcasters from court-side to perches high above the court, and the strain on Hundley's surgically replaced hips and knees became too much for him to bear.

[10] After retirement, Hundley surfaced alongside Joel Meyers on KCAL's televised Lakers broadcasts as a fill-in color commentator for Stu Lantz.

In 2003, he received the Curt Gowdy Media Award from the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame – the only former professional player to achieve such an honor.

A newspaper once incorrectly reported Hundley wrote a book entitled The Man With a Lot to Smile About, and other sources have persisted in repeating the error.

[citation needed] Hundley appeared in the 2006 movie Church Ball starring Fred Willard and Clint Howard.

[1][11] During the off-season, Hundley regularly conducted basketball clinics around the country and worked with charities in the Salt Lake City area until withdrawing from the public eye due to Alzheimer's disease in his final years.

For a time, he also hosted the Hot Rod Hundley Celebrity Golf Tournament to benefit the Salt Lake Shriners Hospital.