After enlisting, he attended the United States Naval Academy and joined the Navy football team as a running back during the 1940 season.

He played the doubles match partnering Jack Kramer which they lost to John Bromwich and Adrian Quist.

[7] In September 1943, he won the United States singles championship at Forest Hills while lying on the ground.

[8][9] On match point, Hunt collapsed with leg cramps while his opponent, Jack Kramer, who due to food poisoning had lost 19 pounds during tournament,[1] hit a return that barely went long.

[1] Pancho Segura, who had lost to Kramer in the semifinals, described Hunt as "a strong guy, big serve and volley, and took to grass, coming from the Southern California concrete".

On February 2, 1945, close to his 26th birthday, Hunt was killed on a routine gunnery training mission off Daytona Beach, Florida when the fighter airplane that he was piloting, a Grumman Hellcat, went into a spin at an altitude of 10,000 feet from which he failed to recover.