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Kentucky football pioneer Houston Hogg, one of the SEC's first black athletes, dies

(Photo: Scott Utterback/CJ )

LEXINGTON — Houston Hogg, one of the four former Kentucky football players honored with a statue outside Kroger Field for breaking the Southeastern Conference's color barrier, died Thursday. He was 71.

A graduate of Daviess County High School in Owensboro, Hogg, who started his high school career in Hazard, enrolled at UK in 1967, one year after the program had signed Nate Northington and Greg Page, the first two African American athletes in the university's history.

After redshirting during their first year on campus, Northington and Page were set to break the Southeastern Conference's color barrier in the 1967 season.