OKLAHOMA CITY ? Big 12 officials gathered here for NCAA regional play mourned the death of Prentice Gautt, a Lawrence resident and longtime conference official who died Thursday.

Gautt, 67, died at Lawrence Memorial Hospital after being admitted Monday with flu-like symptoms, said his wife, Sandra Gautt, a vice provost at Kansas University.

Gautt became a pioneer in breaking racial barriers in college sports when he joined the football team at the University of Oklahoma in 1956. He was the first black man allowed on the team.

“This is definitely a shock to the thousands and thousands of people who knew him,” said Chris Theisen, assistant athletic director at KU who previously worked with Gautt at the Big Eight and Big 12 offices. “He went out of his way to meet so many people.”

Former Oklahoma coach Bud Wilkinson was pressured against giving Gautt a scholarship to play football in 1956. A group of black doctors and pharmacists gave money for Gautt to attend the university.

“It was just two years after the Brown v. Board of Education decision to integrate schools,” Gautt said during an interview last year with a KU class studying racial integration. “It was not the most popular thing to add a black to that dynasty.”

Blacks began attending the university on a nonsegregated basis in 1950, with the final restrictions on undergraduate enrollment dropped in May 1955.

Within a year after joining the team, Gautt was given a scholarship, and the donated money was given to another black student.

Gautt, considered the university’s best player in 1958, was a two-time all-conference player and 1959 Orange Bowl MVP. He was Oklahoma’s leading rusher in 1958 and 1959 and was known as a fierce blocker.

Prentice Gautt, left, the first black football player at Oklahoma, speaks with teammate Brewster Hobby in this Sept. 13, 1957, photo from Norman, Okla. Gautt died Thursday in Lawrence at age 67.

He also was an academic All-American who later received master’s and doctoral degrees in psychology. The University of Oklahoma named its academic center for student athletes after Gautt, and the Big 12 named a scholarship program for him.

“His moral courage helped to bring racial justice, not only to our state and to intercollegiate athletics, but also to our entire nation,” said David Boren, OU president. “His deep religious faith and quiet dignity, as well as his commitment to academic excellence, make him a worthy role model for the generations which will follow him.”

Gautt played for the Cleveland Browns in 1960 and the St. Louis Cardinals from 1961 to 1967. He later was an assistant coach, instructor and academic counseling psychologist at the University of Missouri.

Gautt joined the Big Eight as assistant commissioner in 1979 and focused on the areas of education, life skills, eligibility, rules interpretations, compliance, administration of the conference’s drug-testing program and rules enforcement.

Obit: Prentice Gautt, Lawrence

He was named special assistant to Commissioner Kevin Weiberg in 2003. He continued to live in Lawrence while working for the conference.

“We are all shocked and saddened by this news,” Weiberg said. “We have lost a wonderful friend, mentor and colleague. He was a true pioneer in college sports.”