Professional Football Player. He played seven seasons in the National Football league as a running back for the Cleveland Browns (1960) and the St. Louis Cardinals (1961 to 1967). An outstanding running back at the University of Oklahoma, he was the first African-American to play football for the school. During his collegiate career, he earned two-time All-Big Eight and Academic All-American honors. Previous to college, he had been an All-State running back at Oklahoma City, Oklahoma's Douglass High School and had played in Oklahoma's first integrated football game his senior year, when Douglass matched against the squad from Capitol Hill. After a careful selection, Oklahoma's football coach Bud Wilkinson chose him as the man to integrate his program. Gautt's first two years at the school were tough due to a lack of exposure, racial intolerance and jealousy. However, he overcame the prejudices and earned tremendous respect from his teammates. In the 1959 Orange Bowl, he set a record for the classic's highest rushing average with 15.7 yards per carry, and accomplishment that earned him a 1985 induction into the Orange Bowl Hall of Fame. In 1960, he was drafted by the Cleveland Browns and after one season, he was traded to the St. Louis Cardinals where he played another six seasons. In 88 NFL games, he gained 2,466 total rushing yards, had 79 receptions for 901 total yards and scored 17 touchdowns. After his retirement from the NFL, he coached while earning a doctorate in psychology from the University of Missouri. He then began a career in athletics administration, first as an assistant commissioner for the Big Eight Conference and was serving as a special assistant to the commissioner of the Big 12 Conference at the time of his death from a flu-like illness. He was the NCAA's secretary/treasurer in 1994 and had served on a variety of other NCAA committees. In March 1999, he was honored by his alma mater with the renaming of the athletic academic center to "The Prentice Gautt Academic Center."