C.M. Newton, the Hall of Fame athletic director and coach who helped restore Kentucky as a national basketball power after it was sanctioned by the N.C.A.A., integrated two college programs and oversaw the United States Olympic “Dream Team” in 1992, died on Monday. He was 88.
Officials at Alabama and Kentucky announced his death. They did not say where he died.
Newton was involved with college basketball for more than 50 years, beginning as a member of Kentucky’s 1951 N.C.A.A. championship squad.
As a coach, he compiled a record of 509-375. He began his career at Transylvania College (now Transylvania University) in Kentucky, where he led the basketball program to its first postseason appearance, in the 1962-63 season, before moving on to Alabama and Vanderbilt in the Southeastern Conference.
Alabama won three consecutive SEC titles, from 1974 to 1976, under Newton and reached the postseason six times. The Associated Press named him SEC Coach of the Year in 1972 and 1976 while he was at Alabama and again in 1988 and 1989 when he was at Vanderbilt.
Vanderbilt hired Newton in 1981, and he went 129-115 with the Commodores, notching his 500th career victory in 1989. He also coached Vanderbilt to the Sweet 16 in the 1988 N.C.A.A. Tournament, where Barry Goheen knocked down two 3-point shots late in a dramatic overtime victory over Pittsburgh.
Newton returned to Kentucky as athletic director in 1989 to shepherd the men’s program as it recovered from N.C.A.A. sanctions, including a two-year postseason ban, over recruiting and academic violations. His hiring of Rick Pitino as coach was the key step in that rehabilitation.
