From NKAA, Notable Kentucky African Americans Database (main entry)

Born in  Greenville, KY to Reverend Roland Hayes Warford and Valencia A. Dean Warford, he grew up in Drakesboro, KY.  

Reggie Warford scored 1,941 points in his three years as a high school player at Drakesboro High, averaging over 25–27 points per game as a senior. Reggie was the first recruit signed by  Joe B. Hall. He became the first African American basketball player to graduate from the University of Kentucky. A 6'1" guard who played in 50 games from 1972 to 1976, he scored 206 total points by the end of his college career.

Warford went on to become an assistant coach at Pitt, Iowa State and Long Beach State, and also was head coach of the Harlem Globetrotters in 2003. While at Pitt in 1986, Warford sued the Lexington Herald-Leader newspaper, claiming that it had defamed him in an article about improper recruiting offers in college basketball, specifically in reference to Steve Miller, a forward from Henry Clay High School in Lexington, KY. An article published October 28, 1985 quoted Miller as saying that Warford told him he would get a raise if he signed Miller and that Miller "would benefit from that raise also." The law suit was settled out of court in 1991. Reggie Warford died in May of 2022.

Warford was inducted into the Kentucky High School Athletic Association Hall of Fame in 2019. He coached the basketball team at  Muhlenberg County High School, leading team to the 2010 3rd Region title and the Boys' Sweet Sixteen.

Reggie suffered from many difficulties later in life: he had a heart transplant in 2014 and a kidney transplant in 2017. He developed a pulmonary condition which restricted his breathing, and the muscles around his diaphragm atrophied. At the age of 64, he was wheelchair-bound. He died in Pittsburgh, PA in 2022.

Reggie had two sons, Grant and Tyler; he was married to Marissa. See more information at Find-a-Grave.

For more see articles related to the case in the Lexington Herald-Leader, from 1986-1991. See also UK career statistics for Reggie Warford at Big Blue History; Jerry Tipton, "Reggie Warford, ‘patriarch’ of integration for Kentucky basketball, dies at 67," Lexington Herald-Leader, 5/27/2022, p. A1; Deb Moore, "UK Men's Basketball Trailblazer Reggie Warford Dies," 5/26/2022, at UKAthletics.com; and Mike Fields's article on  the KHSAA website, 1/31/2019.