The “next great Ivy League scholar-athlete,” as Sports Illustrated once proclaimed him to be, John J. Lee led Yale to then-unprecedented success and continued to help the Bulldogs even after graduation.
 
During his time as a player, Lee set a number of Yale basketball records and helped lead the team to the first Ivy League men’s basketball championship – in the conference’s first year of existence – in 1956-57. His name adorns not only the gym in which the team plays, but also the Bulldogs’ records book, as he ranks in the top-10 all-time in field goal attempts (second), free throws (fourth), free throw attempts (fourth), scoring average (fifth), points (seventh) and field goals (eighth). He remains one of two Bulldogs, and the most recent, to score at least 40 points in a game, accomplishing the feat twice during his stellar career. Lee also earned All-America honors and was later elected to both the All-Ivy Silver Anniversary Team and the National Association of Basketball Coaches' Silver Anniversary All-America Team.
 
After graduating from Yale College, Mr. Lee was drafted by the New York Knicks, making him only the second Yale player picked by a major basketball league. He took the road less traveled by to pursue graduate work in chemical engineering at Yale.
 
After completing his graduate work, Lee embarked on a career that was just as impressive, if not more so, than his time on the basketball court. He served as president for a number of companies in the corporate sector, including his own firm, Lee Development Corporation.
 
Despite leaving Yale’s campus, Lee never lost his love for the Bulldogs. He participated in the Engineering Alumni Fund, the Yale Basketball Association and the Yale Athletic Federation; was a delegate of the Association of Yale Alumni (AYA); co-chaired the Fund for Engineering; served on the Yale Development Board and was a long-time member of the University's Investment Committee, as well as of the University Council's Committee on Athletics. He also was a member of the Alumni Schools Committee and the Yale Club of New York, among other associations. In recognition of his service to the University, Lee was presented the Distinguished Alumni Award in Engineering in 1977 and received the Yale Medal, the AYA's highest honor, in 1989.
 
In the late 1980s, Mr. Lee made a gift to the University to establish a junior professorship in engineering. Another gift to Yale helped fund the renovation of the main varsity sports amphitheater that now bears his name, and he also endowed a foreign travel fund for the men's and women's varsity basketball teams.
 
Lee became an alumni trustee of the University in 1993 and chaired the Yale Corporation's Committee on Development and Alumni Affairs. Later, while serving as chair of the Leadership and Major Gifts Committee for the University's five-year fundraising campaign "... and for Yale," which began in 1992, Mr. Lee was asked to step in as the national chair of the campaign -- the University's largest fundraising initiative ever. The campaign raised more than $1.7 billion by its conclusion in 1997, then a record for a college or university fundraising drive.
 
In 1996, Yale named the Payne Whitney Gymnasium's John J. Lee Amphitheater in honor the man who led the Bulldogs as both a player and an alumnus.