purchase KFC from Sanders for $2 million (). The investment group changed the restaurant's format from the diner-style restaurant envisioned by Sanders to a fast-food take out model. Giving all their restaurants a distinct red-and-white striped color pattern, the group opened over 1,500 restaurants, including locations in all 50 U.S. states and several international locations. By 1967, KFC had become the nation's sixth-largest restaurant chain by volume and first offered its stock for public purchase in 1969. For his work with KFC, Brown was named one of the Outstanding Young Men of America by the Junior Chamber of Commerce in 1966; the following year, the Chamber named him one of the Outstanding Civic Leaders of America. Eventually, he became a member of both the Kentucky and Louisville Chambers of Commerce. The Louisville Junior Chamber of Commerce honored him as Louisville's Outstanding Young Man in 1969, and he was inducted into the University of Kentucky Alumni Association Hall of Distinguished Alumni on November 6, 1970. In 1971, Brown sold his interest in KFC to Heublein for $284 million (). Using some of the profits from the KFC sale, Brown and some associates bought the Miami-based Lum's chain of restaurants from its founders, Stuart and Clifford S. Perlman, for $4 million. Of the 340-outlet beer-and-hot-dog chain, Brown said "they did not have very good food. I figured that upgrading it would be my first task." Accordingly, he hired a group of young executives to find "the perfect hamburger". After a three-month courtship, he hired Ollie Gleichenhaus, owner of Ollie's Sandwich Shop, a small diner in Miami Beach, Florida, to train Lum's staff to prepare his "Ollie Burger" hamburgers. He later started a chain of take-out restaurants called Ollie's Trolley, named for Gleichenhaus. Initially successful, Brown said "that venture [Ollie's Trolley] collapsed". Lions Clubs International in Tampa, Florida, honored Brown with its Service to America Award in 1974. Brown sold the Lum's chain for $9.5 million to Friedrich Jahn's Wienerwald holding group in 1978. A few years later, Brown launched John Y's Chicken, a venture which also subsequently failed. Kenny Rogers Roasters, another chain founded with country music superstar Kenny Rogers proved more successful. Basketball ventures Concurrent with his post-KFC business ventures, Brown purchased an ownership stake in several professional basketball teams. He owned three professional basketball teams, one of those being the Boston Celtics. In 1970, Wendell Cherry assembled a group that