Saturday, December 22, 2001
Five questions with Gene Keady
By Michael Perry
The Cincinnati Enquirer
As far as Purdue University is concerned, coach Gene Keady has 500 career victories. The NCAA is another matter, believing Keady to have 19 fewer victories because of games forfeited during the 1995-96 season as the result of a two-year NCAA investigation. “I don't care about that,” Keady says. “We won the games.” For the sake of our Tipoff page, we'll agree with Keady, who hit the milestone Monday night with a victory over Illinois-Chicago. Keady is in Las Vegas for the Las Vegas Classic and answered five questions from Enquirer reporter Michael Perry, who covered Purdue for the Lafayette (Ind.) Journal and Courier from 1986-91.
Q: Of all those victories, is there one that stands out?
A: When we won at Minnesota (63-62) in 1984 to win the Big Ten on CBS television. We were predicted to finish ninth. (Jim) Rowinski, (Curt) Clawson, (Ricky) Hall, (Greg) Eifert -- those were the four guys who gave me a career. I got national coach of the year. That helped us in recruiting. It helped us get Troy Lewis and Todd Mitchell and we built on that and went on from there.
Q: Got a favorite recruiting story?
A: We were recruiting Steve Schall (when Keady was an assistant at Arkansas), a 6-11 kid out of Raytown Smith (Mo.). Back then, during the recruiting process, you could almost live with the (high school) coaches. I got to be good friends with the coach at Raytown, Bud Lathrop. The kid said he was going to Virginia, and Bud was so upset. He came to my hotel, which was about two blocks away, in barefeet. He forgot to put his shoes on. He stood up and said, “By golly, he's NOT going to Virginia, he's going to Arkansas.” He's almost crying. Steve called me two hours later and said he was going to Arkansas. He was the final piece of the puzzle (for Arkansas' 1978 Final Four team).
Q: What's your most embarrassing moment?
A: The $10,000 fine (in 1990). In those days, the loser was the first team to be interviewed (after an NCAA Tournament game). I didn't lose my composure; I was just pissed off. I embarrassed my family and the school.
(The NCAA Basketball Committe withheld $10,000 from Purdue's share of revenue from the NCAA Tournament and Keady was reprimanded for postgame comments critical of officials after the Boilermakers' 73-72 loss to Texas. Keady said he would repay the money. After the Texas loss, Keady pounded a table in his postgame press conference and called for better officiating. “You run a program, you graduate all your kids, you don't cheat, you do things right, and the (bleep) referees are all the same, and I get tired of it,” Keady said.)
Q: What do you think when you see yourself on TV?
A: When I watch I'm like everybody says I am, scowling, looking mean, not really how I am. For three or four years I tried to smile more. Coach (John) Wooden (a Purdue graduate) and (Duke) Coach (Mike) Krzyzewski tried to help me with it. I made a conscious effort to smile, but it was phony. I'm going back to my old self: scowl, raise hell and get after folks.
Q: Who would win a one-on-one game between you with Nolan Richardson? Nolan said he would win because you're a football player.
A. Probably Nolan; he's bigger than me. But my last basketball game I had 13 field goals, so he might be full of it.
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Five questions with Gene Keady
