GOLD AND BLACK ILLUSTRATED VOLUME 27, ISSUE 5 65 VOLUME 27, ISSUE 5 65
BY ALAN KARPICK
AKarpick@GoldandBlack.com
G
ene Keady wouldn't take offense to being called
senior.
One might even get away with calling him old.
Well, maybe not.
Keady may be turning 81 on May 21, but he is living
life to the fullest. He is busy carrying on with the life of a
basketball elder statesman, Gold and Black style.
Here are just a few cases in point: Keady was immor-
talized with a bobblehead in January to an adoring Mack-
ey Arena crowd. His traveling road show with Bob Knight
is a hit, drawing a big crowd in Carmel in late March and
with another expected in Fort Wayne on May 19. The duo
is working on a date in the Lafayette area, too.
Keady even had a sandwich named after him at Route
66, the sister diner to the venerable Triple XXX.
"Life's pretty good these days," said Keady, who is
spending a handful of months in a condo about a mile
north of Mackey Arena with wife Kathleen while his Myr-
tle Beach home is renovated. "There are a lot of good
things in my life that have sort of just happened. I didn't
plan on them, they just happened. I've been really lucky
to have good people around me all these years."
It is hard to believe that Keady is 12 years removed
from the Boilermaker bench, where he finished his 25-
year stint in West Lafayette as the school's all-time win-
ningest coach. Since his days in Mackey, Keady has been
an assistant coach in the NBA, worked as a TV analyst for
the Big Ten Network and served as a consultant to one of
his prized pupils, Steve Lavin, at St. John's.
Keady's health is good. His golf game, maybe not as
much. He has an excuse, however. Keady, known for
Senior Rock Star
Keady having fun in life's next phase
PRESENTS:
PURDUE'S GREATEST STORIES,
TRADITIONS AND PEOPLE
