As Gene Keady enters Hall of Fame, former Purdue basketball coach's impact remains on game

WEST LAFAYETTE — Bruce Weber spent 19 years under the tutelage of Gene Keady.

Weber's college coaching career began after he drove from Milwaukee to Bowling Green, Kentucky, for a job interview as Western Kentucky's graduate assistant.

Only when Weber arrived, Keady wasn't there.

By the time the two connected by telephone, and with Weber refusing to venture three states over again just to be interviewed, the job was offered to Weber without an in-person meeting.

After one season at Western Kentucky, Weber went with Keady to Purdue, where he spent the next 18 seasons building an everlasting friendship.

Weber wrote the foreword for Keady's 2005 autobiography, ending it with, "In my opinion, there is no question he should be a Hall of Famer."

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On Saturday, Keady will enter the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame with a 2023 class that also includes the 1976 United States Olympic women's basketball team, Becky Hammon, David Hixon, Dirk Nowitzki, Dwyane Wade, Gary Blair, Gene Bess, Jim Valvano, Pau Gasol, Tony Parker and Gregg Popovich.

"I didn't expect it, so that makes it very special," Keady said on Saturday, returning to Mackey Arena for the alumni basketball game. "I had a lot of good help. You never do it by yourself."

Count Weber among that good help, who took many of Keady's philosophies with him when he became the head coach at Southern Illinois in 1998 and later to Illinois and Kansas State.

Keady's Hall of Fame resume speaks for itself: 550 victories, six national coach of the year honors, a coach for the gold medalist 2000 United States men's basketball team and seven-time Big Ten coach of the year.

His blueprint remains on the program he led for 25 seasons before it was turned over to current coach and former Purdue guard Matt Painter.

And it's sprinkled throughout basketball thanks to former players and assistants who took pieces of Keady's coaching style when they went on to lead their own programs at the collegiate and high school levels from Kevin Stallings to Cuonzo Martin to Steve Lavin, Carson Cunningham, Austin Parkinson, David Wood, Dave Barrett, Weber and Painter to name a few.

"You want to take all those things that he instilled in this program, but also run and do different things because your personnel changes and time changes," Painter said. "The game is different than it was when I took over."

Keady never led a team to the Final Four, which he's admitted is his one coaching regret.

He came close on a couple of occasions, but others using what they took from Keady and implementing it into their own programs proved that it can work, whether it was Barrett taking two teams to the Indiana high school state championship game or Weber coaching Illinois to the 2005 NCAA championship game.

It continues to be the foundation of success for Purdue, a projected top-five team for the upcoming season.

"You can see all the remnants of coach Keady in Matt Painter. Those are values. Those are character. That's integrity. Dignity," said Martin, who went on to become head coach at Missouri State, Tennessee, California and Missouri after his Purdue and professional basketball careers. "All those things that make you successful not only as a coach but as a man, a husband, a father, a teacher.

"You see it every day in Matt Painter's walk and coach Keady's walk. That's what made us what this elite program over the course of 40-plus years because of what those guys have done day in and day out. The consistency in which they've operated is unbelievable."

Keady, known as a lovable and funny man off the court, was as intense and fiery as anyone in college basketball during his time as Purdue's head coach.

It trickled down to those who played for him, who arrived in West Lafayette to find out their head coach wasn't always the warm and fuzzy guy he appeared to be away from the bench.

"The one thing that coach did was get us ready for manhood. He was that final rung of the ladder," said Brandon Brantley, who played for Keady from 1991-96. "When you came here, he was very demanding, so you knew you had to step up and be ready every single day.

"If you didn't there was going to be consequences. It was good in that sense because it got us ready for the real world. He didn't accept any excuses. He didn't accept anything less than 100 percent every day. It's no coincidence that a lot of guys that played for him have been successful when it came to life after basketball."

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And for a lot of guys whose lives remained in basketball, following Keady's path as a head coach, were successful too.

Sam King covers sports for the Journal & Courier. Email him at sking@jconline.com and follow him on Twitter and Instagram @samueltking.

This article originally appeared on Lafayette Journal & Courier: Former Purdue coach Gene Keady enters National Basketball Hall of Fame