One day in late February 1998, Tom Izzo called Gene Keady with a question.
This wasn’t uncommon. Izzo had known Keady since Izzo’s days as an assistant under Jud Heathcote at Michigan State. When Izzo rose to replace Heathcote as head coach in East Lansing, Keady was among a tight circle of coaches Izzo knew he could call for advice. But this call was a bit awkward.
Michigan State was playing Keady’s Purdue team on the last day of the regular season. The Spartans, 13-2 in the Big Ten, had already clinched at least a share of Izzo’s first conference title as head coach, and they planned to hang a banner that day to celebrate.
Purdue was 11-4, ranked in the top 15 nationally but guaranteed to finish third in the league behind Michigan State and Illinois. Izzo felt nervous about the banner. If Michigan State won, the Spartans won the league outright. If they lost, they shared honors with Illinois. But Izzo’s greatest concern was making sure Keady didn’t feel Purdue was being shown up by Michigan State holding the ceremony pregame, when every fan attending could see it.
Keady to Pacers? Kentucky? 5 times Hall of Famer was rumored to leave.
Close calls, heartbreak and surprises: Gene Keady’s 5 best Purdue teams
“He goes, ‘Ah no, you do whatever you think’s best. Don’t worry, I don’t look at that as anything against us,’” Izzo recalled, laughing. “We dropped the banner beforehand. His team went on to beat us. I always wondered if he did that on purpose, just so he could kill me.”
When Izzo, alongside Jerry Colangelo, presents Keady this weekend as the newest member of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, it will represent the culmination of decades of those kinds of moments, for two of the best basketball coaches in Big Ten history.
“It’s a privilege to present him,” Izzo told IndyStar. “He’s one of the great, great coaches, and one of the great, great guys.”
Izzo’s relationship with Keady dates back decades.
He first met the longtime Purdue coach when Izzo became an assistant on Heathcote’s staff. Keady was in the midst of one of the greatest coaching tenures in conference history. He would win more than 500 games as head coach in West Lafayette, with six Big Ten titles and seven conference coach-of-the-year honors on his resume as well.
Izzo knew Keady first through the pain of scouting Purdue teams that defended fiercely and prepared meticulously.
“His teams were always so good defensively,” Izzo said, “they were so tough, and they ran 10,011 out of bounds plays. He was hard to scout for those.”
Keady, who was also named national coach of the year five times across his Purdue tenure, would lean on that toughness in guiding the Boilermakers to 17 NCAA tournament appearances across his quarter century manning the Mackey Arena sideline.
“He always had the toughest team,” Izzo said. “Jud always used to say, ‘If I could ever get my guys to play as hard as Gene, I’d be coach of the year.’”
Images of Keady in-game invariably feature a scowl that can almost be heard growling off the page. But away from the court he was friendly, with a dry sense of humor always one line away.
Izzo joked that Keady probably even laughed with referees, that he’d “chew their ass from the tip to the final horn, and then get along with them great.”
– -Purdue Coach Gene Keady laughs as he talks to MSU Coach Tom Izzo after the game in Breslin Center. Keady and Purdue were defeated. This was Keady’s last game in Breslin as he is set to retire this year.
“There was a game Gene Keady, and then there was a before-, after- and beyond-game Gene Keady,” Izzo said. “When they beat us, he was classy. When we beat them, he was classy. He had a tremendous ability to be competitive about the game but understand it’s bigger than the game.”
Keady retired from Purdue in 2005, spent time working for the Toronto Raptors and returned to the bench as an assistant for an old mentee, Steve Lavin, at St. John’s from 2010-15.
Lavin is one in a long list of coaches who worked under Keady before moving on to successful careers in the sport. Lavin, Bruce Weber, Matt Painter, Cuonzo Martin and Kevin Stallings are among the members of a vast and impressive coaching tree Keady produced.
“He was so proud of his guys,” Izzo said.
Even in retirement, Keady has remained a steady presence in basketball.
He makes his home in Myrtle Beach, S.C., but still attends Purdue games both in West Lafayette and when the Boilermakers play in the postseason.
And he serves as a sort of elder statesman for the league. When Heathcote died in 2017, Izzo invited Keady to East Lansing for the program’s celebration of life. Izzo purposely scheduled it to coincide with a game against Purdue.
Doyel: Only Gene Keady could tame Bob Knight on, off court
More: As Keady enters Hall of Fame, former coach’s impact remains on game
The Spartans held a reunion around the game, and an alumni game. Izzo flew Keady up personally.
“Gene comes walking in, he sat in my wife’s box,” Izzo said. “He had everything Purdue on, from his hat to his shirt to his pants to his shoes. I asked him if he had Purdue underwear on.”
Himself already a member of the Naismith Hall of Fame, Izzo wrote a letter recommending Keady for induction. The one hole on Keady’s resume — he never appeared in a Final Four as a coach — is outweighed in Izzo’s mind not just by the body of work of Keady’s career, but also his contributions to basketball.
Izzo said to this day he patterns his own relationship with the game, not just how he coaches or recruits, but a willingness to serve on committees and give back to grow the game, after Keady’s example.
“When I found out he made it, I swear to you, I was as excited as when I made it,” Izzo said. “This guy, to me, is one of the icons in our profession. This is not just Gene Keady the Purdue coach. This is Gene Keady, a guy that gave so much to the game of basketball.”
On Saturday, basketball will give back. Keady has more than earned it.
Follow IndyStar reporter Zach Osterman on Twitter: @ZachOsterman.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Tom Izzo to present Gene Keady at Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame
