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Wednesday, Oct. 01, 2008

Mark Story: Recording Keightley

Oral history coming along smoothly

For roughly two years, Jeff Suchanek had a gig that many Kentucky Wildcats basketball fans would have considered THE dream job.

Starting sometime in 2005 up until last November, it was the task of Suchanek — the former director of the Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History at the University of Kentucky — to listen to Bill Keightley tell stories about UK basketball.

"By the time I was working with him, he was very aware of his age and what stage of life he was in," Suchanek said last week. "He was very reflective and very eager to share his knowledge."

If you're reading this, you almost certainly know that Keightley worked uninterrupted as a Kentucky equipment manager from the last decade of Adolph Rupp's coaching tenure until he died days after Billy Gillispie's first season at UK had ended.

Through sheer force of personality, Keightley became confidant to Kentucky head coaches and a grandfather figure to UK players from Dampier and Riley right up to Bradley and Crawford.

As anyone who ever dealt with Keightley will attest, no one had more or better stories about Cats hoops than the man known as Mr. Wildcat.

The good news for those who love UK basketball and its lore is that it will soon be possible to hear Bill Keightley tell his Wildcats basketball stories again.

Thanks to the wonders of Internet technology, some 40 hours of Keightley's reflections will soon be available to all.

Doug Boyd, the current head of UK's Nunn center, says the goal is to have the William B. Keightley Oral History Project edited and available for public consumption online around the time the current UK basketball season tips off.

"We've been testing our own server, trying to make sure it will handle the kind of traffic we think this will draw," Boyd said.

Mornings with Keightley

It has long been the practice of oral historians at UK to record interviews with longtime university faculty and staff members for posterity. Steve Nunn, son of the former governor, suggested that Keightley would be an ideal subject for such a long-form interview.

Suchanek says he met with Keightley in the UK equipment office inside Memorial Coliseum. Normally, Suchanek said he would arrive around 8 a.m. Often, he found Keightley's office dark and silent.

Which did not mean that Keightley was not there.

"He'd get in around 4, 4:30 a.m.," Suchanek said. "By the time I got there, he'd be taking a nap. I'd just pound on the door. You'd hear a rustle, the lights would go on, and he's always throw the door open and say 'Jeff, my man.'"

One thing that surprised him in spending so many hours with Keightley, Suchanek said, was the breadth of an equipment manager's connections.

He recalled being in Keightley's office when Marty Brennaman, the longtime Cincinnati Reds radio announcer, called. Another time, it was veteran major-league baseball umpire Randy Marsh.

"It was amazing who would call him on the phone," Suchanek said.

Not shockingly for someone whose heart belonged to Big Blue basketball, Keightley does not reveal any dark secrets he may have known from the scandalous periods of UK hoops history.

Which is not to say he doesn't offer opinions.

"He did not always agree with things that had been said or sort of the prevailing view of some things," Suchanek said.

In the interviews, Suchanek says Keightley will discuss, among other things, the integration of UK basketball; his feelings about the transition from Adolph Rupp to Joe B. Hall; his view of Rick Pitino going to Louisville; and his opinion of the factors that led to Tubby Smith leaving Lexington.

Rupp next online?

Boyd, the current director of UK's oral history center, says he hopes the Keightley project will help publicize other historical resources the university offers.

In the realm of sports alone, the University of Kentucky archives has films of UK football games dating to the 1930s; basketball game tapes from the 1950s; and literally thousands of photos, video and audio tapes, says University Archivist Deirdre A. Skaggs.

The university also has some 30 hours of oral history interviews with Adolph Rupp that Boyd eventually hopes to make available via the Internet as well.

"We decided to go with the Keightley project first because he was such a contemporary figure," Boyd said. "We felt even young people might feel a connection to him and, in that way, learn what we have to offer."

UK is not ready to publicly announce the web address where the Keightley interviews will be available, Boyd said. The rush is on to get the Keightley project edited for use by this November.

In a touch that one suspects would have pleased Mr. Wildcat mightily, one of two student editors that Boyd has hired to work on the Keightley interviews is Zach Murphy.

Murphy spent the last five years working as a student manager under Keightley. Before that, his father, Michael, was a Kentucky basketball manager from 1976-80.

"One of the things I thought about when I decided to do this, we might as well have someone who knew him, knew what he was about, doing this," Zach Murphy said. "The other thing, listening to him talk again is going to be pretty cool."