‘Please don’t wake me.’ Keith Madison’s unlikely UK story takes him beyond his dreams.
From the time Keith Madison received word that he is in the 2021 induction class to the (state of) Kentucky Sports Hall of Fame, he’s had restless nights.
“I’m afraid (wife) Sharon is going to elbow me and say, ‘Hey, wake up, you’ve been dreaming,’” the former Kentucky Wildcats baseball coach says. “It really does feel like that.”
On Tuesday night during a banquet at Louisville’s Galt House Hotel — for ticket info, call (502) 587-6742 — Madison will join the late John Asher plus Dwane Casey, Romeo Crennel, Rachel Komisarz Baugh and Elmore Smith in receiving our state’s highest sports honor.
For Madison, it will complete an unlikely ride.
In a 25-year run (1979 through 2003) as Kentucky baseball coach, Madison led UK to its first two trips to the NCAA Tournament (1988 and 1992); won 735 career games; and saw 17 of his ex-players reach Major League Baseball.
Yet one wonders if any significant UK head coach ever landed a job with the Wildcats in as improbable a manner as did Madison.
In the summer of 1978, Madison was 26. He was serving as a graduate assistant on the Mississippi State coaching staff. At the start of a road trip, iconic MSU head man Ron Polk informed him that the UK head coaching job had opened and implored him to apply.
Skeptical that a SEC school would hire a coach as young as he, Madison nevertheless sent his resume to Cliff Hagan, the ex-Kentucky basketball star and then the UK athletics director.
“I never heard a word back,” Madison says.
In the meantime, Madison brought his wife, the former Sharon Massie, home to Kentucky to visit his parents in his native Edmonson County.
On that trip, Madison was offered the head baseball coaching job at an Illinois junior college. He soon realized, however, that his wife did not share his enthusiasm for life amid the Illinois cornfields.
So he decided to take a dramatic step. “I told my dad, ‘I’m going to call Cliff Hagan,’” Madison recalls.
To Holman Madison, his son may as well have informed him he planned to call Mount Olympus to ask for Zeus.
“We were UK fans all our lives,” Keith Madison says. “(My Dad) was telling me stories about Cliff and Frank Ramsey and Johnny Cox. He was just amazed I had the audacity to call Cliff Hagan.”
When Madison called, even he was surprised he got through to Hagan.
“I said, ‘Mr. Hagan, my wife and I are in Kentucky visiting my family. I would love to talk to you about the baseball coaching position if it is still open,’” Madison says.
Hagan instructed Madison to be in his office at 10 the next morning.
“We spent an hour, hour and a half just talking,” Madison says.
That started a process that ended when Hagan called Madison in Starkville to tell him the UK head coaching job was his if he wanted it.
Madison put down the phone and rushed to tell his wife he had just been offered the Kentucky job.
Sharon had some news of her own to share.
“I found out that I got the job at Kentucky and I was going to be a dad at, basically, the same moment,” Madison recalls. “It was absolutely overwhelming.”
Hawking calendars
The UK position Madison accepted was not the crown jewel of college baseball coaching jobs.
It was not even a full-time gig.
“I was offered $7,500 (a year),” Madison recalls. “I think Cliff Hagan felt sorry for me. So he bumped it up to $8,000 — with no benefits.”
Now, in addition to running practices, coaching games, recruiting, maintaining UK’s field and doing media interviews, Madison had to find a way to support his family.
At one point, a poultry company hired him to call on butchers with the goal of getting local grocery chains to buy more chicken.
Midas subsequently tabbed Madison to solicit businesses that owned fleets of vehicles with the aim of becoming their exclusive muffler supplier.
Eventually, Madison started his own business selling sports-themed calendars — with an emphasis on UK and the Cincinnati Reds — primarily in Eastern Kentucky.
That turned out to be a winner. “I sold 12,000 calendars in Perry County alone one year,” Madison says.
Hagan’s successor as UK AD, C.M. Newton, at last made head baseball coach at Kentucky a full time position — with a base salary of $17,500.
But he conditioned the move on Madison giving up the calendar sales.
“I lost about $10,000 or $12,000 a year (in income), which was a lot for me then,” Madison says of becoming full-time. “At least, I finally got benefits.”
Almost made Omaha
In 1988, Madison took UK closer to the College World Series than it had ever been before — or has been since.
That year, the NCAA Baseball Tournament was a 48-team event with eight six-team regions whose winners advanced directly to the CWS.
Kentucky, as No. 3 seed in the Northeast Region, beat No. 4 Rutgers, No. 5 St. John’s and upset top-seed Clemson.
Now, the Cats stood one victory from the College World Series — with two chances to defeat defending NCAA champion Stanford for the trip to Omaha.
In a tense first game, Stanford bested UK 6-5 on an RBI single by Frank Carey in the eighth inning.
Forced to a second game, the Cats ran out of fresh arms on the mound. Stanford scored 11 runs in its final two at-bats and whacked Kentucky 16-2.
“That was so painful for all of us,” Madison says. “At the same time, that’s when people started getting a little excited about (UK) baseball.”
Since leaving as UK coach in 2003, Madison, 69, has worked many years for SCORE International Ministries, a non-profit that organizes short-term Christian mission trips. “I take (baseball) teams and coaches on trips to the Dominican Republic,” he says.
After both he and Sharon survived bouts with the coronavirus this year, Madison plans to wind down the mission trips to instead spend more time with his wife and family.
On Tuesday night, Madison will join luminaries such as Muhammad Ali, Adolph Rupp, Paul Hornung, Wes Unseld and Mary T. Meagher in the Kentucky Sports Hall of Fame.
“It’s amazing that a boy from Brownsville, Ky., ever had an opportunity to coach at the University of Kentucky,” Keith Madison says. “Then, to make the state’s Sports Hall of Fame, it’s one of the most special things that has happened in my life.”
This story was originally published September 2, 2021 at 2:46 PM.
