Keady prepares for 25th, final season

WEST LAFAYETTE -- Gene Keady posed for a photo with Matt Painter, a portrait of the current and future coaches at Purdue.\nAs the photographer worked to get the two positioned, she prodded Keady to the forefront, with Painter in the background.\n"You mean like I'm fading off into the sunset?" Keady asked.\nBeginning his 25th and final season on the Purdue sidelines, and with his hand-picked successor already on staff, Keady is content leaving the program he helped resurrect.\nStill as competitive and fiery as when he first came to West Lafayette in 1980, Keady is pushing his players harder than ever, determined to put the mediocrity of recent seasons behind him for one more run at his seventh Big Ten title and 18th NCAA tournament appearance.\n"We have the same goals as normal -- win the Big Ten, and go to the Final Four," Keady said.\nBut there is something entirely different -- this will be the last time Keady's trademark scowl and comb-over hairdo will be seen storming up and down in front of the bench at Mackey Arena.\n"When you do step back and think about it along those lines, you don't want to see it be his last year," Painter said. "You think he should coach at his school forever, and now it's coming to an end and you just want to cherish every day."\nIt is hard to imagine a game at Mackey Arena without Keady barking at officials and hollering at his players to get their hands up on defense. His hard-nosed, blue-collar coaching style has become synonymous with the program, a connection that is becoming increasingly rare in college athletics.\n"He is an industry phenomenon," said Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski.\nThrough it all, Keady has won a school-record 505 games and has a career record of 543-268, including two seasons at Western Kentucky University. Forty coaches have come and gone at the other 10 Big Ten schools during his tenure.\nPurdue has had just two losing seasons under the seven-time Big Ten coach of the year. But success and fan interest have waned in recent years as the Boilermakers went 66-58 over the past four seasons. Purdue twice has lost under Keady in a regional final, 1994 and 2000.\nQuestions about how long the 68-year-old Keady would continue coaching became more common as the Boilermakers' success dwindled. Purdue limped down the stretch to a 17-14 record last season and missed the NCAA tournament for the third time in four seasons.\nFor a coach second only to former IU coach Bob Knight with 262 Big Ten wins, that just wasn't cutting it.\n"Basketball's always been very, very good here," Keady said. "But the last five years, it's not been as good."\nKeady asked for a three-year contract extension before last season to help recruiting, knowing he would only coach one more season.\nWhen athletics director Morgan Burke refused, Keady considered leaving Purdue for the University of San Francisco.\n"I was very close. A heartbeat," Keady said of moving to San Francisco. "If we hadn't got Matt, I would've been gone."\nFor his part, Burke says he wanted Keady back all along.\n"I told him, 'Gene, your name's on the court here. I want you to stay. Finish your 25 years here, then if you want to do something else, go do it. This is a way to cap off a Hall of Fame career,'" Burke said.\nPainter, who was the head coach at Southern Illinois University last season, was hired in the offseason to return to his alma mater as an assistant for one year before taking over as head coach in 2005.\nWith that resolved, Keady happily came back for his farewell tour, not that he's looking forward to the gifts and ceremonies that are sure to come.\n"I want to play games. I don't want to go through that," Keady said.\nHe doesn't expect things to be that much different. Maybe a few more autograph requests, but he already has a plan to deal with that.\n"If it gets overbearing, I'll start charging them a lot more and it will stop," Keady joked.\nIt is that sharp sense of humor, combined with a general affection for his players and school, that have endeared him to so many and will create such a big void when he leaves.\nKeady is one of the last of a dying breed -- coaches who take a job and stay there. With 28 seasons at Syracuse, Jim Boeheim is the only active coach to spend more time at one school. Keady is tied with Krzyzewski for second.\nAnd he still hasn't ruled out a return to coaching at another school. But it's clear now, his loyalties lie with the Old Gold and Black.\n"Whether I'll coach or not someplace else, I don't know yet," Keady said earlier this summer. "It's evident that the Boilermakers are our first thought for my wife and I because we stayed here this long and we've been very loyal to them. And I can say they've been loyal to us.\n"Right now, we're just going to try to have a great year and move on"