All-American QB at Howard University (1922), William “Bill” Kean coached baseball, basketball, football, and track at Central
“Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee. The hands can’t hit what the eyes can’t see.”
Muhammad Ali, Central High graduate, 1960
William Kean was better known as “Bill Kean” and, next to Muhammad Ali, may be one of Central High’s (Louisville) most famous alumni. Though Kean would never be as famous, he was every bit as impactful. Kean coached at Central from 1923 until his passing in 1958 and fought for his Yellowjackets to get to play football in the KHSAA instead of the segregated Kentucky High School Athletic League. Kean won close to 80% of his games, won five (5) KHSAL titles, and won four (4) National Negro High School titles. Add his 856-wins from his coaching basketball to his 225-wins he accumulated in football, and Bill Kean may well have won more games than any other coach in the history of Kentucky high school sports.
HB Lyon, Scouting Director, “KPGFootball”
Louisville, KY: Taylor Stokes is among the finest friends I have ever known. Taylor would tell you I gave him his start in radio.
I was the play by play announcer on Clarksville High School football broadcasts for a local Clarksville (TN) station (WJZM). As such I was charged with finding a color analyst for the broadcasts. I asked Taylor to do it. Taylor lent our venture significant credibility.
Play by play men describe what happens on a given play. Color analysts describe why it happened.
Play by play guys have to know how to tell stories and describe events. Whether or not they actually know anything about the sport they are describing is kind of beside the point.
Color guys on a broadcast are your former greats, your former players, your all-time coaches. They have to have a deep understanding and appreciation both for the action and what circumstances resulted in a play’s occurring.
“That guy missed his block. That guy ran in the wrong hole. That defensive end has outside containment responsibilities. He has to come up and set that edge.” Those are the type things a color guy adds to a broadcast.
There were several reasons I wanted Stokes for this job. For starters, Stokes was numbered among the best players the Wildcats, from Clarksville (TN) High, ever developed along with players the likes of Harry Galbreath, John Carney, Jim Balthrop, Bruno Reagan, and some others.
Stokes was also a football coach who knew a ton about the game and the players we were describing. I felt his point of view and expertise would make for fine “color.” What do you know? I was right.
Finally, I loved Stokes, both then and now. I have never had a better, finer friend than Taylor Stokes. I don’t believe any man can make such a boast.
I have never had a finer friend than Taylor Stokes
Friday Night Fletch
Taylor and I spent years together, home and on the road, broadcasting Clarksville High School football games for WJZM. We had some wonderful times. There were some incredible moments.
Taylor had “broken the color barrier” when he accepted a grant in aid to play football for the Vanderbilt Commodores in 1969. Stokes was the first African-American scholarship student-athlete at Vandy, followed pretty closely by Doug Nettles and Walter Overton. Nettles would go on to play in the league (NFL).
I told you all this to tell you that Stokes really didn’t want to sign with Vanderbilt. Stokes wanted to go to WKU and join up with Lawrence Brame from Hopkinsville High School.
The two of them came to know each other, playing football just 25-miles or so apart, and Stokes felt “more at home” playing in Bowling Green than Nashville. Stokes told me he well and truly admired Brame.
Stokes’ late father prevailed on him to sign with Vanderbilt. According to Stokes, his father told him for men of color to attain the status needed to succeed in a gradually desegregating, American society; the society would need men of color with degrees from schools like Vanderbilt.
Coach William “Bill” Kean was from the same society. Kean would face similar obstacles. Kean would be forced to find a way around the same prejudices decades before Stokes would break that glass ceiling at one of the nation’s most prestigious universities.
Keane and Stokes would face similar obstacles…and both overcome
Friday Night Fletch
One might say, without the “Bill Keans” of the world, there might not have been a “Taylor Stokes.” WKU might have been among Stokes’ only option, were it not for guys like Kean.
Kean had attended one of the Historically Black College or University’s (HBCU) more prestigious academic institutions in Howard University. Kean played QB for Howard, being selected to the Negro All-American Team in 1922.
Kean served in the Army during World War I and returned to Louisville in 1923 to teach PE and Health and coach football, basketball, baseball, tennis, and track and serve as the Athletics Director at Louisville’s Central High.
Kean earned a Master’s from Indiana and a doctorate from Allen University. During the segregated era, Kean’s Central Yellowjackets competed in the Kentucky High School Athletic League, designated for “Black” schools. Central dominated the KHSAL, winning five (5) titles in football, four (4) National Negro High School titles in football, and three (3) National Negro High School titles in basketball.
Still Kean wanted to be able to compete in the KHSAA. Kean knew being able to compete against the KHSAA teams would gain more for his players than mere championships.
Kean wrote a letter to the then Commissioner of the KHSAA requesting Central be permitted to join its organization. Kean cited the costs of having to find and travel to games with other KHSAL teams as a major factor. Besides, Central was already scheduling and competing against St. Xavier and other schools in the Louisville area.
Kean’s initial attempts were rejected. Then, other Louisville schools began to desegregate.
Kean sent a new letter to the Commissioner, this time enclosing the three (3) dollar membership fee, with a note saying, “We look forward to joining your organization.” What Kean was actually saying was, “We’re coming, and you can’t stop us.”
Indeed they couldn’t. In fact, they didn’t.
“We look forward to jointing your organization”
William “Bill” Keane, letter to the KHSAA
This story is well laid out in an article the Courier-Journal before published online. Here is the link.
Make no mistake, Bill Kean was a coaching giant and all-time great. Kean was the captain of his baseball, basketball, and football teams in high school. Kean won 225-games, losing 45-times, with 12-ties in the 33-seasons he coached high school football. That is a winning percentage close to 80% (.79787234).
As Coach Lyon laid out in his scouting report, Kean won five (5) KHSAL football titles and four (4) National Negro High School football titles. Kean won 856-games (856-83) coaching basketball at Central. Combine those wins with his football triumphs (225), whatever he won in baseball and track, and Kean may well have won more games than any other coach in the history of Kentucky at the high school level.
Kean was a winner. He did what winners typically do, he won. It didn’t matter the sport.
There is a final aspect, about Kean, we believe to be worth mentioning. Kean was the titular head of two (2), not one (1), Kentucky athletic dynasties. The first dynasty was the one he built at Louisville Central High school over his 33-seasons.
Kean also was the head of a familial, athletic dynasty. Not only did Kean win 856-games coaching basketball, but his son-in-law, the man who married his daughter, Alice; Allan Wade Houston, Sr., was the first African-American basketball scholarship player at the University of Louisville.
Kentucky High School
Basketball Hall of Fame
Wade Houston went on to coach at Male High. Wade Houston also coached as an assistant to Denny Crum at Louisville. Wade Houston then took the head coaching position at the University of Tennessee, becoming the first black, head basketball coach in SEC history.
Alice and Wade had a son, Allan Houston, who played at Ballard, led Ballard to a title in 1988, won “Mr. Basketball in 1989,” was a McDonald’s All-American, and is still Tennessee basketball’s all-time, leading scorer. Alan had a wonderful professional career with the Detroit Pistons and the New York Knicks and is still considered an “All-time Knickerbocker.”
All three (3) men are in the KHSAA Hall of Fame. Add all that together and it is simply incredible what William “Bill” Kean achieved. It is even more staggering into what those achievements eventually blossomed.
Mind boggling; enclosed, please find three dollars…
This is Friday Night Fletch, reporting for KPGFootball, and we’re reminding you to PLAY THROUGH THE WHISTLE!
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