Keyes was a dynamic two-way player for Purdue as a running back and cornerback, making the All-American team in both 1967 and 1968, finishing third in the 1967 Heisman voting (to Gary Beban and O.J. Simpson) and second in 1968 to O.J. Simpson.
Keyes (in the time of three varsity seasons) would finish his Purdue career with over 2,000 yards rushing and 1,200 receiving with twenty-nine touchdowns scored.
You could make a serious and logical case for Leroy Keyes as the best player in the history of Purdue football.
Leroy Keyes was the third overall draft pick by the Eagles in the 1969 draft and the Eagles chose Keyes over Joe Greene, so that's disappointing to Philadelphia fans.
Keyes was drafted as a running back but became a full-time defensive back after his rookie season.
Keyes rushed for less than 400 yards and scored only three touchdowns in his rookie year, but for some reason, the Eagles gave up on Keyes as a running back in 1970 with Keyes carrying the ball twice all year.
Desperate to get anything out of Keyes, Philadelphia moved him to safety for his third season and in 1971, Keyes finished with six interceptions and recovered three fumbles to earn his first Topps card in the 1972 set (pictured).
Keyes had maybe the weirdest collection of four mainstream collectibles- the 1972 Topps with his knit cap on, 1973 Topps where he looks 20 years older than he actually was, a Sunoco Gas Station stamp, and a 7-11 Slurpee cup from 1973 with the Eagles when he actually played for the Chiefs by the release date.
Keyes started all 14 games in 1972 for the Eagles with two interceptions but was traded to Kansas City for 1973, where he retired after the season at the young age of 25.
After football, Keyes worked in Philadelphia for their school district before returning to Purdue in 1995 in various positions which included running backs coach and administrative assistant along with fundraising.
So how does this relate to me?
Well, when you live in a rural area that the nearest library/bookstore was eight to ten miles away and you are a voracious reader, your options are limited.
This means that you are constantly checking books out of the school library or as the term used in the 1970s speak- The Resource Center.
The term moved out of vogue as quickly as it started as in middle school and high school, it was always called the library, and looking back the choices were limited as you'd expect from a rural elementary school, but what I loved about it was the strange selection of books that wound up there and the stories that they would tell in their travels there.
I remember constantly signing out and re-reading books over and over again such as my first exposure to Ball Four, Confessions of a Dirty Ballplayer by Johnny Sample and Foul by Connie Hawkins, all of which in hindsight were more adult reading than elementary school, but somehow flew under the radar to end up in the resource center.
However, there were also books that were a bit more to the childhood demographic with books watered down for the age group, yet really old for the time.
An example was the "Richie Ashburn Story", which I would later purchase at a book sale, recently found in my dad's attic, and now resides in the Ryan Heimberger Library ( Trademark Pending).
Richie Ashburn retired after the 1962 season, was traded from the Philadelphia Phillies before the 1960 season, and if I remember correctly the book was printed well before then.
I might have been the only kid that read books about players that no one my age had heard about, but that added to (or even started) my love of sports history.
Here is where Leroy Keyes comes in.
Other than the unusual football card shown above, I didn't know about Keyes, but I did know O.J. Simpson.
The 1973 football season was Keyes's last season, but also my first year in school, and the 2,003-yard season (in 14 games) for Simpson, so O.J. Simpson was very well known at that time.
Deep in the section of the library for books that no one else cared about was a book that never had a dust jacket (Google doesn't have an image, but this article says the Juice was on the cover) with the title "Black Champions of the Gridiron- O.J. Simpson and Leroy Keyes).
The book is written for children, and the main focus is the college careers and the Heisman races of 1967-68 where Simpson and Keyes finished 2-3 (to winner Gary Beban) and 1-2.
That book and the missing dust jacket always reminded me of childhood and why Leroy Keyes, always stayed in my memory.
My memories for some things amaze me, and for others fail me consistently, but it always is a nice memory when I relate a great player of the past to something personal- even if it is a book that I haven't seen for over forty years...
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