Making a splash as a Flash

Hard work pays off for former Pulaski Academy QB

Kent State quarterback Spencer Keith of Little Rock, a four-year starter for the Golden Flashes, has withstood several challenges but has led his team to its first bowl game in 40 years. In the process, the Golden Flashes have won more games in one season than any Kent State team.
Kent State quarterback Spencer Keith of Little Rock, a four-year starter for the Golden Flashes, has withstood several challenges but has led his team to its first bowl game in 40 years. In the process, the Golden Flashes have won more games in one season than any Kent State team.

— Kevin Kelley doesn’t struggle to recall Spencer Keith’s most impressive afternoons.

They came under the blazing hot sun during the summer of 2008.

Kelley, the football coach at Pulaski Academy, had his players running 7-on-7 drills like he does every summer. A slew of receivers ran routes on the school’s turf field in west Little Rock, and there was Keith tossing them tight spirals — while sitting in a chair.

“He could have pouted about having to rehab his leg,” Kelley said.

Keith passed for more than 3,800 yards and 42 touchdowns as a junior and was drawing attention from Arkansas, Arkansas State and other schools going into his senior season, but in early February he went up for a rebound while playing basketball and came down awkwardly and snapped his anterior cruciate ligament.

Surgery followed. Then came rehab.

Most schools stopped calling, but Keith kept working. He sat in a chair and tossed passes because he couldn’t stand. His rationale, Kelley recalled, was simple: “I need a stronger arm anyway.”

Keith went on to a record-breaking senior season, passing for 5,310 yards, which is still the state record, while leading the Bruins to the Class 5A state title. The phone calls and letters from colleges never picked back up, though.

“I didn’t have any offers,” Keith said. “They were scared off because of that injury. It’s just kind of dumb how they look at that and expect that it’s not going to get better with what we have in technology and medicine now.”

He landed at Kent State partly because the school’s coach at that time, Doug Martin, had gone through a similar injury.

Keith is no longer disap- pointed with his how things worked out. He’ll play his 48th and final game for No. 25 Kent State (11-2) on Sunday night, when the Golden Flashes take on Arkansas State (9-3) in the GoDaddy. com Bowl.

He carved out a college career even when few considered giving him a scholarship. A coaching change at Kent State two years ago led to a new offense and a slew of other quarterbacks who were given a shot to take his job, but Keith never lost it.

Kelley attributes Keith’s ability to fight through an injury and attrition to his desire to win. It sounds cliche, Kelley admits, but he said he can’t think of any other way to describe it.

“You’d like to think that everyone who plays college sports are competitive,” Kelley said, “but he has to win.”

He has done plenty of that this season. Keith has led the Golden Flashes to their first bowl appearance in 40 years, and they already have won more games this season than any other Kent State team.

It’s been a great season for Keith, even if it could have been a bit better.

Kent State, which went 15-21 in Keith’s first three years, lost 47-14 to Kentucky on Sept. 8 before rattling off 10 consecutive victories, including a 35-23 victory at then-No. 15 Rutgers, to earn a spot in the Mid-American Conference Championship Game for the first time.

Keith completed 15 of 36 passes for 190 yards and 1 touchdown in the championship game, but he also threw 2 interceptions in a 44-37 double overtime loss to Northern Illinois. The Huskies went on to earn a spot in the Orange Bowl, where they lost 31-10 to Florida State on Tuesday night, while Kent State was sent to Mobile.

Keith said it wasn’t the easiest loss to get over.

“It took a little while,” he said. “I think everyone is over it now. It flashes through my mind every once in awhile, but we don’t dwell on it. We fought as hard as we could. Really, that’s all you can do.”

Keith enters Sunday’s game having completed 166 of 300 passes (55.3 percent) for 1,864 yards with 12 touchdowns and 9 interceptions.

His passing numbers haven’t been the same the past two seasons — Coach Darrell Hazell opted for a more run-oriented offense when he arrived in 2011 — but Keith said he doesn’t care that he isn’t putting up the number of yards he did at Pulaski Academy.

He has developed a reputation as a quarterback who “manages the offense,” as ASU interim coach John Thompson described Keith, but Thompson doesn’t mean that as a slight.

“When you say that it’s like, ‘Well, she had a good personality,’ but that’s not the case,” Thompson said. “He really checks out of plays, gets them in the right play, gets the ball to where it’s supposed to be.

“He causes some problems.”

Keith, whose parents and older brother graduated from ASU, doesn’t mind the description.

“I don’t think too much about how other people portray what my job is,” he said. “I know exactly what I do and how I run the team. ... I agree, it is somewhat of a gamemanager role — get the team in the right place. That’s what a quarterback should do.”

This year he’s helped Kent State get further than it’s ever been, and Kelley would like nothing more than for his former player to get another victory.

“For the first time, he was really having a good time and enjoying [the season], especially late in the season,” Kelley said. “It would be great for him to feel that.

“If anybody in the world deserves it, it’s Spencer.”

Sports, Pages 17 on 01/04/2013

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