Gary Keithley’s Road to the Texas High School Hall of Fame.
THE PORTAL BEFORE THE PORTAL:
The Gary Keithley Story
by Larry Carlson https://texaslsn.org
Gary Keithley was the bluest of blue-chippers in the Lone Star state’s football circles when he signed with Darrell Royal’s Texas Longhorns in February ’69. Today, not many Longhorn fans recall his name, or that he was the punter for UT’s 1970 national champions. And maybe he was ahead of his time in one regard: Perhaps Keithley was the most highly-touted Longhorn to hit the portal and make it work.
The quarterbackin’ phenom of long ago is now set for induction into the Texas High School Hall of Fame in May. When he graduated from Alvin High in 1969, he was keeping good company as the “almost most famous” AHS Yellowjacket in the sporting world. Only a rangy, heat-throwing 22-year-old pitcher with the New York Mets could overshadow him. That was Nolan Ryan.
Allow this writer a personal memory: As a more than avid Texas fan in high school, I was still the second most excited ‘Horn fan on the campus of good ol’ Robert E Lee High in San Antonio when Keithley signed his letter of intent with UT. My English teacher/yearbook advisor, Mrs. Bode, was a young grad of Alvin High and UT, and she was beyond exuberant all spring after Keithley signed to play for the Horns. She talked about him anytime and every time we chatted. Both of us were eager to see what Gary could do in Austin.
We were not alone. Everybody around the Forty Acres was fired up about Keithley’s potential. He had size, 6-3, 200 pounds, making him bigger than Many Longhorn linemen on both sides of the ball. He had good speed, too. Mostly, he had that big right arm. The All-State QB led Alvin for three seasons and guided the ‘Jackets to the semi-finals as a senior.
Keithley, like all freshmen in ’69, bided his time and learned the ropes with reps, running the wishbone for the Shorthorns. The varsity was busy sculpting a perfect 11-0 national championship season, paced by a slick operator, James Street. He finished his football days with a remarkable 20-0 mark as UT’s starter.
Come 1970, Eddie Phillips would be the Horns’ bellcow. The junior from Mesquite had earned the QB spurs with substantial backup time in eight games for the champs. Quite a few Texas players and camp followers whispered that Eddie might be more talented than James.
Keithley? He would battle Donnie Wigginton for reps as understudy.
Turns out that Phillips was destined to be an elite “man under.” He piloted the Horns to a second straight national title. Then he set a Cotton Bowl record for total offense with 363 yards, spread evenly between rushing and passing. Eddie was named Cotton Bowl MVP even in a loss that broke UT’s 30-game winning streak.
The fact that Phillips would be back for another season in ’71 was great cause for optimism in Austin. For Keithley, it apparently signaled a deadline for a business decision. The strong-armed soph had attempted but five passes as a soph, completing one. Two things were apparent. The wishbone was not really breeding ground for developing arms that might get noticed by NFL scouts. And nobody was going to beat Eddie Phillips out of his starting role.
The ace from Alvin chose to fold his cards at the Forty Acres, in quest of playing time and growth. Eight hundred miles from his hometown, Keithley got both at The University of Texas at El Paso. In his remaining two seasons of eligibility, he set school records for passing yardage and completion percentage while booming punts in the high, desert air. And he did it while earning All-Western Athletic Conference academic honors.
“He had an NFL-quality arm and could punt a football over the Franklin Mountains,” one of UTEP teammates, offensive lineman Mark McDonald, recently recalled about Keithley. “He deserved a lot better blocking up front than I ever provided.”
The National Football League scouts noticed Keithley’s prowess. The guy with one career completion at UT went to the St. Louis Cardinals in the second round, the fourth quarterback and 45th player taken.
Keithley became the Cards’ punter and saw limited action as QB Jim Hart’s backup in ’73. That was his only NFL season but he later played two years at British Columbia in the Canadian Football League.
The former schoolboy star eventually went full circle and returned to the high school game as a coach at San Antonio Holmes and later at Cleburne as an assistant, then head coach and finally, as athletic director.
Keithley possessed rare talent, obviously. And he evolved into the very rare player of his era: to transfer, become a star and take his talent to the NFL level. Now, close to a half-century since he last took off the shoulder pads, Keithley is headed for “Friday Night Lights” immortality.
When he’s inducted into the Texas High School FootballHall of Fame in ceremonies set for May 10 in Waco, the all-time Alvin Yellowjacket QB will be going in alongside a couple of pretty fair country quarterbacks in the ’25 class.
You’ve likely heard of ’em. There’s Baylor’s Heisman winner, Robert Griffin III of the Copperas Cove Bulldawgs, and a former Whitehouse Wildcat, dude named Patrick Mahomes.
Gary Keithley, a role player in The History of Longhorn Sports, is back up on the big stage again for a job well done. And Gary still has a knack for keeping good company. Damn good company.
Says a lot about a man.
(TLSN’s Larry Carlson is a member of The Football Writers Association of America. He teaches sports media at Texas State University and lives in San Antonio. Write him at lc13@txstate.edu)
