Harold Keith

Harold Keith was to sports publicity what Jim Thorpe was to athletics on the field. They were cornerstones of the roles they played in sports history, setting standards which are guidelines for those who have followed after them.

While Thorpe was America's Dean of sports super stars, Harold Keith could justifiably claim the designation as Dean of Sports Information. He was the University of Oklahoma's first sports publicist, serving from 1930 to 1969.

His storied sports information career began when he was hired by Athletic Director Bennie Owen. At the start, far from his later SID legend status, Keith didn't have any idea what a sports publicist was supposed to do. OU Coach Biff Jones came to the rescue and his connections from the old Army-Notre Dame rivalry provided contacts for Keith with several nationally-read columnists.

Keith started feeding information to these writers and the rest is basically history. "He was only here for two years in the 1930's, but Coach Biff Jones taught me more about publicity than anybody I ever worked for," Keith told Daily Oklahoman reporter Jerry McConnell. "I thought only in terms of local publicity. Jones had been at Army at one time and had this big rivalry with (Knute) Rockne. He was acquainted with all the great columnists and he put me in touch with them."

Keith used his experience on the Hutchinson, Kansas News to put together the Sooner football program for each home game. In addition, he began composing a weekly sports newsletter. When he composed, he did it all! He wrote the material, cut the stencil, ran the mimeograph, folded pages, stamped envelopes and journeyed to the post office—a modern day eight-man sports information staff built into one.

Although Stanford's Don Liebendorfer was the first full-time sports information director—starting in 1926—nobody ever really equaled Keith's accomplishments. Some of his honors include the Helms Foundation Sports Publicist of the Year in 1950; President of College Sports Information Directors of America in 1964-65; member of the NCAA Public Relations Committee from 1957 until his retirement; recipient of the University of Oklahoma's Distinguished Service Citation in 1987, and now, induction into the Oklahoma Sports Hall of Fame.

Though most of his laurels have been for his achievements in sports, Keith has won numerous awards for things he accomplished in his "spare time". In 1951, he designed the Owen Field press box which was later voted the best in the nation by the Football Writers Association of America. It was later named in his honor.

As if the material he wrote for Sooner athletics wasn't enough, Keith also won six national awards for authoring 14 children's books.The Lambert, Oklahoma native always has had an interest in running. He was a champion long distance runner for Sooner coach John Jacobs in 1928. In recent years, his running has taken him to two United States Masters Association record performances in 1973 for men over 70. Keith ran two miles in 13:47.2 and three miles in 20:43.1. He still runs at least a mile each day while enjoying his retirement.