Roy Servais "Spec" Keene (July 1, 1894 – August 24, 1977) was an

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team with ...

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding tea ...

, and

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...

coach at

Willamette University Willamette University is a private liberal arts college with locations in Salem and Portland, Oregon. Founded in 1842, it is the oldest college in the Western United States. Originally named the Oregon Institute, the school was an unaffiliated ...

and an

athletic director An athletic director (commonly "athletics director" or "AD") is an administrator at many American clubs or institutions, such as colleges and universities, as well as in larger high schools and middle schools, who oversees the work of coaches and ...

Oregon State University Oregon State University (OSU) is a public land-grant, research university in Corvallis, Oregon. OSU offers more than 200 undergraduate-degree programs along with a variety of graduate and doctoral degrees. It has the 10th largest engineering co ...

Playing career

Keene graduated from

in 1921, where he was a

pitcher In baseball, the pitcher is the player who throws ("pitches") the baseball from the pitcher's mound toward the catcher to begin each play, with the goal of retiring a batter, who attempts to either make contact with the pitched ball or draw ...

on the baseball team, and was chosen as team captain in his junior year.

Coaching career

After graduating from Oregon State, Keene signed on with

's athletic department, where he coached three sports: football for 17 years, baseball for 16 years, and basketball for 11 years. Combined, Keene's teams won or shared 19

Northwest Conference The Northwest Conference (NWC) is an athletic conference which competes in the NCAA's Division III. Member teams are located in the states of Oregon and Washington. It was known as the Pacific Northwest Conference from 1926 to 1984. History ...

championships, and in the 1929–30 academic year, each of his three teams were undefeated and won conference championships. Keene is considered the "father of Willamette athletics" and was a charter member of the University's Athletic Hall of Fame in 1991.

Attack on Pearl Harbor

On December 6, 1941, Keene's Willamette football team was in

Honolulu, Hawaii Honolulu (; ) is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Hawaii, which is in the Pacific Ocean. It is an unincorporated county seat of the consolidated City and County of Honolulu, situated along the southeast coast of the island o ...

, where they lost a game to

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only stat ...

, 20–6. The following day, the players and fans had intended to do some sightseeing around Hawaii, but instead, were witness to Japan's

attack on Pearl Harbor The attack on Pearl HarborAlso known as the Battle of Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service upon the United States against the naval base at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Territory of Hawaii, j ...

. The players, now stranded in Hawaii, were enlisted to string barbed wire on

Waikiki Beach Waikiki (; haw, Waikīkī; ; also known as Waikiki Beach) is a neighborhood of Honolulu on the south shore of the island of Oahu in the U.S. state of Hawaii. Waikiki is most famous for Waikiki Beach, which is one of six beaches in the district ...

and were given rifles and assigned to protect the beach and later the hills above Honolulu. Keene, along with future

Oregon governor The governor of Oregon is the head of government of Oregon and serves as the commander-in-chief of the state's military forces. The title of governor was also applied to the office of Oregon's chief executive during the provisional and U.S. ter ...

Douglas McKay James Douglas McKay (June 24, 1893 – July 22, 1959) was an American businessman and politician from the U.S. state of Oregon. He served in World War I before going into business, where he was most successful as a car dealership owner in Salem ...

, who had traveled with the football team, finally arranged passage home for the players on December 19 on an overloaded luxury liner, the ''

SS President Coolidge SS ''President Coolidge'' was an American luxury ocean liner that was completed in 1931. She was operated by Dollar Steamship Lines until 1938, and then by American President Lines until 1941. She served as a troopship from December 1941 until ...

''. The team arrived in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

Christmas Day Christmas is an annual festival commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ, observed primarily on December 25 as a religious and cultural celebration among billions of people around the world. A feast central to the Christian liturgical year, ...

after taking a circuitous route to avoid Japanese submarines. In 1997, the entire team was inducted into Willamette's Athletic Hall of Fame.

Return to Oregon State

Following

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, in 1947, Keene returned to Oregon State to serve as athletic director. He served in that post for 26 years, the longest tenure of any Oregon State athletic director. During his term, he oversaw construction of the University's two major sports facilities:

Gill Coliseum Gill Coliseum is a multi-purpose indoor arena in the northwest United States, located on the campus of Oregon State University in Opened the arena has a seating capacity of 9,604 and is home to the Oregon State Beavers' basketball, wrestling, v ...

in 1949 and

Parker Stadium Reser Stadium is an outdoor athletic stadium in the northwest United States, on the campus of Oregon State University in Corvallis, Oregon. It is the home of the Oregon State Beavers of the Pac-12 Conference, and opened in 1953 as Parker Stadium ...

(later renamed

Reser Stadium Reser Stadium is an outdoor athletic stadium in the northwest United States, on the campus of Oregon State University in Corvallis, Oregon. It is the home of the Oregon State Beavers of the Pac-12 Conference, and opened in 1953 as Parker Stadium ...

) in 1953. Keene was President of the

Pacific Coast Conference The Pacific Coast Conference (PCC) was a college athletic conference in the United States which existed from 1915 to 1959. Though the Pac-12 Conference claims the PCC's history as part of its own, with eight of the ten PCC members (including a ...

Athletics Directors Association and served on the executive committee of the

NCAA The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges an ...

Legacy

In 1989, Willamette University built a new baseball stadium, which they named Roy S. "Spec" Keene Stadium. In addition to the Willamette University Athletic Hall of Fame, Keene was inducted into the

Oregon Sports Hall of Fame The Oregon Sports Hall of Fame honors Oregon athletes, teams, coaches, and others who have made a significant contribution to sports in Oregon. The first class was inducted in 1980, with new inductees added in the fall. Operated by the Oregon Sports ...

in 1982 for his coaching, and the Oregon State University Sports Hall of Fame in 1991 for his service as athletic director. He died in Corvallis on August 24, 1977.

Head coaching record

Football

Basketball

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Keene, Spec 1894 births 1977 deaths Baseball pitchers Oregon State Beavers baseball players Oregon State Beavers athletic directors Willamette Bearcats baseball coaches Willamette Bearcats football coaches Willamette Bearcats men's basketball coaches Baseball players from Oregon Basketball coaches from Oregon