Alvin Brooks (Lamar Athletics Photo)
Alvin Brooks II spent two years at Kentucky on coach Billy Gillispie’s staff over 15 years ago and now his son, Alvin Brooks III, has joined Mark Pope’s first staff at UK.
Brooks II has a lot of terrific memories from his time as director of basketball operations from 2007-2009 but one of his favorite ones involves legendary UK basketball equipment manager Bill Keightley.
Keightley worked for coaches Adolph Rupp, Joe Hall, Eddie Sutton, Rick Pitino, Tubby Smith and Gillispie during his 48 years at UK before his passing in 2008.
“Al’s first day there he went with me for a picture and there was Mr. Keightley’s daughter,” Brooks II, now the head coach at Lamar, said. “She said, ‘My dad used to talk about your dad.’
“They took a picture together in front of Mr. Keightley’s image. That was really nice.”
The former Kentucky assistant said he appreciated Keightley for a lot of reasons.
“My first year there I talked to him all the time. He would give me history lessons on Kentucky basketball. But he was also a great talent evaluator,” Brooks II said. “He really was Mr. Kentucky and a genuine treasure. He’s someone I’ll never forget. He meant a lot to me.”
2 Responses
Mr Wildcat also worked for Tubby
He had the honor of being with the 3 greatest & most committed t coaches in UK history (with Mark Pope paving the way to make it 4).
Rupp, Hall, Pitino – 3 great UK coaches placed UK BB 1st – it’s what they were paid to do!
Sutton & his staff were NOT guilty of any corruption in the UCLA-EMORY SCAM. How many employees pull items out of an envelope and go to authorities instead of replacing them & taking it to a supervisor. It was one of the biggest scams in sports, if not the very biggest, with conspiracy written all over it!!!
Tubby said “FF is not important” & NEVER recruited, developed & coached any players who made it to the FF. After riding Pitino’s coat tails he failed over and over, even took the starting job from Rondo which just further proved that TLT was not qualified to coach any big time program.
The fraud is so recent there’s no need to expound in his crooked ways & failures. Even Gillespie ws way ahead of the cali-con-fraud based on the past 4 seasons, if not the past 9.
Sutton failed when he had Winston Bennet but could not beat a so-so LSU for a 4th time in one season when playing them in the Big Dance. Yes – the crooked ncaa cronies rigged the region to make UK face a team in their own conference which UK had already beaten 3 times. The ncaa has always been corrupt, favored a few programs and hated a few others. They hated Rupp & maintain that evil hatred to this day.
Mark Pope will be challenged by crooked SEC refs and crooked seeding, locations & opponents in the Big Dance, but his hard working, talented, team oriented & well coached players will overcome the crooks and get us Banner #9 and then add some more!
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