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Sidelines Kalani Simpson |
Les Keiter posed with, from left, daughters Jodi, Cindy, Barbara and wife Lila at a birthday celebration for the former broadcaster.
Keiter can
still deliverThe broadcasting legend,
now 85 and still full of life, is
a man of many great storiesTHIS was to be the athletic feat of the night. Sure, Muhammad Ali had just dispatched Brian London in England's Wembley Stadium on this night in 1966. But that was a foregone conclusion. That was nothing. The real competition had just begun.
It would be the radio man, Les Keiter, who would be the one with enough "alacrity" to leap up the apron and dive through the ropes. "I jump into the ring," Keiter says, looking for the interview, "and here comes (Howard) Cosell with his cameraman from the other side of the ring.
"Ali went over to see if Brian London was still alive. He was, he was OK.
"We gathered together simultaneously at mid-ring. I realized I had to do something.
"Cosell was 6-foot-3, although he was round-shouldered. His cameraman could have been a fullback in the NFL. And I was only 5-11."
Sometimes, in sports, when you're in the zone, all time stops. And then everything happens in slow motion.
"So I lowered my head and threw a hip block at Howard Cosell," Keiter says. "Knocked him backwards on national television. Turned to Ali and said, 'Congratulations, Champ, all of America is proud of you tonight.'
"Ali took the mic and said, 'I just want to say one thing: In our home, we only use Bic pens.' "
Bic was, of course, Keiter's radio broadcast's signature sponsor. The presidents of Bic and Mutual Radio stood up, ringside, and applauded.
"I turned to Howard as he recovered. And I said, 'He's all yours, Howard.' "
What a life Les Keiter has led.
LES KEITER HAS always called me "Kid." He calls everybody "Kid."
Keiter laughed and told stories to friends and family at the Honolulu Quarterback Club.
You can do that when you're 85 and still the coolest guy in town.
They had a birthday cake for Keiter yesterday at the Honolulu Quarterback Club. Everybody stood up and sang.
And he was vital the whole time, laughing. Bright smile, bright eyes. He couldn't fool us this time.
Keiter has taken to lulling us to sleep in recent years. He can hardly see and he leans forward and you almost start to believe he really is as old as every one of those 85 years.
"He appears a little tired and that," Chuck Williams says.
But then the second he speaks it all comes roaring back, his trademark rumble sharp as ever, his delivery and memory and wit ever perfect.
"The minute he steps up (to the mic) it's like they plugged the microphone into him!" Williams says. "He comes alive!"
Out of nowhere: Boom, off the wall!
"That voice is still strong," KFVE's Jim Leahey says. "That voice is still Les Keiter.
"You talk to broadcasters, you talk to people in the business, you talk to people who grew up on the East Coast, you talk to people like me who grew up in Hawaii, it was always Les Keiter."
HIS IS A voice that stays with you, a cadence that became legendary in stops in Hawaii, Philadelphia, New York. He did the biggest games and the biggest fights. He knew Jesse Owens and knows Willie Mays and a year or so ago, on a radio program, you could hear the wonder in Sam Huff's voice that he was actually speaking again with this famous voice from the past.
People grew up with him in their ear, and they never forgot.
He did baseball radio recreations in Honolulu, and then New York City (when the Giants moved west) and then in Honolulu again.
There is the story of "Tonight Show" guest host David Brenner once peppering Channel 2's Joe Moore with a Les Keiter impersonation in a Las Vegas elevator.
He's in every hall of fame. A member of the Hawaii Sports Hall of Fame, the UH Circle of Honor, the Washington Sports Hall of Fame, the Big Five Hall of Fame in Philadelphia. His autobiography, "Fifty Years Behind the Microphone" is on permanent display in Cooperstown.
"I've always been pleased to be at Lester's awards luncheons, breakfasts, dinners, after dinners," his brother, Buddy Keiter, says.
"I'm well-fed."
SOME KEITERISMS:THE GENERAL. "Everyone knows him as the General," Leahey says. "Everyone."Back! Back! Back! Back! Boom, off the wall!
He beat the ball! He beat the ball!
The Islanders are wearing their batting clothes tonight.
He got the heebie-jeebies and stepped out of the batter's box.
You should see him run!
Up the elevator shaft.
Too far out for the infield, too far in for the outfield.
He steps into the batter's box with his shillelagh.
He's in the box with a bottle-nosed bludgeon.
Three-and-two, what'll he do?
Right down Broadway!
In again, out again, Finnegan!
The ring-tailed Howitzer tickles the twine.
And of course ...
So long for now.
It is the greatest nickname in sports.
Of course, it came when he was a guest star on "Hawaii 5-0." As a general. And the nickname just stuck.
"He was the first guy to represent Homeland Security," Leahey says.
HE ALWAYS TOOK all the "Kids" under his wing. OC 16's John Noland recalls that when he'd just started at Channel 2 a colleague addressed him in Keiter's good-natured growl:
"You're doing a hell of a job, Kid, everybody's talking about you!"
What?
"You're doing a hell of a job, Kid, everybody's talking about you! Didn't Les tell you that?"
No, Noland said.
"He will. He tells that to everybody."
But seriously, folks ...
Ron Mizutani remembers the day he gave up broadcasting. Things weren't going the way he'd expected. He was frustrated. He applied to HPD.
He'd shaved his head, got in shape, passed all the tests. He was going into the police academy the next day. "General," he said, "I'm entering the force, tomorrow."
No, he was told. He wasn't.
"Don't give up on that dream," Keiter said. "You don't give up on that dream."
Watch Channel 2 tonight. See if you can see a dream.
MUCH HAS BEEN said about the great love story between Keiter and his wife, Lila (who, as her husband's eyesight has failed, has become a superb play-by-play voice in her own right). They first came to Hawaii in 1949. Les' budding radio career in Spokane had ended almost before it could begin. Fired. Told he'd never make it in broadcasting.
But then came a phone call. "What made this man contact me, I don't know. I didn't know him," Keiter says. But there was a job, in small-town Washington state, and then Modesto. And then Hawaii.
" 'You have a week to get ready to do your first game,' " Keiter remembers. "Kamehameha against Punahou. I studied the roster. Punahou was no problem."
Kamehameha, to steal a Keiterism, was a horse of a different potato.
But Keiter soon conquered Hawaiian names, and Honolulu, too. And then they were off to San Francisco, New York, Philadelphia. And then back to Hawaii. Back home for good.
IN THE END, it turns out that Channel 9's camera arrived too late for the birthday cake. For the candles. And the song.
The solution? No problem. (If you watched Channel 2 you saw the original.) Do it again.
"Have we been here a year already?" Keiter zings, to big laughs, his broadcaster's sense of timing still brilliant.
But everybody sings again and the candles are lit again, and Les Keiter blows them out again, TV recording everything as if this was how it happened live.
Everybody smiles. Nobody minds.
It's a Les Keiter recreation.
See the Columnists section for some past articles.
Kalani Simpson can be reached at ksimpson@starbulletin.com
