Floyd Keith

Floyd A. Keith (born August 22, 1948) was the head coach of the Howard Bison and Rhode Island Rams football teams. He compiled a 46–70–2 overall record. He is the Executive Director of the Black Coaches and Administrators. He served as a collegiate football coach for thirty years (1970–1999).

Head coaching record

Twenty of his 42 years in the field have been in the capacity of high level executive management. He is the Chief Executive Officer of his own consulting business, Planned Positive Attitude (PPA) Professional Services. He is also a consultant for the NCAA Office of Inclusion and Leadership Development and is a senior advisor for the DeVos Sports Business Management Graduate Program at the University of Central Florida. He served 12 years as the Executive Director of the Black Coaches and Administrators (BCA). Prior to BCA, he worked 11 years as a head football coach on the NCAA FCS level. Keith has been associated with and has contributed to a continued pattern of success in both administration and coaching.

Keith was appointed Executive Director of the BCA in 2001. During his tenure, the BCA reinforced its position as the preeminent force for the social consciousness of ethnicity in American sports while increasing its membership from 172 to over 5,500. The number of corporate sponsors for the BCA grew from one in 2001, to a high of 26 in 2011.

From 2002-2006, as Executive Director of BCA, Floyd led the contractual negotiations for the securing of event promoters for eight BCA Invitational and Classic pre-season basketball events and five pre-season exempt football events. The well-known football events have been known as the BCA Football Classic (2001-2004) and the BCA Bowl (2002).

Under his leadership, the BCA exceeded the $1 million mark in fund raising on four occasions. In 2006, on behalf of the association, Mr. Keith negotiated a six-year fund raising and sponsorship agreement with Learfield Sports. He spearheads the annual BCA Legacy Campaign which has flourished despite the current economic landscape.

As BCA Executive Director, Keith conducted an on-going collaborative effort known as “Equity in Hiring” and coordinated annual “Equity in Hiring Summits” from 2002 to 2005. These national summits were dedicated to the resolution of the inequities in the hiring of candidates of color for head coaching and administrative athletic positions on the intercollegiate level. The BCA’s “Hiring Report Card” is a direct result of these summits. 2011 was the eighth year the BCA Hiring Report Card evaluated the hiring process of institutions of higher education in their searches for head football and women’s basketball coaches via a five step grading system. The BCA has objectively and positively influenced the way intercollegiate searches are conducted and viewed in America. Since the initial 2003 BCA report for football, there has been a 600% increase in the number of FBS head football coaches from three to a current all-time high of 18.

Keith participated in the development and realization of the NCAA-BCA “Achieving Coaching Excellence Program” (ACE) for collegiate basketball coaches. ACE is a collaborative professional development program initially made possible through a matching grant from the NCAA’s Committee on Women’s Athletics and the Office of Diversity and Inclusion; and now is exclusively funded by the NCAA. ACE is designed to advance the mission and vision of the advancement for ethnic minority basketball coaches to become head basketball coaches on the collegiate level. Of the 164 past participants in the program, over 50 head coaching positions have resulted.

Keith has received national recognition on numerous occasions during his career. In 2004, Sports Illustrated recognized him as one of “The 101 Most Influential Minorities in Sports”. Black Enterprise magazine listed him as one of the “50 Most Powerful Blacks in Sports” in 2005. The All-American Football Foundation honored him as the 2004 Executive Director of the Year. Keith serves on the “Honors Court of the National Football Foundation and College Football Hall of Fame” which annually selects the inductees for the College Football Hall of Fame.

His on field coaching honors include eight NCAA and AFCA appointments, three presidential positions, two conference chairmanships. He has been named “Coach of the Year” on three separate occasions. The National Consortium for Academics and Sports awarded him the “2007 Giant Steps Award for Coaching”. The All-American Football Foundation honored him as the 2005 recipient of the Johnny Vaught Outstanding Coach Award for his past accomplishments as a head football coach. He was awarded the Bigger Picture Award by the Alliance for Women Coaches in June 2013.

Keith served seven years as the Head Football Coach for the University of Rhode Island (URI). Prior to URI, he was the quarterback coach for nine years at Indiana University (IU). While at IU, he was privileged to coach three NFL Quarterbacks; highlighted by Kansas City Chiefs, Miami Dolphin and St. Louis Rams quarterback, Trent Green. Before Indiana, he served as an assistant coach at Arizona for one year. Prior to Arizona, he served as the Head Football Coach at Howard University (FCS) for four years, which was preceded by five years as an assistant coach at the University of Colorado. Keith’s collegiate coaching career began as a 21-year-old full-time assistant at the “Cradle of Coaches”, Miami University immediately following his graduation from Ohio Northern.

In January 2003, he was inducted into Ohio Northern University's Athletic Hall of Fame and was recognized as an ONU Distinguished Alumni in May 2008. In 2008, Keith was inducted into the Memorial High School Alumni Hall of Fame. He graduated from ONU in 1970 with a Bachelor of Science in Education. His wife, Dr. Nicole R. Keith (Associate Professor Indiana University-Purdue University, Indianapolis), and he are the parents of four children: Kenyari, Imani, Mikia and Kailan. The Keith family resides in Indianapolis, Indiana.

External links

• ESPN interview with Keith
• profile on Plaxo