Ohio State football and men’s basketball play-by-play broadcaster Paul Keels says his parents’ insistence that he and his siblings have a Catholic education has been a major influence in his life.
“I was raised Catholic but in a different way than most people who went to Catholic schools,” he said. “Neither of my parents belonged to the Catholic Church, but they had me and my three siblings baptized as Catholics so early in my childhood that I’m not sure when it was. Then they made sure we had the opportunity to be educated in Catholic schools because we’d get a better education there, and insisted that we go to Mass every Sunday at St. John’s Church in Deer Park,” a suburb of Cincinnati.
“I went to grade school at St. John’s, then graduated from Moeller High School and
Xavier University,” both of which are Catholic institutions in Cincinnati, Keels said. “I’m grateful for the combination of my parents’ commitment to the church and the Catholic education I received, and that’s continued to have an impact on me every day.
“It’s not had a direct influence on my broadcasting career, but I see it all the time in the way Catholic teaching has made me appreciate the good things in life and support different causes.”
Keels, 68, attends Columbus Sacred Heart Church because it’s close to his home near downtown. He also is an occasional visitor to Columbus St. Francis of Assisi Church in the Italian Village neighborhood because he’s a member of the Flytown Club, a social group that meets there.
Flytown was a nickname given to that area in the late 19th century, according to the Columbus Navigator website, because of “the wooden homes that seemed to ‘fly up overnight’ to house the influx of immigrants working in nearby factories.”
Keels said he’s impressed by the way Ohio State coach Ryan Day has encouraged his players to publicly express their Christian beliefs in faith-based events on campus that have attracted thousands of students.
“It’s shown that these young men are OK with being upfront with what they believe and that coach Day is a great supporter of this,” he said. “What’s significant about this is that the players are showing the importance of commitment to anything in life, whether it’s faith or football or something else, and that they are providing an example that affects others.”
Many people have described Keels’ booming baritone as “a voice made for radio,” but he says he never felt that way about himself. “I’ve learned that your own voice just doesn’t sound the way to you it does to others,” he said. “I don’t think it sounds that special, but others do, and I’m grateful for the many compliments I’ve received about it over the years.”
Keels grew up listening to radio sportscasters such as Waite Hoyt, Jim McIntyre and Joe Nuxhall of the Cincinnati Reds, Marv Homan of Ohio State, Phil Samp of the Cincinnati Bengals and Dom Valentino of the NBA’s Cincinnati Royals (now the Sacramento Kings). “I was always a sports fan and dreamed of being able to make listeners feel they were at the scene of a game in the same way they did,” he said.
He began his radio career doing college and high school basketball games at Xavier’s university station. Upon graduation, he became a news reporter for WLW radio in Cincinnati in 1979.
He moved to Detroit in 1980 to call games for the Detroit Pistons and spent the next 18 years at stations in Detroit, Cincinnati and Dayton, doing play-by-play at various times for the University of Michigan, the University of Cincinnati and the Cincinnati Bengals. He also worked during that period for a year at the former United Press International radio network in Washington.
“In 1998, I learned that Terry Smith (now the longtime radio voice of the Los Angeles Angels), who had been Ohio State’s play-by-play voice for more than 10 years, was being replaced, so I applied for that job, was fortunate to get it and have been here ever since,” Keels said.
He said that when he came to Columbus, some people were wary about having someone who used to broadcast games of arch-rival Michigan become the Buckeyes’ voice. “My response was that my work for Michigan was like training in the minor leagues to prepare for the big-time programs at Ohio State. That seemed to please them,” he said.
“I did Michigan football and basketball for WWJ radio in Detroit, which at that time was one of five radio stations doing football and three doing basketball for the Wolverines because the university hadn’t yet sold its sports broadcast rights to one organization. So there wasn’t the same sense in Detroit of broadcasting to a statewide audience as there is at Ohio State.”
Dallas-based Learfield Communications now has exclusive radio broadcast rights for Ohio State, Michigan and many other schools in the Big Ten and the other Power 4 conferences.
During his 28 years with Ohio State, Keels has shared the microphone with only two partners, both former Buckeyes – Jim Lachey in football and Ron Stokes in basketball.
“Having that long, consistent relationship has been so important to me and to the broadcasts,” he said. “It’s rare to have two broadcasters together for so long in one sport, let alone two.
“And it’s not just that Jim and Ron are great partners. These are two guys I admire a lot as husbands, as fathers and now as grandfathers,” said Keels, who is single. “With them being part of the Ohio State family since they played here, I’ve been thrilled for them that the Buckeyes have enjoyed so much success and that they’re so excited to be a part of it.”
Since Keels came to Columbus, Ohio State has won national football championships in early January for the 2002, 2014 and 2024 seasons and lost in the national championship game three other times, while making the NCAA Final Four in men’s basketball on three occasions (one of those appearances was vacated).
“Each national championship was special in its own way,” Keels said. “In 2002, it seemed every game was a cliffhanger, with the championship game against Miami going into overtime. In 2014, they lost their second game of the season at Virginia Tech and it was so exciting to see how they played themselves back into contention game after game.
“Last year, the Buckeyes were undefeated until that crushing loss to Michigan in the final game of the regular season, but the motivation to come back gave the team an anger and determination you could see all the way through the postseason.”
“I’ve seen all these great games and postseason runs, but what jumps out to me over 28 years here are the people – the coaches, Jim Tressel, Urban Meyer and now Ryan Day winning national championships in football, Thad Matta taking the basketball team to the heights in basketball,” Keels said. “I’m grateful for the type of individuals they’ve been and the time they’ve given us before and after every game. They’ve given us so much respect.”
Keels has a week-by-week game preparation routine much the same as players and coaches do. “I start on Monday putting together a two-deep and three-deep game chart, filling it up with statistics and ‘cheat notes,’ being part of the coaches’ press conferences and studying the game notes both schools put out that have become more extensive all the time,” he said.
“Thanks to how technology has changed, I now can watch videos of the opponent’s previous game each week. I’ll run those two or three times and have a better familiarity with the other team than I ever could have when I started broadcasting.
“Technology has made things better, but the game charts I use to identify players are about the same as they’ve always been, combining names on a legal-sized envelope and labeled files. For home games, I have a spotter who helps point out who made tackles, but I’m on my own on the road.”
Football and basketball games, coaches’ shows and preview and review programs take up most of Keels’ time from August to March, but as a full-time staff member of 97.1 The Fan and WBNS-AM in Columbus, the Buckeyes’ flagship radio stations, he also does top-of-the-hour sports updates and other programming throughout the year.
He broadcast one Cleveland Browns game in 2023 during the illness of the team’s longtime announcer Jim Donovan, who died the following year. He was the questioner in a question-and-answer session last month at Columbus St. Charles Preparatory School with Boston Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla. He has written a book on the 2002 national championship season and a children’s book telling the story of Ohio State mascot Brutus Buckeye, been honored as Ohio Sports Broadcaster of the Year five times and is a member of the Ohio Broadcasters Hall of Fame.
Keels says that he’s at the age where he’s thinking of retirement, but it’s not in his immediate plans.
“When I was 41 and came to Columbus, I hoped it would be my last job change after years of bouncing around various places,” he said. “I had a good feeling about it that’s never left. I’d never wanted to leave Cincinnati, but this has become home.
“I feel I still have some time to go at Ohio State and have a general idea of when I’m likely to retire but haven’t set a specific time. It’s still a few years down the road.”
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