Georgetown great gives back to the school where he found faith and family

By John Herndon, 110forChrist.com

GEORGETOWN, Ky. – You’ll never get basketball out of Keith Currens’ blood. 

For that matter, you’ll never keep a love of Georgetown College from running through his veins either.

One of the all-time greats at Georgetown, Currens is helping the Lady Tigers prepare for the Mid-South Conference Tournament which gets underway this week in Bowling Green. Georgetown, which was receiving votes in the NAIA national poll of Feb. 18, will take on fifth-ranked Campbellsville on Friday afternoon. The teams finished the season against each other with Georgetown claiming a 68-67 homecourt win as senior Kayra Freeman delivered a layup with 4.2 seconds to play. 

Campbellsville, seeded fourth in the MSC, won the first meeting, 78-67, on its home floor on Feb. 5. And, as he has been for almost every game over the last four years, Keith Currens was there, seated next to head coach Jeff Nickel, thrilled with the victories and disappointed in defeat. 

“I just volunteer here. I don’t get paid,” Currens said, noting that the winter months are slow for his water tower painting business. 

Currens got his start working in the women’s program under Coach Andrea McCloskey, then continuing for three years with James Jackson. After stepping away and working with the Anderson County High School program in a Final Four season, Currens returned to his alma mater when Nickel took over in 2022. 

Regardless of the outcome, Currens is reminded that coaching basketball is much more than what appears in the box scores. It’s a ministry that he never saw coming when he first set foot on the Georgetown campus.

That was in the fall of 1983 when Currens arrived after a stellar high school career at Harrodsburg High School. 

“I was an old farm boy from Mercer County and I could probably do nothing other than play basketball,” Currens remembers. “Georgetown College, being a Baptist school, but I was not a Christian. All I knew was they were somebody that wanted me to play basketball. It was close enough to home, so that’s why I came here.”

Currens carved out a career for the ages at Georgetown, scoring 2,381 points placing him third all-time in Tiger history. Nearly 40 years later, he’s still third behind Olympian Kenny Davis and Dick Vories, according to georgetowncollegeathletics.com. Currens also pulled down 1,035 rebounds, good enough for fifth in Tiger history when he graduated. His total is still the tenth best in history and he ranks tenth in steals with 160. 

He’s seen the Georgetown men win two national championships and he’s seen the school expand its academic offerings and outreach. And one of the most visible changes has been in what is now known as Davis-Reid Alumni Gym, renamed in 2010 to honor Dr. Bob Davis and Jim Reid, the longest-tenured coaches in Georgetown history. 

While the Tigers and Lady Tigers look to keep their seasons going well into the national tournaments, they combined for a 32-3 record in their newly-renovated home.  The $3.7 million makeover, actually the second in the 100-year-old facility’s history, was made possible by a number of alumni donors. Among the improvements are a new floor, lighting, scoreboards, bleashers, bathrooms and heating and cooling systems. 

Currens remembers some of the issues his teams had over the years. “In the old gym, they had the old style of lights where you turn them on and they had to heat up. We couldn’t even find bulbs for them,” he chuckled. “It was so dark and if you had one light out of two lights out, you didn’t have bulbs to replace them. 

According to the school website, the Davis-Reid facility is the oldest gym in Kentucky. But a trip to see the Tigers in action reveals a modern facility that retains the charm of a smaller old gym.

“It was like everything else. It was getting worn out and needed a lot of repairs,” said Currens, whose career began on the original floor but ended after the first renovation.

“You go to an NAIA game and there will be 500 to 750 people there. You put them in a gym like this and it will be packed. Put them in a 5,000-seat arena and it looks empty,” Currens said. “There is just something about the atmosphere here.”

Indeed. After the Campbellsville women built a 10-point lead late in the third quarter, the Georgetown faithful upped their vocal support of their team and erupted when Freeman’s shot went through the net.

It was just another in a long line of memorable basketball moments on the Georgetown campus. Currens says such moments are etched into the minds of those who love the school

“When they were renovating this place, I came once or twice a week just to go through and look,” said Currens, who lives in Lawrenceburg, about 40-45 minutes from campus. “When they were taking the floor up, my mind went back to 1925-1926. In those early years, U.K’ would come in The thing that went through my mind was the people that have walked on that floor. 

“In my mind I was thinking of the history, all of the players that have played here. Even the current players. It just has so much history to it.”

Currens oversaw the removal and preservation of the mid-court circle from the old floor. It’s now encased in the gym lobby. He found some memorabilia that he didn’t want to go to a dumpster. And most of all, Currens made memories live in the minds of many friends who love the school like he does.

And Currens says the school’s greatest influence came away from that beloved basketball court.

“I just wanted to play basketball. That’s all I wanted to do,” Currens says before breaking into a chuckle. 

“When I got here, the Lord had bigger plans for me. This is where I met my wife. Tamara said, ‘I am a Christian girl, you are not a Christian. We can date but you are going to have to change some. I thought so much of her, I thought, well, I have to.”

Currens credits his wife for challenging his faith and both of their children graduated from Georgetown and their daughter, Kaci, played there.

And the deep faith Currens found at Georgetown has led him to use basketball as a ministry. “I tell everybody the reason I play basketball is for the Lord,” Currens smiles. “I love basketball, but at the end of the day, all that matters is our relationship with Jesus Christ.”