PROFESSIONAL BIOGRAPHY OF FLOYD A. KEITH
Floyd Keith hasaccumulated forty-five(45) years of service and expertise in the sports profession; with twenty-four (24) of those years in the capacity of high level executive management. He is currently the Chief Executive Officer of PPA (Planned Positive Attitude) Professional Services, a consulting business providing services in the areas of professional development, diversity and inclusion and motivational speaking. Currently, he isconsulting forIndiana University-Purdue University (IUPUI) Department of Intercollegiate Athletics; Indiana University School of Journalism as well as serving as a senior advisor for the DeVos Sports Business Management Graduate Program at the University of Central Florida. Previously, Floyd served for 12 years as the Executive Director of the Black Coaches and Administrators (BCA) from 2001-2013. Prior to BCA, he coached NCAA collegiate footballfor thirty (30) years as a head and assistant football coach on the Division 1 level. Mr. Keith has been associated with and contributed to a continued pattern of success in both administration and coaching.
Floyd 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 (1) in 2001, to a high of twenty-six (26) in 2011.
From 2002-2006, 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 were previously known as the BCA Football Classic (2001-2004) and the BCA Bowl (2002).
Under his leadership, the BCA exceeded the $1M mark in fund raising on four (4) occasions. In 2006, on behalf of the association, Mr. Keith negotiated a 6-year fund raising and sponsorship agreement with Learfield Sports. Hespearheaded the BCA Legacy Campaign which flourished despite the economic landscape between 2008 and 2012.
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”was a direct result of these summits.Under Floyd’s leadership, the BCAobjectively 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.
Mr. Keith is nationally recognized for the development and realization of the NCAA-BCA “Achieving Coaching Excellence Program”(A.C.E.)for collegiate basketball coaches. A.C.E. was a collaborative professional development program initially made possible through a matching grant from the NCAA. A.C.E. 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 164 past participants in the program during his tenure with BCA, over 50 head coaching positions have resulted.
Floyd hasreceived numerous national honors 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. Mr. Keithserved six years (2005-2012) 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. In 2013, he was recognized by the Rainbow/Push Coalition with the “2013 Trailblazer In Sports” award.
Floyd’s coachinghonors are many. Included, are eight NCAA and AFCA appointments, three presidential positions and two conference chairmanships. He has been named conference “Coach of the Year”on three separate occasions, including being named the “1995 New England Coach of the Year in Division 1 Football”. 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 hispast accomplishments as a head football coach. Recently, Floyd was awarded the Bigger Picture Award by the Alliance for Women Coaches in June 2013.
Coach Keith served 7 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, heserved 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. Mr. Keith’s collegiate coaching career began as a 21year 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 his alma mater’s (Ohio Northern University) Athletic Hall of Fame and was recognized as an ONU Distinguished Alumni in May 2008. In 2008, Floyd was inducted into the Memorial High School Alumni Hall of Fame. Floyd Keith graduated from ONU in 1970 with a Bachelor of Science in Education.
The Keith family is comprised of his wife, Dr. Nicole R. Keith, who is currently a Research Scientist for the IU (Indiana University) Center for Aging Research of the Regenstrief Institute, Inc.; and Associate Professor for the Department of Kinesiology. Dr. Keith was most recently named Vice President of the American College of Sports Medicine. Floyd and NiCole are proud parents of four beautiful children: Kenyari (21), Imani (18), Mikia (16) and Kailan (12).
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