Bill Keefe
Orleans Sports Hall of Fame
Sportswriter, 1912-67
Times-Picayune
Inducted: 1980
William “Bill” McG. Keefe was the sports editor of the New Orleans Times-Picayune and a member of its sports staff (and a predecessor, The Times-Democrat) for 52 years. He was recognized as an authority on thoroughbred racing and covered the Kentucky Derby for more than 30 years. He was one of the few writers to ever accurately pick the top three finishers in a Derby. His writing assignments took him around the country where he covered World Series, championship fights, bowl games, horse-racing, and many memorable college football showdowns.
"Bill had a happy supply of what too much of the sports writing business has forgotten, or maybe never even found out about," Bennie Marshall, sports editor of the Birmingham News at the time, told the Times-Picayne upon Keefe's death in 1967. "He laughed his way through this world because it's funny. He had a great, big wonderful heart and if you knew him, you keep a memory."
Fred Russell, the sports editor of the Nashville Banner, told the Times-Picayune, "The brightest moments in his life came when he was doing things for other people. There have not been many people like Bill Keefe. All of his friends here covering the World Series extend their deepest sympathies to his family."
In 1964, Keefe was honored by the Mid-Winter Sports Association (which would become the Sugar Bowl Committee) with a golf lifetime pass to all Sugar Bowl events. He was called "one of the best friends the Sugar Bowl ever had" by then Sugar Bowl President Theo Maumus. He was also made a lifetime member of the Louisiana Sports Writers Association.
