'I can't say I'm a walk-on anymore' - Patrick Keim achieves his dream

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Dec. 8, 2017

By Greg Ostendorf
AuburnTigers.com

AUBURN, Ala. -- Patrick Keim still remembers his first meeting with Bruce Pearl. Keim was a freshman at Auburn. The former standout at Mountain Brook High School turned down scholarship offers to come to Auburn with no expectations to play basketball or even make the team. Pearl had just become the new Auburn head basketball coach.

Pearl told Keim that he treats walk-ons the same way he treats his players, which meant Keim wasn't going to be cut any slack just because he wasn't on scholarship. But then Pearl, whose son Steven was walk-on at Tennessee, said something that has stuck with Keim over the years.

"I'll never forget it," Keim said. "Literally, I can see him sitting there on the coffee table saying, `And I've given scholarships to walk-on players before. It can happen.' I just remember it clicking in my mind like `Woah, that's a possibility.'"

Four years later, that possibility, that dream became a reality for Keim.

After Wednesday's Gardner-Webb game, Pearl stood in the locker room to give his post-game speech and started asking the players about characteristics that defined the team. "Loving each other," one player said. "Playing hard," said another. "You don't care who gets it."

"All these aspects of a great team are embodied in several of you," Pearl continued. "But there's one guy that's been with us since we got here, and nobody embodies that spirit more than Pat Keim. I'm here to tell you that he has just earned a scholarship to Auburn University."

The other players jumped up, mobbed Keim and starting chanting his name. With encouragement from Pearl, he got up and gave a speech to the team. Then his family entered the locker room to share in the moment. But the first thing Keim thought about, before everything else, was that meeting in Pearl's office.

That's where it all began.

Wednesday started out like any other game day for Keim. He didn't have his typical morning classes because of dead week, but he arrived to Auburn Arena a little early to make sure he was prepared to emulate Gardner-Webb guard Liam O'Reilly during shoot-around.

As a walk-on and a member of the scout team, Keim watches film and learns the tendencies of every single opponent. When it comes time for practice or shoot-around, he'll put on a jersey the same color as Auburn's upcoming opponent and mimic one of their players in hopes of helping the Auburn players that do play and preparing them for the game.

Then after watching more film and eating a hearty meal with his teammates, Keim joins the other walk-ons in the gym to run sprints before it's off to the weight room to lift weights. By pre-game warmups, they can barely get the ball to the rim.

They do it all knowing there is a slim chance they will ever see the floor.

"You have to find satisfaction in places," Keim said. "You're coming from high school where you go from being the man to not being the man. If you don't learn quickly to find joy and fulfillment and purpose in something else, you're going to instantly not become a walk-on and probably be done with it or want to quit right after."

Keim nearly did quit after his freshman year. He was used to playing all the time for a team that won back-to-back state championships in high school. At Auburn, he hardly ever played for a team that finished 15-20 that first season. To make matters worse, he tore his ACL after the season and wasn't sure if he'd be healthy in time for the next season.

He had to ask himself, "What am I doing this for?"

For Keim, it became about helping his teammates, making them better both on and off the court. That's why he grinds every day in practice. That's why he learns tendencies for an opposing player ever week. That's why he's OK with not playing during games.

"To me personally, my reward is more relational-based for my teammates," Keim said. "If they know I'm working this hard to give them the best opportunity for them individually, as well as for Auburn, to be successful, hopefully along the lines they can look at me as someone they can come to for whatever they need.

"For me, it's more about them. It's more about my teammates out there and constantly just being there for them in the sense of whatever I've got to do to make them have a life that's better outside of Auburn, I'm willing to do."

As tipoff drew closer Wednesday night, there were still very few people who knew about Keim's scholarship. His teammates didn't know. He didn't know. They went through pre-game warmups like they would for any other game, oblivious of what was to come.

The game itself was a rout. Auburn jumped out to a 21-4 lead early and never fell behind. With under two minutes to go and the game in hand, Pearl called on Keim to go check in. The crowd began cheering when he got up off the bench. This was the guy that got everybody off their seat a season ago when he made a 3-point shot to finish off Alabama. How perfect would it be if he drained a 3-point shot on the same night he was going to be awarded a scholarship?

Keim never took a shot, though. Why? Because Thomas Collier was the lone walk-on who had yet to score in a game, and Keim was determined to make that happen.

So instead of hogging the ball or taking a shot as soon as he touched it, Keim went and set a pick to get Collier open. And sure enough, Collier came off the screen in the middle of the floor, caught the ball going towards the basket and made his first shot of the season.

On the night he would receive his scholarship, it was the perfect ending.

"Honestly for me, it's so much sweeter knowing that I'm getting this opportunity and this blessing the night after everyone on my team scored," Keim said. "That's my goal, and that's been my purpose on this team -- just to make everyone better.

"It's not building myself up, but just in the sense of literally that's the only thing that's mattered to me. Not playing time. Not points. Not wins. Not Instagram followers. It's literally let's make everyone here enjoy what they're doing. To see the smile on his face, that means a lot to me. And so for all this to happen on the same night, it's just one of those things where it's definitely my No. 1 [moment] at Auburn."

"You think you get into coaching because you want to try to make a difference with kids," Pearl said. "That kid's made a difference in me."

After the celebration was over and the team was leaving the locker room, Keim was talking to teammate Samir Doughty and said something along the lines of "That's just what walk-ons do." Doughty stopped him and said "Hey, you can't say that anymore."

"I guess I can't say I'm a walk-on anymore," Keim said.

Greg Ostendorf is a Senior Writer for AuburnTigers.com. Follow him on Twitter: Follow @greg_ostendorf