The Ticket’s Gordon Keith fondly remembers ‘Fake Billy Tubbs’
The passing of former TCU and Oklahoma basketball coach Billy Tubbs also means that Fake Billy Tubbs is likely no more as well.
TCU fans, but really more the listeners of KTCK Sports Radio 1310 The Ticket, are familiar with one of the station’s more celebrated characters created by morning personality Gordon Keith.
Tubbs died on Sunday at the age of 85. A small service for family and friends is scheduled for this week in Oklahoma.
Fake Billy Tubbs, which always featured Keith’s signature, “Chuck” to nearly every sentence, will forever be an all-timer.
When Tubbs was hired by TCU in 1994, The Ticket was in its early days. The Ticket carried TCU games at the time, as well as a coach’s radio show with Tubbs and longtime local radio voice Chuck Cooperstein.
That’s where Keith got the idea.
“I tuned in one night and something in Billy’s voice had this hypnotic drawl to it. I thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be funny to have this calm voice say all of these crazy things,’” Keith said in a phone interview on Tuesday morning. “And Billy had this habit of always saying Chuck’s name; that’s why I’d say something insane and then I would use Chuck’s name and having him holding the bag.”
It never mattered that Keith was never actually talking to Chuck. It made the bit even more effective.
In our phone call, Gordon briefly morphed into Fake Billy Tubbs and he was still there. Keith said he didn’t have to practice the voice much. It’s either there, or it’s not, and Fake Billy Tubbs sounds almost exactly like the real one.
Talking to fellow Ticket morning radio hosts George Dunham and Craig Miller, Fake Billy Tubbs would routinely make insanely preposterous comments.
“I coached college basketball for a long time, Chuck,” Fake Billy Tubbs once said. “The best player I ever saw was not NC Double A eligible. He was an ostrich that could shoot the three like a chihuahua on crack.”
As far as Chuck’s feelings about The Fake Billy Tubbs.
“He never said anything to me about it,” Keith said. “I don’t know if Chuck was my biggest fan as far as my approach to sports radio. Chuck and I are on the opposite ends of the spectrum, which is good, because it provided a nice balance. I think Chuck was happy he was not the main joke.”
For the uninitiated: Chuck Cooperstein, now the Dallas Mavericks radio voice, knows everything that has ever happened, and will happen, in sports. For instance, five years ago Chuck knew the 2020 NBA season would be shutdown by a pandemic, and moved to a bubble in Orlando.
Gordon Keith will make fun of anything that has ever happened, and ever will happen, in sports.
Both are exceptional at what they do.
For the record, Chuck’s feeling about Fake Billy Tubbs: “At the time it bothered me because I felt as if he was mocking something (TCU athletics) that was important to growing the station’s identity, and the fact he knew nothing about sports (and wore it) and was on a sports station bothered me to no end,” Cooperstein sent to me in a text message.
“But now I look back on it and appreciate it for Gordon’s mastery of the voice. Frankly, amazed by it.”
Keith said he only vaguely recalls having met Tubbs once or twice, and there were no real conversations. The subject of Fake Billy Tubbs never came up.
Former TCU men’s basketball media relations contact Kent Johnson said the real Billy Tubbs never mentioned the Fake Billy Tubbs once.
TCU, surprisingly, was never bothered by the bit. Typically schools never take this sort of ribbing well, especially from the flagship radio station.
I was a lowly graduate assistant in its athletic department from 1996 to ‘98, and any time Fake Billy Tubbs made an appearance on The Ticket, it was always a point of discussion, and amusement.
“Did you hear Fake Billy Tubbs this morning?” was always a common question.
“I’m sure the old guard may not have liked having their brilliant head coach rendered crazy by this insane character,” Keith said. “But I understand that when The Ticket came along it was a sea change for sports radio. I’m hoping it was taken in the spirit it was intended.”
The spirit of Fake Billy Tubbs was absurd humor, and Gordon Keith made him fly.
May Fake Billy Tubbs now rest in peace, Chuck.
This story was originally published November 4, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
