The OTP with David Keith

some of my favorites. Bru Baker, The Rose, Heartbreak, Hotel, Firestarter, Daredevil, The Great Santini, The Lords of Discipline, Behind Enemy Lines, The Indian in the Cupboard, and one for which he's maybe may be best known, An Officer and a gentleman TV series, Hawaii five Regular Role, Law and Order. I even remember co Ed Fever, which was his first TV series. He won't he won't even know I remember that, David Keith. Welcome to the Official Podcast the OTP. I can't believe

you brought up Coed Fever. Boy. That was bad. When you're someone's cousin, you've seen everything they've done. Well, Mike, you took my first question. I want to know exactly how you guys are related, because there might be a little confusion. Our grandfathers were brothers. Okay, our grandfather Keith and my grandfather was about sixteen, I think when my uncle Gilmer, Mike's grandfather was born and so and their

parents died not long after that. So the older siblings in that family, and I think there were eleven I'm not sure. I may be wrong at eleven, thirteen to nine, but what it was a bunch of them, and the older ones raised the younger ones. So my Papal is almost like a dad to my uncle Gil. He was. He actually forced him. It was during the depression. My grandfather had dropped out of school because he had to go to work, and your grandfather forced him to come

live with him so he would finish high school. And think about how that changed his life because he got a great job with General Foods and had a successful career and kind of, you know, passed along good things to the rest of our family. And so, yeah, that's a good family story. They were two of thirteen. David's granddad was second. My granddad was thirteenth. So that was the difference. I think Uncle Fred was first. Was he

the oldest? Yes? Okay, so there you go, Aby, that's more than you and the rest of the ot people wanted to know. I don't think that's true. I think that's a great family story. When I told everybody that David was going to do the podcast, they said, you've got to ask him about Major League and the Jack Parkman shimmy. Do you get more people ask you about Jack Parkman than any other character at this part of your life? I guess now that the officer and a

gentleman people are all in nursing homes. What I used to get all the time was bodacious set of tatas, which is a line actually threw in myself. It was a different, different lineup through that in or did you really swallow the ring? Those two things from officer, but from from young men. They want me to do the Parkman shimmy like basketball games, and you know, they've got a big head of me, and some of the students have seen that. Most of the kid college kids now

remember from from Indian in the cupboard. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that makes sense. Well, I want to stick with Major League two for a second because I've seen a lot of sports movies, and I always wonder can people in these movies actually play the sports that they are portraying? Like Major League too, there had to be some people who were legit good at baseball and some people who really weren't. Who were some of those people. None of the actors on the team were were not good at baseball.

Most everybody had played, I guess in their youth, but they certainly, you know, they were fine at practice. I mean, we had some minor league players that were extras, and we weren't up to their caliber. But the hardest time I had was I hadn't gotten a new prescription of my contacts, and so I go to practice with my

glasses on and hit the ball great. And then it came time, you know, in front of when the cameras are rolling, and I have my contacts, and it'd be was really cold at night in Camden Yards, and the contacts were like sticking to my eye lids. And I stood there at the play whiffing it over and over, finally connected and put it in the outfield. So oh, no, eyes are so important in baseball you don't think about it. And if I'd only thought ahead of time. Man, Just

save me some embarrassment. You have some baseball skills, but you're really a football fan, right. I've always said basketball is my favorite sport. Football is my religion. I love that. I might steal that. Actually, you know, the University of Tennessee football in my household was too important to enjoy. I mean, if the balls lost on Saturday, you didn't go around my dad about Wednesday, you know, when you knew the next game was coming up. I mean it was.

It was really bordering on nuts, you know it was. It was. It was like having a distant relative in major surgery every Saturday. Imagine I feel these days. Is it true that you had a role on like within the Tennessee Balls program and maybe the Dallas Cowboys program. Oh, I'll tell you those stories. So when in nineteen sixty seven, when I was thirteen years old and my dad had been taking me some games, it just wasn't enough to sit and stands. That's part of my personality, just overdue,

overdue anyway. So I got a job as an equipment manager when I was thirteen, and then I played my last season of football the following year, and then went back as an equipment manager and continued to work until seventy one, when I was a junior in high school. So I worked at games in the practices. I was Bill Battle's ball boy when he was the receiver's coach before he became the head coach, and it was so

much fun. And I got hit, especially when you were practicing with the smaller bowl squad and the managers had to like play cornerback with an air shield. I got knocked all over the place, but it was a real joy. And then when I became a little bit of a celebrity, Doug Dickey invited me to come back to the games, and I said, I really want to be on the sidelines.

So he hooked me back up with the old manager's coach, George Cafego, and they gave me a coach's uniform, and I was on the sidelines until I guess two thousand and seven or eight with the Tennessee football team. I had to put in my movie contracts that I had to be I had to be finished by Friday evening so I could make a flight back if I was in Canada or the continental United States. I had to make a flight back to every Tennessee game, and a lot of movies shot on Saturday back then, so I

had to be scheduled out on Saturday. And then when Bill Bates got on the sidelines with the Cowboys, he got me on the sidelines with the Cowboys and they had me down there for a few games. They said, look, you're not allowed to be down here without some kind of job. So I carried one of those gigantic old video recorders for KXAS out of Fort Worth on my shoulder,

carried that around for a season. And then Tom Landry's final season, Greg Ilo, who was director of operations at the time, got me a job carrying Tom Landry's headphones and standing next to Tom Landry through the whole game. And I mean there were so many That was a terrible season and his last season, and it ended in

such heartbreak with him getting fired. But one of the amazing things that I remember is he would he would call the receivers, he'd call a time out if things weren't working, he'd call the receivers over and the quarterback and he'd take a piece of paper and a sharpie and redesign the pass routes, send them back in completion, completion touchdown. Completion completion touchdown was amazing. Another tidbit that

I want to impart to all football receivers. He would say, never jump when the ball is coming at you unless you got to you know, high point it and catch it. Never have your body going perpendicular to the path of the ball, because it just adds another movement and adds another element to the possible inaccuracy of the throw. But I see players do that all the time. You know, they were to go across the middle, and they leave their feet and so their body's going this way and

the ball hits it bounces off. Can I just hit on something real quick? Did you say that you wrote into your movie contracts like it was a real thing that you had to be at these games? Well, I didn't personally write it, my lawyer did. But yeah, well right, wow. Ever a time you had to turn something down or maybe not be a part of something. No, but they wouldn't agree to it in Major League two because they would fill the stadium with thirty thousand not filled, but

they put thirty thousand fans. Well, I guess it was full in Camden Yards on Saturdays because when people were off from work. That's when we had to shoot all the big Wide Masters of Baseball games and so forth. And so I missed four games that season, and it was very painful, but they were very nice. They put the Tennessee games on the JumboTron so that I could watch them, you know, them between shots. And I remember

one time I took. I didn't get along with the first assistant director on that and I left one Saturday morning and flew home to Knoxville, got off the plane and they said, mister Keith, you have a message from your movie. Come. You have to get right back on your plane. They need you for a shot. So I fly back up there and they needed running out of focus, running from second to third in the background of a shot. That's all they needed. And I had to miss the

Tennessee Alabama game. Oh oh, that's brutal. I've never forgiven him. I get it. Well. I assume that not everyone in Hollywood is as fanatical about football as you are, but there must be some actors who are. Who are some of those actors who care about sports, specifically football, as much as you, Well, I none as much as me. I would venture to say that no one has ever been so adamant that they would have a clause put in a contract like that. It's a power move. You know.

Charlie Sheen likes Notre Dame because his dad liked Notre Dame. So we sometimes we watched the Tennessee game and his bus and then we watched the Notre Dame game. Or at one time, Tennessee was killing Kentucky and the game was almost over. The Notre Dame game was starting on another channel, and he switched over the Notre Dame game and it just killed me. I wanted to see a score, another touchdown. Here's what's cool about David. Though he's got

all these great stories. You have a Music City Miracle story. You were at Nissan Stadium for the Music City Miracle. Every great Titans fan has a Music City Miracle story, and you are no exception. Yeah. I was sitting in your dad's seats, God bless him, the best seats in the house. The problem was I believe that it was a forward pass. I was positive it was a forward pass, so I was not cheering. I was not enjoying it. I was sitting there like this going and they're gonna

call it back and it's just matter, you know. I start looking for flags. I don't see a flag. Everybody's still going crazy. And then moments later I started celebrating, but it wasn't the same as that feeling you have, you know when it's real time and you know that's gonna happen. You know they're gonna win. It's a touchdown. So I was robbed of that because I just saw it as a foreign pass. I still think it close. Everybody in Buffalo thinks it was, but everybody else thinks

we got it. So that's the way that works. Why have you become so attached to the Titans, David See, I quit the Cowboys when they fired Landry. The Cowboys were almost I was almost as crazy about them as the Valls. But when they fired Tom Landry and I couldn't pull for him at the time, it just killed me. And I actually got to mention that to Jerry Jones. I said, you know, you ruined every Sunday for me for the rest of my life. And he said, well, if you ever get past this, you got a seat

in my box. Twenty years later, I'm shooting something in Dallas and Bill Base is going to do the coin toss. Bill invites me to come with him. I go up to Jerry on the sideline. So you remember our last conversation. He said, it's coming back to me. I said, well, you still got a seat in that box. He said absolutely. So the family allows me in their box when I want to go to a Cowboy game. So but anyway,

I digress. As usual, for the Oilers to come to Tennessee was such a great feeling for me one because Eddie George was on the team and I was a huge fan of Eddie George is. In fact, when Eddie when Eddie was at a high state and he won the Heisman Trophy and Tennessee beat them in the not the gated role. What was the other bowl? Centres thought was it the centres? Well, I thought it was in Tampa. Anyway, So he has had the worst game of his career.

He's coming off, he's surrounded by press and he's pushing him away, pushing cameras away, and I NiFe through him in my Tennessee guard and I grabbed him by their jersey and I said, you are a great football player. You're one of the greatest football players in the world, and you're you have a huge future in front of you, and you need to put this day behind you and forget about it and move on. You got a great

future in the NFL. And that actually came back to me a few years later because he was with somebody in La telling that story, because the guy he was telling it to was the producer of a show I was doing. So that came back and Eddie and I became friends and hung out a little bit Nashville after that. But them coming there gave me a real true Sunday experience, another football Tennessee football experience. So I was a fan from day one. I kind of like the Oilers anyway.

I love those white blue jerseys and I love it when the Titans wear light blue. But yeah, it was just it was the greatest thing in the world to have Sundays. So I've been a fan, huge fan. I know, you get connected to head coaches. What is it about Mike Rabel that you like? Rabel is a stud and the whole team knows it. And that is a real primal thing between a coach and his players. No, no one would want to fight him. I mean they might whip him, but they would be rough and they would

not come out unscathed. That's a fundamental thing. I made a couple other note to her about him, his demeanor on the sidelines. He's just He is calm, he has strength with emotion, and you can just see the camaraderie with his players. You can see how much he cares about them. He's their friend. He's not just their coach. He's their friend and buddy. You play a lot harder for a friend than you do for a coach. Amy knows this. When I do the games, Amy, Amy does

sidelines with us. I turned my phone off during the game, but the first thing I do when the game ends is I turned my phone back on. And that's not only for family in case something has gone on, but also to kind of see what's happening in the locker room and just to connect generally. One of the first texts I've gotten is from David Keith, and normally it revolves around Derreck Henry somehow, some way. I don't think there is a bigger Derrick Henry fan in America than

David Keith. We can't give it to Eric Henry enough for you, David, Is that accurate? I struggled this all the time, because I want to protect him. They've got they can't do what the New Jersey generals and Trump did to herschel Walker. You know they can't, but my gosh. You know, intimidation is a defense, that's what they're supposed to do. But with Henry, Henry offense is an intimidating offense. Now you've got a defense that's worrying about him all

the time. They're worrying about getting beat. And as they get beat slowly through the day, they don't just get damaged physically, they get damaged emotionally, psychologically, they start to doubt themselves. And that is just a crucial tool for an offensive to have. Um can you can imagine being on the defense and wondering if you're the next guy that's going to get, you know, shoved to the ground like a little child. And and that's just He's just

a weapon that can't be ignored. And chickularly, you know, I during the Ravens game, one of the texts that you know, I loved to winning the game, but we should have never been been to overtime. We kicked three field goals that at least two of which could have been first downs. Or touchdowns. I mean throwing the ball on second and five inside the ten, what it's four dwn territory? And throwing the ball on third and two

with Derrick Henry it's four down territory. You tell me that Derrick Henry can't get you five yards in three runs. You tell me he can't get you two yards and two runs. No way. So I don't want him abused, but I want him used more often. Now. Play action, I think, is another thing. You know, when they'll hit the line once or twice early in the game with Henry, and then here they come with the fun and gun, you know, five wide, no empty backfield, and I just go,

oh no, Now, everybody knows what you're gonna do. But when he's back there, and you know, I love Tanny Hill, but sometimes that fake to Derek Hanny ain't much of a fake. It's kind of like they're going to pokes them all, like somewhere in the general six feet from Henry and then goes back to throw. But when he puts it in his gut and pulls it back out, that whole defense has suckered because they have to be because there's snake bit you know, even before they we've

played a team. There's snake bits from watching him, and that's that's a that's a great place to put a defense in. Is he a legitimate MVP candidate in your opinion? David, he is? He is. You know, it's gonna be tough with Mahomes and and uh and u Bien Raethinsburger having the kind of year they're having. But he's so much more instrumental in the Titans success than other running backs or any position to that matter. And I think he is a legitimate candidate. And it means to be seen

what happens the rest of the season. But if he keeps going like it's going now, yeah, he'd have my vote. Let me ask you a movie question about him, Eddie, were just gone to Hollywood and done some things. Do you think Derrick Henry might have some sort of career in him? Good, good looking guy, big guy, well known guy. Would they stick him in a in an action movie somewhere? Well, you have to be able to act, so oh that's true, and you can't. I mean there are people who just

can't get a line out. I mean they're just it just doesn't work. It's nothing against him it's just they don't know how to deliver a line, and that's it has nothing to be intelligence either. Trust me, I've never met a football player that didn't want to be an actor, and I've never met an actor that didn't want to be a football player. But it doesn't mean we can do it. I noticed in the questions you sent me

you mentioned JJ Watt. You know he was great on SNL. Oh, yeah, he was a good actor on SNL and I thought, man, I wish I had a way to send him a message, you know, saying you were really good and this is something you should consider, you know. I want to say that to him. Oh, I've got the Duncan reader here. Don't I talk about delivering a line. I'm sorry, I'm not delivering a line very well. Hey, Titans fans get

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to help keep you running all season long. Titans fans run on Duncan participation by very limited time off for exclusions apply, David, I want to ask you about wide receiver A. J. Brown. Who does he remind you of? You know, I thought and thought about that because I was searching the NFL, and you know, Calvin Johnson is six five. I mean he was kind of he in laa fitzgeral Well the first one that comes to mind because of how thick and strong he is. I didn't

realize he was only sixty one. That really surprised me. I thought he was at least sixty three. But he's what two twenty two, twenty five. He's a powerful guy and he could play running back. But I tell you, I came up with a name, and it came from that touchdown run that tied the game against the Baltimore Ravens when he broke four tackles and drove that safety into the end zone. He looked like Juwan Jennings the

Tennessee Vall. That's what Juwan did on a daily basis, And I hope he'll do it for the forty nine ers one day that he's on the practice squad now. But he didn't have the speed that AJ has, but that power, the lower body power. David, what's your theory about why the Ryan Tannehill thing has worked so well in Nashville after it did not work out for him as well in Miami? You know, that is the question of the day. I mean, he's a great quarterback. Who knew He's so cool in the pocket, he reads the

defense is extraordinarily well. He's got a very good arm, he's mobile. But you know, I gotta say, when you got Derek Henry in the backfield, takes a little of pressure off of you. They didn't have anybody like that. That's true. It always goes back to Derrick Henry with you, Desnan Well, I mean truth, but yeah, it's not wrong. I love your consistency. That's what makes me so happy. Hey, when it comes to your healthcare coverage, you should be the one to make the call. So call farm Bureau

of Health Plans. They've been protecting Tennessee and since nineteen forty seven, David, who jumps out to you on the Titans defense? Do you watch outside of the ball, or just Derrick Henry. No, no, no, of course not if they put it on. If he'd be a hell linebacker. Yeah, you gotta say Harold Landry because of his tackles for law, sacks and so forth. But what jumps out to me is the whole defense. This is a bend but don't

break defense. They can give you a heart attack. They make you sick at your stomach, and here they come like the cavalry at the end and save the day. One of the things that I really love about them are these timely interceptions and pass breakups. Man, when we when the other team is really rolling, you know that an interception or of you know, a third down pass breakup is coming. So so I love the way they've bended and don't break. I love the way they play together.

I love Bayed, love Butler, and you know, I think they're a unit rather than you know, a couple of stars here and there. David Keith is our special guest on the OTP presented by Farm Bureau Health Plans David Koh Are other NFL teams players that you like watching in twenty twenty? Who do you enjoy? I love watching Packer Patrick Mahomes and Tyree Hill. I love it, Patrick Mahomes. It looks like a little schoolyard kid out there having

the best time in his life and nobody. I'm minded me of Condridge Holloway, the way he runs around and people can't get to him, and then to make the plays and the throws that he can make. And I was just just watching. Was it Carlton Davis on the you know, I was talking about an intimidating offense and

how it breaks the spirit of the defense. I don't know if you watched the game, but there was a shot of Carson Davis sitting on the sidelines hanging his head because he'd just been completely and utterly humiliated by Tyreek Kill. I hope he didn't hear that and come looking for me. I think the two of them are amazing to watch. I like watching the Raiders because John Ruden and I are been friends for years. I met him on the sidelines when he was a graduate assistant.

Tried to get him to come to Knoxville. I was texting, I was wearing his phone out trying to get him to come down here and coach the Valls. They didn't have the money. I watched the Cowboys, and you know, I'm hurting for Charlotte and and and the family who I've become friends with, and you know it's They's just I don't think they've got the right coach. Well, so what are some of your thoughts on the eight and

three Cleveland Browns. You know, I haven't watched the Browns this year at all, but Baker Mayfield at six one, I mean, he's the key to stopping him. He's stopping him, so you've got to get an immediate push by the defense. So he's got that wall in front of him in the pocket. If you don't get a quick push, then he'll you know, he can throw over you and make

very accurate good throws. But when he's really troubles when he comes out of the pocket, I would say containment is as important as a defensive push as a defensive pass rush for the Browns. I think that's I think, you know, keeping him from running around and making these crazy plays Ali Patrick Mahomes, I think that's the key to stopping him. David Gleen, are you gonna play football

coach in a movie? Well? I thought I was going to get to get that movie that Matthew mcconnaugh, who played the coach in I thought I was going to get the other coach to Bobby Bowden role and I didn't get the role. But yeah, I'd love to do that. Oh my gosh, that'd be so much fun, so much fun. Before you go, Is there any way that being an actor you are able to embody a role. And you're very familiar with Mike Keith, you know, just as a character. Um,

could you do a Mike Keith touchdown Titans impersonation? I do it all the time on Sundays in my house. I think my neighbors can probably hear me from inside literally, I mean the screams are ridiculous and now I'm out on my back deck, so I know they're going to hear that. But touch that Titans. Yeah, that was great. That's strong. Good, that was strong. It's in the gene. You have to be a Keith. I'm sorry. I understand why you demure when when challenge to do that, but

I still like him. Do it. Dogs are howling the neighborhood. What do you have coming up these days? What are you into the industry? Of course shut down and uh in you know, I was supposed to direct and produce a movie and action movie in Atlanta that in April, and we moved to May and then um, but then we have shelved that and you know, who knows if if it's going to ever happen. I mean it was rolled.

I really wrote the script with the writer, and we had a casting director, we had offers out, and you know it was we were in pretty pre production and now it's just on hold. So every once in a while I'll put a scene on tape and don't get it. I mean, your career has been amazing. I mean it really has been. And for you to be willing to make your old cousin look good and take a little time and talk some ball with us today, I really

appreciate it. I know Aby does too, and I know all of our listeners to the OTP thrilled to hear your insights. And so if Derrick Henry carries the ball sixty times on Sunday against Cleveland, David Keith, well we had don't kill him. Don't kill him. That's exactly right. That's good stuff for David Keith and also for Aby Wells. I'm Mike Keith. We Thank you for joining us for this edition of the o TV So the Weather Legends call.

Everybody knows it's our house making cleanness. We got sighting Boodle running through a b