After 25 years of prowling the sidelines, scowling at officials and growling at his players, Purdue s Gene Keady will say good-bye to the Big Ten this week.

It s a pretty good assumption that Keady s legendary coaching career will last just one more game.

This is his worst team ever, and most expect the Boilermakers (7-20, 3-13) to be one-and-done after playing Iowa in the opening round of the conference tournament Thursday in Chicago.

It is not the kind of ending Keady deserves.

He has been one of the Big Ten s best ambassadors for the last quarter of a century, not to mention one of the league s best coaches.

Before Toledo native Joe Tiller brought Purdue s football program back from the dead, Keady s basketball teams ruled the roost in West Lafayette, Ind.

Keady, 68, never took the Boilermakers to the Final Four, and he never won a national championship, but he will leave a lasting legacy in the Big Ten and at Purdue.

He is an icon.

Under Keady s direction, the Boilermakers have made 18 NCAA tournament appearances and have enjoyed 14 seasons of 20 wins or more. And he has won a record seven coach of the year awards, to go along with six Big Ten titles.

Keady s 512 career victories are a school record and represent more than a third of the total wins in the school s long history.

Keady, whose dreadful hairstyle has been the butt of David Letterman s jokes, will be remembered by some for his epic temper tantrums. He ll be remembered by others for his toughness he was a former quarterback who was drafted and then cut by the Pittsburgh Steelers in 1958.

He also will be remembered as a tireless worker and a caring coach who looked after his players and then took them in like one of his own.

Keady, though, will be best remembered for his loyalty to Purdue.

When he announced last spring that this would be his final season, the university allowed Keady to help pick his successor. He turned to a former Purdue player, Matt Painter, to make a smooth transition.

Through the years, Keady has had opportunities to move on to Texas, Arizona State, Ohio State, UNLV, San Diego State, and last season, San Francisco, but he has stayed put.

Nobody expected Keady s team to contend for a Big Ten championship this season or to make a run for an NCAA tournament bid, but they didn t presume the Boilermakers would be this bad, either.

Purdue, loser of 20 games for the first time in school history, is riding a five-game losing streak.

Obviously, this isn t the kind of farewell tour Keady expected, although his program has been slipping for the last five years.

Despite Purdue s struggles, Keady who has been coaching basketball on one bench or another for 47 years has been treated like a king at every stop.

He has been rewarded with numerous golfing trips. He has been presented with plaques and pictures. He received a framed Boilermakers jersey with his name and No. 25 on the back, signifiying his years of service.

He got a cigar humidor at Northwestern, and a lifetime supply of hot sticky buns from Miami (Ohio).

Unfortunately, Keady s sendoff season is coming to a close and college basketball is about to lose one of its most colorful characters.

That comb-over we can do without, but we need more good guys like Keady in the game.

First Published March 8, 2005, 5:01 p.m.