C.S. Keys

Profile

IF FOX 6 NEWS SPORTSCASTER C.S. Keys had his way, Junior Seau would be blond. There was a bet, and Seau lost. Now Keys is calling him out and having fun doing it.

“The Chargers were playing the Raiders that week, and we were live on the air,” says Keys, who admits he’s a Raiders fan because it’s a family thing——two players are cousins. “Junior says the loser has to dye his hair blond, and I’m thinking, ‘What is wrong with you?’ I couldn’t say no, so I said, ‘Fine, you have a bet.’ Junior told me, ‘You are going to be the blond brother next week.’ Well, the Raiders won, but he never did it.”

Keys laughs easily and talks fast, with a velvet bass voice that takes on the swinging tempo of a Baptist preacher——especially when he wants to make a point. He’s uncomfortable with the term “on-air personality.” He’s just being himself. “We have a good time,” Keys says of being with his Fox 6 colleagues. “It’s not like work, and it isn’t a style; it’s just me being me.”

Born Craig Scott Keys in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and raised in Philadelphia, he is the seventh of eight siblings. Getting an education wasn’t optional. “All of us went to college,” says Keys. “We weren’t rich; my parents worked hard to see that we had the things we needed to have. Back in the day, kids didn’t have a say in what they were going to do. I was going to college. Period. Fortunately, everything has always fallen into place for me.”

Keys became the first African-American to anchor the weather in the Pittsburgh market when he accepted that position at KDKA-TV. Then he jumped to WPXI-TV and remained with the station for three years before moving to San Diego in 2000 to accept the weathercasting job for the KUSI Morning News. When Keys requested a raise in 2004, KUSI did not renew his contract. Within weeks, he segued from weather to sports and replaced Kirby Maus as sports anchor for XETV (Fox 6).

Now in his 40s, Keys is naturally upbeat, but he takes the challenges he faces seriously. “If you are African- American, you are always held to a higher standard,” he says. “San Diego is a bigger challenge because there are fewer African-Americans in communications. It’s a quiet pressure, because you know you are the only one. I get down on myself because it’s magnified in my mind.”

The Pennsylvania Association of Broadcasters honored Keys with two Mid-Atlantic Emmy Awards as a talk show host, and he has been nominated twice for Individual Achievement in Weathercasting. In 2004, Mayor Dick Murphy and the San Diego City Council proclaimed April 26 “C.S. Keys Day” for his community efforts and commitment to youth.

During the years Keys has lived and worked in San Diego, community service has become a bigger part of his life. On the advice of friend Junior Seau, he launched C.S. Keys’ KIDS (a partnership with the Athletes for Education Foundation) with a mission to “help, inspire and encourage young people.”

“I talk to kids, and they act like they don’t have anything in front of them, but they do,” Keys says. “They just need someone to let them know.”

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