Bat-fact: This is why Keiton Page was a fan-favorite
Published: 3/10/2012 4:50 PM
Last Modified: 3/10/2012 11:21 PM
OSU's Keiton Page hugs head coach Travis Ford after the Cowboys lost in the Big 12 Tournament. STEPHEN PINGRY/Tulsa World
I tweeted last week that he should change his name to Keiton Pageviews because every time someone writes about him, the story attracts web hits. So popular is Page that fans from all over the Big 12 gave him a standing ovation when he left the floor in his final game.
Want to know why the kid from Pawnee was such a fan-favorite? I’ve got a theory, but I need to put my nerd hat on to explain.
The answer can be found on page 8 of a graphic novel titled “The Greatest Batman Stories Ever Told.”
In the introduction to the book, Dick Giordano wrote that, as a kid, he preferred Batman over Superman because Batman was “just an ordinary guy who learned how to do a lot of nifty things... I knew that I could aspire to be Batman, but I couldn’t aspire to be Superman. No way could I get powers like Superman. I would have to be born somewhere else for that. But I could, if I started young enough, train myself the way young Bruce Wayne did and maybe some day be just like Batman.
“Well, I never started training and so remained ordinary, but I knew I could have and that was a good portion of the character’s appeal to the kids who read Batman.”
And there you have it.
There are a lot more people on the planet who have bodies like Page than there are people who have bodies like Orlando Magic goliath Dwight Howard (who goes by the alias of Superman, even though he’s not worthy).
Fans see Page (never mind that he is more athletic than you think) and they empathize with him. They think “hey, maybe that could have been me if I had spent a million hours in the gym and developed a skill set.” Those same fans see Howard and think “that could never be me because I’m not 6-foot-11 and built like a Michelangelo sculpture.”
Perhaps there are height-challenged kids all over Oklahoma who, because of Page’s career, will be inspired to have hoop dreams.
Said teammate Brian Williams, “He’s definitely a hero to all the kids and stuff (and shows) that they don’t have to be 6-7 to play college basketball. He’s just a motivator for everybody to work hard. He even motivates us. He’s 5-9 and scoring 30 on people.”
The Batman explanation to “why is Page so popular” is name-appropriate. Page was born in 1989, the same year a Batman movie starring Michael Keaton was a smash hit.
“I think when I was younger, my mom wanted to name me Keaton,” Page told me during a 2010 interview. “I think my dad wasn’t too (in favor of) the name Keaton or didn’t want the name Keaton or something like that. My mom, that’s where she had found that name was Michael Keaton... They ended up spelling it Keiton because my dad’s father, my grandpa, is named Keith. So they mixed the two together.”
When height-challenged OSU coach Travis Ford played at Kentucky, he was so popular that Wildcat fans named children after him. Prediction: Check birth notices in the future and I bet there are Cowboys fans who choose to name their sons Keiton.
Written by
Jimmie Tramel
Sports Writer
