Before going to Dayton, Ohio State fans say goodbye to Zed Key at autograph signing
Jack Landes couldn’t help but arrive a few minutes early. It was an unseasonably warm, sunny Sunday afternoon in Central Ohio, but the high school junior basketball player at Whetstone was anxious to meet his favorite player.
Moments later, Will and Anne Brokaw arrived at the Giant Eagle grocery store on W. Third Ave. with their son, Maddox. Later that day would be his first flag football practice, but first the 5-year-old had to take the chance to look up and smile at the former Buckeye towering over him.
The Brokaw family and Landes were there to see the same player. Clad in a scarlet Ohio State shirt and complementary black shorts, Zed Key was in the house as part of a “Pizza with the Bucks” event put on by The 1870 Society, a for-profit collective supporting Ohio State athletes. For an hour, Key signed autographs and miniature basketballs, posed for photographs and engaged with anyone who walked past him, whether they knew he was a basketball player or not.
Hours earlier, he had finished an official visit to the University of Dayton. One day later, he would announce his commitment to the Flyers. In between, Key had a window to share time with a few fans on hand to celebrate the past while acknowledging the end of his tenure with the Buckeyes.
“He’s been coming to games since he was 2, and that was Zed’s freshman year,” Will Brokaw said of his son “We’ve gone to (dozens) of games at this point and Zed’s been his favorite player. People come and go, but Zed’s been a constant for him in these days where there’s hardly any constants. He’s always excited every year to see Zed.
“It’s going to be sad to see him go, but he’s put a lot into this university. I told him, I wholeheartedly thank you for all you’ve done for the university as a whole.”
After posing for a photo with the big man, the youngest Brokaw fired off his imaginary finger guns and smiled as Key followed suit. Earlier, Landes got the back of his scarlet, No. 23 Key jersey signed by a player he said he tries to emulate on the court.
“I really aspire to be like him, hustle-wise,” Landes said. “I think he’s a good role model for hustle and playing defense and rebounding.”
Landes admitted to being nervous meeting Key for the first time but said he appreciated the opportunity to say goodbye to his favorite player. Looking back on the 2023-24 season, Landes said his favorite game was when Key had a career-high five steals in an upset win of No. 2 Purdue. It was the first game with Jake Diebler as interim coach, and a milestone outing Key said he still watches highlights of.
“That was a great game, offensively and defensively,” he said. “That’s going to stay in my mind forever. I still watch videos from that game all the time because it was such a great moment with the guys and the team.”
It was the high point in an otherwise challenging season for Key and the Buckeyes, who started 12-2, lost nine of their next 11 and saw coach Chris Holtmann fired on Valentine’s Day. With Diebler first in an interim role, Ohio State picked itself off the ground, went 8-3 to close the season and earned Diebler the full-time job in the process. For Key personally, it was a step backward from the production shown in 2022-23, when he averaged 10.8 points and 7.5 rebounds despite dealing with a shoulder injury that prematurely ended his season.
In 15.4 minutes per game, the second-lowest number of his four-year career, Key averaged 6.6 points and 4.1 rebounds while primarily being utilized as the backup to second-year starting center Felix Okpara. Come season’s end, Key entered his name into the transfer portal for his final year of college basketball.
“It’s been a lot,” Key said. “It’s been a lot of thinking, a lot of processing, but I’ve come to terms. I left it all here for this program and did everything I could for the program, and hopefully left it better than where it started.”
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Throughout, Key said he appreciated the acceptance he felt from Ohio State fans, citing Landes and the Brokaws as examples. A self-professed lover of cars who owns a pet snake and was gifted a T-shirt by Homage dubbing him “The Most Interesting Man In College Basketball,” Key said it mattered to him that fans seemed to accept his “uniqueness” both on and off the court.
It’s why, even though he’s leaving, Key said Columbus will remain special to him.
“Hopefully I’ve brightened peoples’ day, playing hard, coming in every day, bringing energy, just being the energy guy,” he said. “Hopefully people saw the hard work and the love that I put into this program and this community and the love that I still have for this program and community. It’s always love here. I love Columbus.”
Tucked inside a grocery story on a Sunday afternoon, a few Columbus representatives clearly felt the same.
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This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Ohio State fans say goodbye to Zed Key in autograph signing
