After 57 Years, Former Blue Devil Fred Kast Is Retiring As Golden State’s Scorekeeper

The NBA became a global presence when the late David Stern was commissioner but in some ways, at some levels, it has always been an intimate league. There are guys who spent their lives in the NBA. Guys like Marty Blake, Marty Glickman, Bernie Bickerstaff, Johnny Most and Chic Hearn just came early in life and never left.

Which brings us to Fred Kast.

A Duke grad and former player, Kast played for a year under Harold Bradley then two under Vic Bubas as the glamorous Bubas era got underway. He was part of the first Duke ACC championship team.

After he graduated, he headed West and by a fortunate twist of fate was asked to help keep score at a Warriors game in 1963.

He ended up keeping score for the team until this Friday when he’ll retire. That means that not only did he play against Jerry West in college - West smoked him - but recorded his NBA stats until West retired in 1974.

Then he kept keeping score until this week, when he’ll step down.

He got a front-row seat to see Wilt Chamberlain, Bill Russell’s Celtics, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Bill Walton, Dr. Jr., Pete Maravich, Shaquille O’ Neal, Charles Barkley, Hakeem Olajuwon, David Robinson, Tim Duncan, the Warriors recent dynasty featuring Klay Thompson and Stephen Curry and Zion Williamson.

As it happens, he wasn’t planning on retiring this year, but working in a Covid world became increasingly difficult for him. He’s 82 and there’s a lot of extra travel and work involved. Plus, he told the New York Times that his night vision isn’t great anymore and his wife is in poor health and living in a nursing home. And to make matters worse, Covid means he can barely spend time with her.

We’ve never met him but he sounds like a wonderful man. We hope he has a tremendous retirement and can make it back to Cameron at some point. It can’t have been easy to get back when you have so many games to work.