Varsity basketball coach, Jack Keefer, honored
INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) – He’s the only varsity basketball coach Lawrence North has ever known coaching for 40 years and counting, but Jack Keefer still loves every minute of it.
“It keeps my competitive fire burning but it makes me tired,” laughed Keefer.
The results don’t show it. His current team has top 10 talent, a piece in a successful puzzle that Keefer’s been putting together for decades, and the Wildcats court will soon bear his name.
On Friday, the school’s round ball home will be renamed Jack Keefer Gym.
“A coaches goal is just to keep his job for another year, not to get his name on something, and so you know you just keep striving and striving and we’ve had some great kids and you can see on the wall behind me just some great kids go through here, so it’s been a lot of fun,” said Keefer.
Keefer believes he has great kids, great teams and many of them will be on hand for the honor.
Along with those four titles, Keefer’s crew holds a state record of a 50 game winning streak.
Keefer stands second on the active IHSA victory list with 735, and with the successes come the accolades.
He was the USA today national coach of the year in 2006, just before he was inducted into the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame.
There are a lot of veteran bench bosses that stick with what got them there, but not Keefer. He has been open to change, and that’s prolonged his career.
“They’ve changed me a great deal, these guys think I’m grouchy but when they hear the story of what Chris Hill says or what Conley says or something they say ‘Really? You did that?’ I mean we, oh gosh in the old days I’d kick them out of the locker room, wouldn’t even let them go in there and make them dress in the hallway, and it’s just a different world you can’t really go with that craziness anymore,” waxed Keefer.
The dean of Marion County coaches isn’t ready to hang it up any time soon. He said he is still enjoying the practices, the competition, but mostly the time spent with the kids.
“You just develop a relationship and that’s what you do. It’s the journey, it’s the relationship and I don’t have that with every kid in the school, there’s pride and longevity,” said Keefer.