Tim Keefer stepping down as Carlow men's basketball coach after 10 seasons

Results, Tim Keefer said, did not always come in the form of wins and losses on the court.

The only men’s basketball coach in Carlow University history didn’t try to squeeze everything into one bay. A narrow thinker he is not; a bloodhound who detects the hardest workers on the floor and gives them a chance — now that sounds more like Keefer.

Keefer didn’t win more than six games in a season. In fact, he lost 230 times and never won a playoff game. Yet he holds the relationships he had and the men he helped to develop in much greater regard.

“I get a lot of texts from my former players who tell me where they’re working now,” he said. “We didn’t win in games, we won in jobs after college.

“If I’m coaching a superstar, he probably won’t like me. I like to give all kids an opportunity. That is what it’s about to me.”

That, and finish what you start.

Keefer, 67, is stepping down as coach after 10 seasons, wanting to let someone else — namely youthful associate head coach Jacob St. George, a 2019 Carlow alum — take over.

St. George will be the interim coach, Carlow announced.

“It was time,” said Keefer, who lives in Belle Vernon. “I coached 10 years. When I started, I thought I’d coach two.

“Someone told me I should look into coaching at Carlow. He said it’s a new men’s team. I said, how many guys do we have? He said five. We were a club team in the spring. We went from NAIA to Division III and we ended up playing D-I teams.”

Carlow was known for playing D-I, II and III teams regularly, some just for the experience.

Keefer will continue to serve as an assistant coach for his two sons’ teams. Nick Keefer is the head football coach at Hempfield, while Zach Keefer leads the Frazier boys basketball program.

He also will keep working with the middle school track and field program. The veteran foreman had multiple stops Monday, including the pole vault area at Hempfield’s Spartan Stadium.

“I have six grandchildren,” Keefer said. “I want to see them grow up around sports. We have some good kids (at Hempfield). Look at Bridget Guy (Williams). She’s in the Olympics. You never know who you might help coming through here. It probably won’t be from what the pole vaulting coach taught them, but I can say I got to work with them.”

The energetic Keefer said his decision to leave Carlow is not related to his health. While he has overcome a number of health scares, he remains as spry as ever 44 years into his coaching career.

“I’ve been lucky,” he said. “I should be dead maybe. I overcame cardiac arrest 12 years ago; there were 34 people, from the two ladies that found me, to Colin Hackman who gave me CPR he just learned, to all the people at the hospital. And I am a cancer survivor. The kids are my lifeline.”

Keefer, who had a cancerous tumor removed from his kidney the same year, collapsed while running the Brookline Breeze 5K in 2012 in Pittsburgh.

He had surgery to install a defibrillator.

“It only acts up when I have to yell at my sons,” he said.

Keefer also served as the head football and basketball coach and athletic director at Oliver of the City League, and he had stints as a basketball coach at Belle Vernon (girls) and Seton Hill (men).

He was called for traveling more than any of his teams.

Keefer also coached football at Bethel Park, Elizabeth Forward, Yough, Thomas Jefferson and Belle Vernon.

And don’t forget his 68 wins in his four-year run as men’s basketball coach at Penn State McKeesport (now Greater Allegheny). He won a PSUAC title there.

“He was respected by the staff and his peers, and he always brought a positive outlook and encouragement to every situation,” Carlow athletic director Louis Zadecky said. “He will be missed, and we deeply appreciate everything he gave to Carlow athletics and the men’s basketball program, and we wish him the very best.”

Said St. George: “One of my favorite things I tell people about coach Keefer is that he knew somebody everywhere we went. This shows how much he valued creating relationships. I hope to take the lessons I have learned from him and help move the program forward.”