Coach's Corner: Frank Keefe

COURTESY YALE SPORTS PUBLICITY

Isolated in the labyrinthine basement of Payne Whitney Gymnasium is an office covered with posters from the 1988 Summer Olympics. There you can find Frank Keefe, one of the most successful coaches at Yale.

Keefe is used to being alone--he is one of just three coaches in the Ivy League to head both the men's and women's swimming programs and he has been known to sleep in his office during harsh winter weather to be sure he will be on time for 7 a.m. workouts. "You have an obligation to your athletes and to your program," Keefe said. "I've always felt that if I put the time and the effort in, at least we'd be well enough prepared to do the best we possibly can." That philosophy has worked for this year's Bulldog swimmers: the men have compiled a 9-1 record while the women have earned a hard-fought 5-3 mark.

Keefe's 39-year career has taken him to every corner of the swimming world. In 1984 he coached the U.S. Olympic squad in Los Angeles, and he served as the head manager of the 1988 U.S. swim team in Seoul. At all levels of competition, however, Keefe sees similar underlying qualities motivating his athletes. "I had kids who've been world-record holders and won gold medals in the Olympic Games before I came here, and I've got kids here who aspire to reach that level," Keefe said. "But take all the glitz off and you have an individual who's dedicated and really wants to be good at something."

"I enjoy coaching," he continued. "I don't consider it work. I consider it an opportunity to work with young men and women to see if they can get to be better. It's not an easy task--you have to be forceful and drive them to do things that they're not capable of."

After the '88 Olympics, Keefe decided to leave the world of international competition in order to focus on Yale. He came to New Haven in '78 and approves of the role of athletics in the non-scholarship Ivy League. "I try to keep in focus what Yale is all about, and that's education. I think athletics is a great part of that education, but the academic side is the heavy load. You just don't infringe on that," he said.

Keefe's swimmers especially value his concern for them as individuals. "Part of what makes Frank such a good coach is that he cares about each member of the team beyond their performance in the water," Heather Erickson, JE '99, said. "He makes a real effort to care about all aspects of his swimmers' lives."

The story that may best reveal Keefe's professional attitude is his description of the most memorable moment of his career. Rather than a gold-medal win or a world-record-setting race, Keefe recalled an episode from the final day of practice in 1980 when a male senior stopped in the water and grabbed the lane ropes, crying. "I'm really wondering what's wrong with the kid--if there was a serious personal problem I didn't know about," Keefe recalled. "I called him over to the side of the pool and he said to me, `I can't believe its over. I don't want it to be over.' And that's what it's all about."

--Andrew Krause

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