Football notes: Here’s a coach who literally drives his players to victory
Football coaches have been known to drive their teams to victory by with brilliant game plans or fiery pre-game speeches.
Rick Keeley drove Berks Catholic to a victory in a school bus. Literally.
When arrangements to get the Saints to their game Friday night at Chichester fell through late in the week, the long-time football coach got behind the wheel and put it in drive.
A few hours later, after 39-29 win, he drove his guys back home again.
“I might’ve been the only head coach in the state driving a school bus over the weekend,” joked Keeley.
It’s not unusual for Keeley to pitch in to help. Over five decades as an educator he’s done everything that needs to be done: He’s taught, coached, served as an athletic director and a scorekeeper. Even plows the parking lot at the school when it snows.
And he’s driven the bus, taking Holy Name and Berks Catholic teams to basketball, baseball, softball, soccer and lacrosse games.
But never the football team. He usually stuck to his clip board and left the driving to someone else.
The 67-year-old Keeley has coached more football games than anyone in Berks history. He is the only head football coach the Saints have ever known and is currently in his 36th season as a head coach, and in his 46th of coaching.
He began as an assistant at his alma mater, St. Piux X, in 1976. That’s when he first got behind the wheel of a bus.
“Coach (Jim) Mich told me to fill the bus up with gas,” Keeley said. “I’d never driven a bus before. Back then you didn’t need a special license.”
The rules are more stringent now. Bus drivers are licensed by the state and go through regular testing, education and health screening.
“I’d always driven big equipment on the farm,” said Keeley. “Driving a bus was never a big challenge.”
Keeley has often done double-duty. There were times when he drove Lloyd Wolf’s Holy Name boys basketball teams to games, then kept the score book.
Once, after Keeley had taken a coaching and teaching job at Hamburg, Wolf called upon him in a pinch. The Blue Jays were playing at Hamburg that night; Keeley drove from Hamburg to Reading to pick up the team, drove the bus to Hamburg, kept score, then took the team back to Holy Name.
“I like to see all our different teams play,” said Keeley, “that’s why I like to drive the bus in the winter and spring. I don’t like to drive during football season, but the bus we had arranged for wouldn’t have gotten there until 4:30. I didn’t want everything (during our pregame prep) pushed back, so I put all the starters on the bus and I drove them.”
A second bus took the rest of the team.
It’s a 90-minute drive from Berks Catholic to Chichester, and certainly not an easy trip on a Friday night.
“I got ’em there and back,” Keeley said.
To see Fleetwood’s Tanner Maddocks throw five touchdown passes in a game would not be surprising; he did it last season, against Hamburg. He’ll do it again at some point this season.
To see him take two interceptions back to the house in the same game?
Well, that’s pretty extraordinary. He did it Friday in a 41-0 win at Upper Perkiomen, returning the picks 45 and 14 yards, respectively.
He is believed to be the first Fleetwood player to do that in the program’s 21-year history.
Jesse Funk of Twin Valley did it four seasons ago, against Greencastle-Antrim.
You’d have to go back to the 1980, and Wyomissing’s Greg Lamey, to find the only other such feat on record.
Joey Rys of Central Catholic is believed to have the single-season record for Pick-Sixes; he took four back in 2009. Boyertown’s Chris McGee had three in 2004; Conrad Weiser’s John Richardson had three in 1998.
No telling what the team record is, but Berks Catholic’s defense came up with six Pick-Sixes in 2017.
Lost in the celebration of Nick Singleton becoming Berks’ all-time rushing leader Friday was a major milestone for his Gov. Mifflin team.
The 56-0 win over Cocalico was the 400th in program history.
The Mustangs are just the fifth Berks team to reach the milestone, joining Wilson, Reading High, Wyomissing and Muhlenberg.
Mifflin is 400-305 in 68 seasons.
Hamburg earned its 200th victory with a 21-0 win over Mahanoy Area.
The Hawks are one of the younger programs in Berks; they didn’t start playing until 1969 — and didn’t start winning until 1973.
Their program opened with 38 consecutive losses.
League play begins in Section 2 of the Berks Football League this week, and there’s a juicy match-up — at least on paper.
Both Wyomissing and Hamburg have opened with three wins. They’re not on the same level, though.
The Spartans are ranked No. 3 in the state in Class 3A and on their way to a third straight District 3 championship.
The Hawks will be hard-pressed to keep up when they meet Saturday at the A-Field.
The opening week in Section 2 offers another interesting match-up as Fleetwood (2-1) visits Conrad Weiser (2-1). That’ll pit the two best quarterbacks in Berks.
Expects lots of points. These two always manage to give the scoreboard a workout.
Twin Valley’s Trey Freeman is now within five of the program record for career receptions. He has 76 after making seven grabs in a 24-12 loss to Upper Merion.
He extended his career receiving yards mark to 1,473. That ranks 20th in all-time Berks history. He needs 637 yards to top Nolan McCready’s all-time Berks mark of 2,110.
Harrisburg slugged out a 20-17 overtime victory at Manheim Township in a game thrown together in just 48 hours after each of their opponents had to postpone due to COVID issues.
The Cougars, the No. 1 seed in the District 3 Class 6A Tournament last year, are 3-0 and winning with a power running game, not their usual explosive speed.
Most impressive of all, head coach Calvin Everett is doing this with a roster in the low 30s; again, something different for the Cougars.
Twin Valley’s Dominic Caruso topped the 3,000-yard career milestone Friday after running for 93 yards in a 24-12 loss to Upper Merion.
He now ranks 27th all-time in Berks with 3,036 yards and has a chance to crack the Top 10.
Only five Berks backs have topped 4,000 career yards.
Aanjay Feliciano became just the fifth Conrad Weiser receiver to top 1,000 career yards.
He had nine receptions for 195 yards in a 35-32 win over Elco, pushing his career total to 1,149.
Matt Weiser has the Scouts record with 1,615 career yards.
Surprisingly, Feliciano is just the second Weiser wide receiver with 1,000 career yards; the other is Dru George.
His 195 yards are third-most in a game; Danny Sanchez set the program record in 2008 with 254.
Jeannette, which has won more games than any team in PIAAL history, is 0-3 and has been outscored 177-0.
That’s incredible for what was one of the most dominant small-school programs in the state and won a PIAA title with Terrelle Pryor at quarterback in 2008.
Daniel Boone’s Nate Millard tied the school record with a 46-yard field goal in a 45-17 win over Garden Spot. He also had four touchbacks and was good on all six PATs.
After a rare off season, Manheim Central is back in a big way. The Barons improved to 3-0 with a 60-0 win over Susquehanna Township. They have outscored their opponents 109-7.
The Barons come to Wilson in Week 5.
Manheim finished 3-5 last season, with an early four-game losing streak.
Steel-High is the highest-scoring team in the state, averaging 68.6 points.
Gov. Mifflin, at 51.0 per game, is tied for sixth overall and tied for first among Class 5A teams with Erie Cathedral Prep.
