Jimmie Keeling revived Hardin-Simmons football in 1990 – after 37-years without a team – and has since brought the Cowboys ten conference titles. Last year's 9-2 record marked the program's 17th-straight winning season.
Keeling gets personal about football and life with Coach Insider.
What coaches did you most admire growing up and why?
Just growing up as a youngster old Matty Bell and some of the old SMU teams that were really a little bit different with what they did, throwing the ball and some of those things. Then when I got right into my young coaching years it was more like Darrell Royal had a great influence on me. Gordon Wood who was a high school coach, Gene Mayfield who was a high school coach, and of course Bear Bryant had a huge effect on everybody during those years.
How do you define your responsibility as a football coach?
Of course, our number one concern is to take care of our players, and that's what we preach to our guys every single day. We try hard to make sure that every man that's in our program has a positive experience; you know they're not going to all be blissfully happy with playing time or any of those things, but we try real hard to be sure they have a positive experience and provide a team that can perform and compete extremely well at the same time.
What are the top three things you demand from your student-athletes?
Hopefully it's willingness to be a good citizen. We talk about choices and character building and those sorts of things a lot, so you know hopefully our guys are going to be good citizens. We're going to be really sure that they are student-athletes, our demand on them to be in class everyday and to work to excel as a student I think are a high, high priority for us. And then simply to develop a disciplined life, make right choices and right decisions. I think those things are very important for us.
Tell us about a favorite charity that you support.
Well anything obviously right now to do with cancer. Colorectal cancer, breast cancer, any type of cancer thing is a big one for me and domestic violence is a huge concern of mine. It's something we try hard to teach our players, just to have great respect for women to treat them in an appropriate manner always. So those two things are big for me. I have also supported FCA and their mission all across the world. [Coach Keeling's wife Susan recently found out that she is in remission from colorectal cancer. She went through chemo and radiation treatments throughout the summer. Susan was also a longtime Executive Director of The Noah Project, which is a domestic violence center in Abilene.]
What values and principles are your players learning through football?
Well I think one of the first things, if you handle it right, is that they learn that building discipline and character is an ongoing process all throughout your whole life and through the process – of all the things that you are required to do it – I think that can happen in football. It doesn't happen with every individual, but I think it certainly can. Developing great work habits is required from a work standpoint. As a student-athlete you're going to class, working on the weights, you're going to work out, you're doing multiple things simultaneously, and I think just developing great work habits is obviously something you're going to get great at. In football that developing – we talk to our guys about character development – is an ongoing process. It's not like your character is a finished product, it's a continual thing hopefully throughout the entire process our lives are continuing to develop that.
How do you incorporate the philosophy of "winning the right way" with your team.
I think we stress doing the best you can at whatever you can. If you're in the classroom be the best student in class. You might not even be the student that makes the best grade, but you can be the best student in the class. What we're really stressing is do the very best you can and our attitude is this: if you absolutely, without a doubt do the best you can, the winning is going to take care of itself. Unlike some, I do think that there is great value in winning, as far as teaching lessons, life lessons. You work hard you get rewards obviously. No one is going to win every single game. I think winning allows us to talk to young men about things we couldn't talk to them about if we weren't winning. I think they choose to listen a lot more closely if things are going well as far as the winning part.
Fill in the blank. If I weren't coaching football, I'd be ________.
I'd probably be playing with grandkids, trying to be a better husband, father and grandfather that probably would be the next phase in my life. And enjoying a whole bunch of country living.
If you were evaluating game film of yourself as a high school senior, would that player be recruited to play for your program today?
I had two things going for me. First is that I had a little bit of speed and I had, I felt like I tried to play really hard because it was important to me. So yeah probably, if I was at a Division III school. If I was at Notre Dame, I probably wouldn't be recruiting me without a doubt. At a Division III school, yeah I think I'd make a contribution.
What is your favorite movie of all time and the best movie you've seen recently?
My favorite movie of all time is The Notebook. This is crazy but I have watched The Waterboy like fifty times when it comes on the TV and on bus trips home – not because I think The Waterboy is funny or there is a lot of reality in it. And of course Rudy from a football sports standpoint.
What is your favorite book of all-time?
The Bible obviously is the best book ever which I still read every day. I remember Treasure Island, reading that when I was very young. I love to read so almost anything you hand me I will read.
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