G.B. Southwest’s Keener finds stride
Kaleb Keener was the type of kid that was always quick as a hiccup.
Given his speed, it’s not much of a surprise that the Green Bay Southwest senior became the Fox River Classic Conference receiver of the year last fall and is poised to make another run at the WIAA state track and field meet this year in the 100-meter dash.
Besides being fleet of foot, Keener is a quick study.
His athletic prowess, along with his 4.0 GPA, earned him a spot as one of 11 football players in Wisconsin to receive the National Football Foundation scholar-athlete award.
It’s ironic, though.
The 6-foot, 190-pounder’s accomplishments may have never come to be had he not been forced to slow drastically down four years ago.
“Looking back at it, it was probably a good thing that happened,” Keener said about tearing a growth plate in his hip.
Getting up to speed
Keener can recall how eager he was to get into the game on what was a cool summer day in 2014.
He had just returned from Colorado, where his family went for a vacation to visit his older sister, Kasey.
His Babe Ruth baseball team, Green Bay Radiology, was a week away from the state tournament, and Keener was looking forward to getting back into the swing of things again.
Batting fifth in the lineup, he drew a walk in his first plate appearance since returning from his family’s trip.
His coach gave him the sign to steal second. Keener missed it.
The young speedster made sure he was going to make up for it when he got it again after the next pitch.
Despite getting a good jump off the first-base bag, Keener never made it to second.
Track & Field Honor Roll: April 22
He went down in a dust cloud with a sharp pain in his leg.
Laying on the sand, Keener initially thought it was just a pulled muscle. He ended up playing at state the following week despite the discomfort.
However, he finally went to the doctor to get the diagnosis about the tear in his growth plate.
His freshman year of football at Green Bay Southwest was over before it even started.
“I would have had to get surgery if it was a centimeter more,” Keener said.
Although he didn’t realize it at the time, the injury was likely the best thing that could have happened to the aspiring multi-sport athlete.
Sure, Keener had to watch several of his friends make an impact on the varsity football team right away.
But given he was 5-foot-5 and 135 pounds dripping weight, Keener could have easily become frustrated by just being too small to compete at that level yet and may have given up on the sport way too early had he been able to play.
After all, Keener was certain the sport he would make the biggest impact in would be basketball anyway.
“I almost lived in the weight room that year,” Keener said. “I’ve always been fast, but I wasn’t physically built to do some of the things at the varsity level. Almost in a way the freshman year of sitting out was a good thing because I worked on strength and everything.”
Finding his footing
Keener didn’t look like a state-qualifying sprinter last May.
Speed doesn’t come to mind when you see someone hobbling around in a walk boot, like Keener was at Schneider Stadium in De Pere.
After injuring the arch of his foot a few weeks earlier, just being at sectionals was a big accomplishment for the first-year track and field athlete.
Keener gave in last year and came out for track and field to see if the hops he showed on the basketball court would translate to any of the jumping events.
Former Green Bay Southwest track and field coach Chuck Pankratz foreshadowed the success Keener now enjoys in the sport when he first spotted the dangly freshman dunking in the gym
“He saw me in the gym and asked, ‘Why you aren’t out for track?” Keener said.
Keener showed promise as a junior in the triple jump, but he didn’t make his big jump until he got thrown into the sprints.
Waiting until he had to get in his blocks before taking off the walking boot, Keener mustered up enough strength to earn the third and final state qualifying spot from the sectional by a hundredth of a second. He went on to finish 13th at state.
“We were a little nervous and hesitant about that,” Southwest boys track and field coach Nick Dax said about Keener wearing a walking boot prior to sectionals. “But we knew Kaleb had the mindset for it. He could push through it because he wasn’t going to be told no.”
Complete package
Keener was on egg shells in anticipation for the National Football Foundation scholar-athlete announcement.
He just happened to be getting eggs at Festival Foods with his parents, Jon and Holly, when he got the good news in an email from Patty Chryst, the mother of University of Wisconsin football coach Paul Chryst.
“My dad was high-fiving me in the grocery store,” Keener said. “People were looking at us because my dad is hooting and hollering in the grocery store.”
There was plenty to hoot and holler about for the Southwest football team this year.
The Trojans went 11-2 before ultimately falling in the state semifinals to Waunakee, which went on to win the Division 2 state championship.
It was an improbable run for a team that didn’t have a deep roster and featured several players who went both ways, including Keener.
“He just made the commitment in his mind that he was going to be the best that he could be,” Southwest co-head football coach Pat Wallace said.
Keener made 36 receptions for 752 yards and seven touchdowns, while adding 98 rushing yards and two TDs on the ground in earning FRCC first-team honors. He added 25 tackles and an interception to receive second-team all-conference accolades as a cornerback.
Keener will be taking his talents to the University of St. Thomas, which is a NCAA Division III program in St. Paul, Minn.
He had several DII schools interested, but ultimately chose St. Thomas because he felt it was the best opportunity to pursue his goal of becoming an orthopedic surgeon.
His attention to detail has served him well as a leader at Southwest.
“I put a lot of pressure on myself for that 4.0,” Keener said, “probably sometimes too much, but getting it is an accomplishment I really wanted throughout my high school career. I think that will be a great feeling when I finally do get it.
Finishing kick
Keener knew his older sister was a pretty successful athlete in her own right.
He’s reminded of that every time he walks into the Southwest gym and sees Kasey’s name next to the school record for the pole vault.
But it wasn’t until recently that Keener gained a greater appreciation for his sister’s accomplishments
“The other day my mom pulled out a shoe box and started pulling out her medals,” Keener said.
“I looked at them and was like, ‘I never knew she was this good.’”
Keener has only gotten better on the track.
Following a stellar senior season of football, Keener made the difficult decision to not go out for basketball in order to focus his sights on training track and field with the hope of finishing his prep career with a state medal.
Not going out for basketball would have been something hard to fathom to Keener three years ago. After all, that wide-eyed freshman thought he had his path all planned out back then.
However, Keener is glad he spent his winter training at Synergy Sports Performance.
He credits the workouts for helping him get off to a fast start out of the blocks, literally and figurately.
Keener placed third at the WTFA indoor state meet with an area-best time of 6.59 seconds in addition to being able to top Green Bay Preble senior Gavin Buergi – a multiple-time state qualifying sprinter – on a couple of occasions during the indoor season.
At the Green Bay City Meet on April 12, Keener set a new personal record by finishing with a 100-meter dash time of 11.25 seconds, which ranks second to Buergi on the area honor roll and fourth in Division 1 on the state honor roll.
“Last year, (Buergi) got me every race,” said Keener, who also has a triple jump of 39 feet, 10 inches this year. “It’s really nice to have someone to compare yourself to because he’s always going to be good. I think we get faster every time we race. It’s just that competition factor.”
Keener’s aiming to return to state and earn a spot on the podium.
Regardless if that happens or not, the Southwest senior already is being looked up to.
The evidence of that came from the thank you letters he got from underclassmen on the football team.
Keener set the bar high, proving it’s not how you start, but how you finish that counts.
“He did everything he was asked to do,” Wallace said. “He’s been a great role model for our younger kids to aspire to be.”