Rick Keeley retires as head football coach at Berks Catholic

Rick Keeley has retired as head football coach at Berks Catholic, the school announced Wednesday.

He informed the team during a meeting in Lloyd Wolf Gymnasium Wednesday morning.

Keeley compiled a 280-160-3 record, including 5-6 this season. The Saints capped the season by beating Hamburg 40-21 to win the Eastern Conference Class 3A championship. Coincidentally, Berks Catholic and Hamburg were two of the three places where Keeley had been in charge during his 38 seasons as head coach, with Holy Name being the other.

Keeley went 118-41 in 13 seasons at Berks Catholic since being named the program’s first coach following the merger of Holy Name and Central Catholic.

“I want to personally thank Coach Keeley for a lifetime of mentoring and for all he did for his players, his assistant coaches, and this community,” Berks Catholic athletic director Bill Hess said in a statement. “He gave a young kid a shot at coaching back in 1992 and I couldn’t be more grateful. It changed the trajectory of my life.”

Keeley was an assistant football coach for eight seasons at Holy Name before being hired as head coach in 1986. He left Holy Name to become the head coach at Hamburg for three seasons (1998-2000), then returned to Holy Name.

He has won four District 3 titles at Berks Catholic — 2017 and 2016 in Class 4A, 2015 and 2013 in Class 2A — and one at Holy Name (2010 in Class 1A).

He was named District 3 Coach of the Year in 2015.

He won six league and section championships with the Blue Jays, and five with the Saints.

Keeley is a 1971 grad of St. Pius X High School in Pottstown, where he played football and baseball.

He went on to play collegiately at Kutztown, where he played nose guard and earned three letters. He was a first-team all-conference pick his final two seasons and a team captain as a senior. He was selected to Kutztown’s all-decade team of the 1970s, and still holds the school record for blocked punts in a season.

After working at St. Pius, Keeley was hired as a teacher at Holy Name in 1978.

Keeley has been inducted into the Holy Name Hall of Fame, the Berks County Football Coaches Association Hall of Fame, the Berks County Chapter of the Pennsylvania Sports Hall of Fame, the Tri-County Chapter of the Pennsylvania Sports Hall of Fame and the Pennsylvania Scholastic Football Coaches Association Hall of Fame.

Source: Berkshire mont