Chris Fox admits it. The Syracuse cross country head coach thought the Sean Keefe project was going to take at least two years. He never imagined Keefe, who last year entered the program as a walk-on, would be this good, this soon.

‘We probably thought of him as a two-year project, and he ended up becoming a six-month project,’ Fox said. ‘He really accelerated his pace in training and obviously in racing.’

Through hard work and tireless dedication, Keefe, a redshirt freshman, has pushed himself to be one of top cross country runners on the team. Fox said he thought of Keefe as a ’20th runner’ last season, and now he sees him clearly in the top 10.

Keefe proved the naysayers wrong and ran in the Big East championship last Saturday, finishing seventh out of all his Orange teammates and 34th out of the 118 competitors.

But at one point, Keefe might not have thought he would be able to contribute this quickly. Last fall, Keefe was injured and couldn’t run with the team for most of his first semester because of the injury.

While Syracuse was winning races and blazing a trail through Division I cross country, Keefe’s injury prevented him from even practicing with his teammates. Though frustrating, it inspired Keefe. Not only would he be practicing with the team next year, he would be racing alongside them, making his presence felt.

‘Last year was definitely tough when I was injured during the fall, and I wasn’t really running,’ Keefe said. ‘But the team was just doing awesome, and so it really motivated me to want to be part of the team next fall.’

Despite being the best runner on his high school team at Council Rock High School South in Holland, Pa., for all four years, he felt like he never reached his true ability. There was a lot of ‘untapped potential’ he felt he had. By going to Syracuse, he felt like he could reach a whole new level of performance.

‘It’s an example of his confidence,’ said Joe Warwick, Keefe’s high school coach during his freshman and sophomore years. ‘Instead of going to a smaller school and getting scholarship money, it shows how important running was to him.’

Keefe had offers to run for other Division I schools, such as Penn State, Villanova, Brown and La Salle. But ultimately, he gravitated to where he felt he could reach that hidden potential. He could tell that Fox was brewing something special in Central New York.

When Keefe finally reached 100 percent last winter, he got to work and began running again. He credits Fox and assistant coach Brien Bell for putting him on a consistent routine that works for him. In addition, seeing such talented runners around pushed him to do better and keep up with them. Working hard and running more miles while practicing contributed to his better times.

‘He really just improved his training, he just got really focused and was confident, and it really paid off,’ said freshman teammate Zach Rivers.

Fox said there is no secret recipe to becoming a better runner. It comes down to the willingness to put the work in to improve.

‘Just hard work,’ Fox said. ‘There’s no ‘anything’ you can do. You just go out and run hard and you run smart. There’s no trick.’

Keefe and Fox declined to comment on whether Keefe is now on scholarship. But regardless, Fox hopes Keefe will be an example for the incoming runners to look up to, much like one specific runner who motivated and pushed Keefe.

Fox would always tell Keefe to be like Forrest Misenti, a redshirt sophomore on the team who entered in the same shoes as Keefe: a walk-on. Now Misenti is a top-three runner on the team.

Rivers sees the two in a similar light. He views Keefe as a great story to look at, improving so much with the help of his coaches and his own will to succeed.

And for Keefe, that’s just more motivation.

‘Coach Fox was always telling me, pushing me to be like Forrest,’ said Keefe. ‘Now maybe he’ll tell the current freshmen to be like Sean Keefe.’

dgproppe@syr.edu

 

Published on November 3, 2010 at 12:00 pm