Wabash College Athletics

Native of New Jersey and lifelong learner, you attended Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts where you were captain of the football team at the same time that President George Bush captained the soccer team. After high school, you served in World War II in the Navy, then took your tremendous and multi talented athletic ability to Princeton University, where you played fullback. It was for Princeton that, in 1946, you kicked the game-winning field goal to help your team defeat the University of Pennsylvania, then ranked third in the nation, in front of 72,000 fans at Franklin Field.

You graduated from Princeton in 1948, played a short stint with the Philadelphia Eagles, and later received your Ph.D. in English from the University of Pennsylvania. After serving as freshman football coach at Penn for two years, you began what would become a lifelong affiliation with Lawrenceville School in 1956. Five seasons later, you came to Wabash College, where you were known as the “Father of the Single Wing.” Indeed, you exhibited for your players a love for academics and athletics as teacher of 18th century literature and author of Simplified Single Wing Football, the authoritative book on the offense you utilized so effectively at Wabash. For six years you mentored and coached the Little Giants, from 1961 through 1966, compiling a record of 28 wins, 20 losses, and five ties against top-tier competition.

You respected your players intellect, too, for it took a bright student to understand the complexities of the Single Wing formations, while at the same time opponents with lesser intellect struggled to contain your twisting, spinning, pulling offensive attack. The Single Wing has all but vanished in football today—except at the Lawrenceville School, where you coached 26 seasons since 1967. However, during your time at Wabash, the Single Wing was exceptionally effective, and hundreds of coaches at all levels benefitted from your concise and complete book on the game. In 1965, you coached Wabash to a 7-2 record and a Monon Bell victory, and your team ranked 12th in the nation in rushing offense. In your second season, in 1962, you engineered one of the most amazing comeback victories in Wabash football history when your Little Giants scored 10 points in 90 seconds to nip Wheaton 20-17. Known affectionately to your players as “Doc K,” you have inspired generations of young men with the true values of football, which you cite as the development of morale, spirit, and determination.

Your love of literature and football, especially the Single Wing, have never waned. You won 151 games in your career at Lawrenceville, and even in your forced retirement at age 76 after back surgery, no one would be surprised to see you on the sidelines of a Lawrenceville game this fall. For teaching thousands of men the values of the game, including hundreds of Wabash men, the National Association of Wabash Men is proud to induct you, Kenneth W. Keuffel, into the Wabash College Athletic Hall of Fame.