We are saddened by the news that Tim Keating has stepped down as the head football coach at McDaniel College. Coach Keating resurrected a program that had been one of the least successful in the nation in the decades prior to his arrival. His success is well documented through his record, his conference championships, and his playoff appearances, but is also evident in the quantity and quality of the players that he coached throughout the years. Besides success that many of his players have achieved on the field, many more have gone on to achieve success in numerous endeavors outside of the college while demonstrating the qualities that Coach Keating and his coaching staff preached throughout his tenure. Coach Keating understood and embraced that his job was not just that of football tactics; instead, he was committed to teaching critical life and leadership skills to the young men under his charge. Many of us still quote Coach Keating today and owe him a debt of gratitude for what he has given to us. It should also be noted that Coach Keating achieved this success with inferior facilities and resources as compared to his most relevant rivals. Coach Keating was a consummate leader in a number of ways that will be difficult for this administration to replace. Coach Keating cared deeply for the school and its tradition; he cared for each and every of his players, but demanded their best at all times; he surrounded the program and his staff with positive role models that in some cases may be more qualified in a particular area of expertise, never afraid to delegate; he spoke up for ideals in which he believed and made you believe in them also, and, perhaps most importantly, he produced an energy and excitement for everything that he and his team did. Perhaps the greatest testament to Coach Keating as a person and as a leader would be from the numerous players that did not achieve the playing time they would have liked, yet still respect and praise the qualities of Coach Keating nonetheless. It is apparent that the administration felt that a new energy was needed to direct the football program back to the greatness that Coach Keating achieved. While unfortunate that this decision had to be made, we expect the administration to consider the following in selecting a new football coach: • Most importantly, the next football coach must exhibit a positive energy and belief that will translate to the school as a whole. It can be reasonably argued that the energy and spirit provided by the football success achieved in the late 1990's and early 2000's allowed the school to weather the storm of the ill-executed name change and survive today in the shape it is in. The new coach must understand that establishing a vision for success within the school's greater strategic plan in paramount. • The new coach must communicate a strategy for recruiting success within the current McDaniel environment. A great deal of the success that Coach Keating and his staff achieved on the field was identifying players that could succeed in Westminster and convincing them to come here despite the aforementioned inferior facilities and resources. He identified strategic recruiting regions and was successful in opening these markets to the school. Coach Keating's recruiting was also a significant contributor towards providing additional diversity into the school through a number of socio-economic factors. • The new coach must be as adept at executive and administrative skills as he is football tactics. The new coach will represent a significant portion of the student body through his football team as well as a similarly representative portion of the alumni population as a whole. There is no doubt that proud football alumni will be more likely to give back to the school with significant gifts. The new football coach will have the immediate challenge of establishing a positive relationship with the football alumni that achieved success under Coach Keating in order to maintain and possibly improve contributions. In addition, the coach must be able to engage within the larger college community to raise awareness and contributions to help build a new stadium and to improve the overall resources available to the program. While time is of the essence in order to prepare for next season, the decision in finding a new coach should not be taken lightly. We recommend that the football alumni are somehow represented in this decision. We expect that the current administration is fully held accountable for the results based on Coach Keating's replacement; rest assured that we will be eagerly awaiting success similar to what we achieved over the course of our own college careers. Western Maryland and McDaniel College Football Alumni and Friends