On Friday night, the Michigan 

hockey team was celebrating 
its win over Notre Dame and 
looking ahead to its next game. 
On Saturday night, the team 
suddenly had no idea when its 
next game might be. 

On Jan. 23, the University of 

Michigan announced all athletic 
activities would be paused for 
two weeks following confirmed 
cases of the COVID-19 B.1.1.7 
variant 
within 
the 
athletic 

department. The hockey team 
has had no positive cases since it 
began practicing in October. 

“I guess my initial reaction 

was a little bit of shock, a little 
bit of surprise, a little bit of 
disappointment, a little bit of 
anger.” Michigan coach Mel 
Pearson said. “But here we are 
and we’re looking to spin this 
into a positive.”

Pearson also understood and 

supported the administration’s 
decision and instead turned 
his focus to how he could help 
his team through the next two 
weeks. Following the news, 
the Wolverines held a couple of 
team meetings to discuss the 
next steps.

“The main point of the calls 

was just to reinforce the message 
from our athletic director in our 
department as to what this means 
and what our responsibilities are 
as 
student-athletes,” 
Pearson 

said. “And to make sure that they 
were all OK and (the coaches) are 
going to be a resource available 
to them.”

After the players got over 

the initial disappointment, a 
big concern they expressed 
was how they would be able to 
practice during the pause with 
the team required to quarantine 
and practices prohibited. They 
want to continue to train, but 

without being able to gather in 
large groups or use indoor ice 
rinks, that may be difficult. 

“They’ve got a regiment 

from 
our 
strength 
and 

conditioning coach,” Pearson 
said. “We’ll do a lot of zooms 

and stay in touch with them, 
give them different games to 
watch just to make sure that 
we’re keeping them mentally 
into the game; and then they 
have to do what they can 
physically to stay ready.”

Michigan had been playing 

some of its best hockey since 
it returned from winter break. 
The Wolverines won five of their 
past six games and are currently 
the seventh-ranked team in the 
country. 

Following the Notre Dame 

series, 
they 
were 
already 

scheduled to have a 12-day 
break before facing Penn State 
at home on Feb. 3 and 4. As of 
now, those are the only games 
to be postponed. Pearson also 
mentioned it would probably 
take the team 4-5 days to get 
back into game shape and they 
currently are scheduled to play 
Michigan State on Feb. 9 — just 
two days after the shutdown is 
supposed to end. 

“We’ve had past experience 

with this almost every year with 
the (Great Lakes Invitational) 
tournament,” 
Pearson 
said. 

“Normally we have a two and a 
half week break, we reconvene 

after Christmas, maybe have 
three and a half, four days of 
practice and then we play. And 
we’ve been able to manage that.

“Now the only difference 

here is are our kids going to have 
access to ice somewhere? And 
when you’re in a quarantine, 
that answer is no.”

The Wolverines are faced with 

a lot of uncertainty, but that was 
expected with a season being 
played amid an ongoing pandemic. 
When players returned to Ann 
Arbor, they didn’t know when 
their season would begin and 
what health and safety protocols 
they’d be under. The shutdown 
is just one more challenge they’ll 
have to overcome. 

“We’re 
all 
dealing 
with 

adversity in our lives,” Pearson 
said. “It’s how you handle that 
adversity. We’ve got to come 
up stronger on the other side 
whenever we’re allowed to come 
back.”

Wednesday, January 27, 2021 — 18
Sports
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Cliff Keen grew up on a farm in 

Oklahoma. In college, he was an 
undefeated wrestler, a football player 
and a track athlete for Oklahoma 
A&M, which is now Oklahoma State. 

He came to Ann Arbor to attend 

the University of Michigan Law 
School, from which he earned his law 
degree in 1933. He then stayed in the 
community, working at a small law 
firm in Ann Arbor while coaching the 
wrestling team. Just a few years after 
he became the head varsity wrestling 
coach, he left his law job to focus on 
coaching full-time.

During his time as the wrestling 

coach, Keen was also part of the 
football coaching staff for 33 years 
and was an assistant coach under 
the helm of Michigan greats: Fritz 
Crisler, Fielding Yost and Bennie 
Oosterbaan. 

Keen was also the head coach of 

Michigan’s 150-pound football team 
during the 1947 and 1948 seasons 
— the only two seasons in which 
the team existed. He won national 
titles both years and brought the 
T-formation into Michigan football. 

As a wrestling coach, Keen had 

the longest tenure of any coach in 
University athletics history and holds 
the record for the longest career of 
any collegiate wrestling coach. He 
was the head coach at Michigan for 
42 years, spanning from 1925 to 1970, 
with a three-year break during World 
War II where he spent his time as a 
naval commander.

During his tenure as the head 

coach for Michigan, Keen led many 
teams to outstanding success. His 
accomplishments include 12 Big 
Ten 
Conference 
Championships, 

11 
individual 
NCAA 
champion 

wrestlers, 68 All-Americans and 81 
Big Ten Champions. 

In 1977, Keen was inducted into 

the National Wrestling Hall of 
Fame. A few years later in 1980, he 
was inducted into the University 
of Michigan Hall of Honor. In 1981, 
he was inducted into the State of 
Michigan Sports Hall of Fame.

Statistically speaking, Keen is 

one of the greatest coaches of all-
time at Michigan in any sport. But 
what makes him truly a legend is his 
value in building the character of his 
wrestlers and those around him by 
setting a positive example with his 
coaching style.

“You know he was quite a task 

master, but he had a unique style that 
he used to motivate people,” Rick 
Bay, a former Michigan wrestler and 
Keen’s assistant coach from 1970-
1974 and successor, said. “His way 
was really to always let you know that 
he thought you could do better, but 
at the end of the day, his philosophy 
was even if he had been getting on 
somebody during practice for one 
reason or another, at the end of each 
practice if that had been the case he 
would take that person aside and say 
something positive. He always felt 
like you should leave any coaching 
situation each day with something 
positive.

“He was inspirational in a way that 

was sort of quiet and philosophical 
… he wasn’t much into chewing 
anybody out, especially in front of the 
team,” Bay said. “He would say, ‘You 
know, it takes a long time to build up 
someone’s confidence, but a person 
with authority can tear it down 
pretty quickly,’ and so he coached in 
a positive way. You know there are 
coaches who coach negatively that 
works too for some but not for him.” 

Jesse Rawls Sr., an All-American 

wrestler for Keen during the last 
years of his coaching career, spoke 
about the impact that positive 
coaching and reassurance can have 
on an athlete through an experience 
he had with Keen. 

“He said to me one day, came up 

to me (after) I won the match. I did 
something, I don’t know what, I 
was losing, I ended up winning and 
I didn’t quit. I can remember sitting 
beside him, and he hit me on my 
knee and he said, ‘Boy you’re one hell 
of a guy, one hell of a wrestler.’ And 
that just did a lot for me as a person, 
because when a coach says you did 
a fine job and you know that, deep 
down inside, you tried to do a fine job. 
That really gave me a big plus sign. 

“I went on that year and won the 

Big Ten Championship without a 
doubt, and he was very proud of that.”

Keen believed in coaching the 

fundamentals and he often taught 
wrestlers by stepping on to the mat 
and giving demonstrations himself — 
even at the end of his career, when he 
was in his late 60s. Even at matches, 
Keen would sometimes demonstrate 
a move that he thought would be a 
good strategy.

“Even though at that moment 

he’d be in coat and tie and I would 
too because we were the coaches, we 
would take our team out and heck, 
he’d take off his suit coat if it popped 
into his mind, he’d get down on the 
mat (and say), ‘Rick jump on top of me 
I wanna show this,’ ” Bay said. “He 
was wearing a coat and tie and he was 
demonstrating on me for the sake of 
the wrestlers trying to make a point, 
and of course he’d mess up my shirt 
and he elbowed me in the ribs while 
he was demonstrating all this, but 
that was kind of the way he did it. It 
was sort of off the top of his head, but 
he had a lot of experience.”

Even after his retirement, Keen 

continued to influence Michigan 
wrestling. In his career as a 
wrestling coach, Bay incorporated 
many coaching techniques that he 
learned from Keen when he became 
Michigan’s next head coach.

“I used everything I learned from 

him,” Bay said. “I mean I talked about 
positive reinforcement, I was not a 
screamer, I did not swear at my team 
or individuals on the team, I always 
tried to treat everybody with respect. 
I tried to be more organized than I 
thought (Keen) was, but that was just 
my own personality.”

Rawls also incorporated many of 

the coaching techniques he learned 
from Keen when he coached at 
Harrisburg University after his 
playing days. 

“If you talk to any of my wrestlers, 

I would always say, ‘Son do this, son 
do that’ and I always prepared them 
for the next step,” Rawls said. “I said 
that ‘cause coach Keen used to always 
use these terms.” 

Keen’s coaching style also led to a 

close-knit team atmosphere that was 
commended by those who wrestled 
for him.

“We’re going out here, the A boys, 

and we’re gonna act like men and 
we’re gonna wrestle and we’re gonna 
be tough,” Rawls said.

Bradford Stone — my grandfather 

and a class of 1950 wrestler for Keen 
— had similarly positive memories 
from his time competing with the 
Wolverines. He especially enjoyed 
the camaraderie of the team. 

“That’s what separates wrestling 

from a lot of other team sports is that 
you have no one,” Stone said. “Look 
to your left, look to your right, there’s 
nobody there, (but) they would 

always root for you and so forth and 
you would root for them.” 

Jerry Hoddy, an All-American 

wrestler for Keen who wrestled 
during the last years of Keen’s 
coaching career, also spoke about 
how close the team was and how the 
team had each other’s backs even in 
difficult times. 

“One of his favorite sayings, 

particularly under duress when we 
were traveling, was when something 
would go wrong … (he) had his boys 
and if we got anywhere and there was 
some sort of snafu — and about 9 out 
of 10 times there was — Cliff would 
get into a dither and you’d hear this 
booming voice say well I got my boys 
here,” Hoddy said. “He was just an 
immense father figure for everybody 
that came through that program for 
years and years and years. Everybody 
cherishes that time and I think most 
people would say (they) unabashedly 
loved Cliff Keen dearly.” 

That team dynamic not only led 

Keen’s wrestlers to want to win for 
themselves, but also win for Keen and 
the University. 

“You wanted him to be proud of 

you,” Bay said. “That was always a 
dynamic that was pretty pervasive, 
so you wanted to win for yourself, but 
you (also) wanted to win for coach 
Keen.”

Keen was a man who was true 

to his word and who highly valued 
integrity, hard work and old school 
sportsmanship.

“I first met him in 1968, 

when he came to Lawrenson, 
Minnesota 
(where) 
we 
had 

the 
Junior 
College 
National 

Wrestling Championship,” Rawls 
said. “That’s when I met him 
and that’s when he offered me a 
scholarship at the University of 
Michigan. And his words to me — 
that I will never forget — was that 
he had never recruited a Black 
wrestler. 

“And he came to Minnesota 

to recruit the best wrestler in the 
tournament. And I happened to be 
the best wrestler in the tournament 
and happened to be Black. So, 
we recruited. And he said ‘If you 
come to Michigan, I’ll give you a 
full scholarship,’ and my whole life 
changed. That stuck with me and I 
will always remember that. And he 
was true to his word.” 

Stone also spoke about the values 

and integrity that Keen had.

In the Big Ten dual meet, 

Michigan’s Larry Nelson won his 
previous round, but not without 
cost. Nelson was injured and with it, 
Michigan’s chances of a championship 
lowered. Stone, who was standing 
nearby, 
suggested 
Nelson 
make 

an appearance despite his injury 
— the appearance would help the 
Wolverines’ chances of making the 
conference championships. However, 
Keen refused.

“And he said, ‘I would not take 

a chance on injuring a young boy.’ 

Sports didn’t matter as much as the 
health of his boys, in other words.”

Keen also believed strongly that 

being a student came before being 
an athlete. Hoddy spoke about the 
importance of academics to Keen.

“He took great pride in his rate of 

graduation, of the people that went 
through the wrestling program 
there at the University of Michigan.” 
Hoddy said. “He was always talking 
about (how it’s) not so much what you 
do while you’re here in Ann Arbor, it’s 
what you do after you leave.”

Keen also believed that lessons 

learned on the mat could be used in 
the athletes’ lives outside of sports as 
well.

“There was one time when there 

was a guy named Byron Dean in my 
weight class and we would wrestle 
off to see who gets to represent 
Michigan and who was going to go 
down and wrestle Illinois,” Stone 
said. “I actually won the match 
internally. And I really wanted to get 
this, now he would beat me 6-3 or 
8-4, so that night I couldn’t sleep half 
the night and I was so charged up, 
went out there and I beat him 5-0. 
And I found out that if I just put forth 
regular effort, I’m sort of average, 
average at a high level of course, 
not off the street, but if I really 
wanted something and really put my 
effort into it without reservations, 
how much better I could be. And I 
carried that over the years. I learned 
that from Keen while wrestling. 
Multitudes of us were made better 
people for having wrestled under 
Keen.” 

Keen cared about his athletes 

very much and still had strong 
connections with his wrestlers 
after they graduated

In 
1975, 
Rawls 
needed 

somewhere to train for the 1976 
Olympics. Where else but with an 
elite program at Michigan? There 
was just one problem: He had 
nowhere to live, but Keen looked 
after his wrestlers.

“He said, ‘Let me see what I 

can do for you.’ I got there Labor 
Day, which was September 1975,” 
Rawls recalls. “I called him, and 
that … Tuesday or Wednesday I 
had an interview, and Friday I was 
moving into housing. Just that 

fast. That’s how much pull that he 
had.”

At his retirement party after 42 

years of coaching, wrestlers decades 
apart in age came together to share 
their well wishes.

“And all his former wrestlers that 

were still living all came back to pay 
him homage upon his retirement.” 
Stone said. “It was an evening just full 
of love and full of respect and that was 
a remarkable evening.”

“He was an immense father figure 

for everybody that came through 
that program for years and years 
and years.” Hoddy said “Everybody 
cherishes that time and I think most 
people would say, unabashedly, 
they loved Cliff Keen dearly and 
everything that he did to represent 
the University of Michigan was a 
proper thing.”

Keen’s legacy lives on through 

the University and the sport of 
wrestling. The wrestling supply 
company he founded in 1958, Cliff 
Keen Athletic, is one of the premiere 
companies in the business and 
wrestlers across the country use 
the signature Cliff Keen headgear 
designed by the coach.

Keen positively impacted many 

people’s lives during his coaching 
career and his legacy will live on. 

“You gotta say he is one of the 

great Michigan coaches of all time 
in any sport,” Bay said. “He was 
a unique individual. Nothing one 
dimensional about him. He was 
dignified. He was a gentleman 
coach. He coached the way I always 
felt you should coach. I think the 
principles he stood for are still 
important today.”

Even now, Keen commands a 

high degree of respect in wrestlers 
of all ages, including those too 
young to remember his time at 
Michigan. 

“Last year at a shopping mall in 

Livonia, we saw a teenager wearing 
a Cliff Keen Wrestling Club shirt.” 
Stone said. “We asked him about 
it. He was a high-school wrestler. I 
told him that I had wrestled for Cliff 
Keen. He said, with an expression 
of awe, you wrestled for Cliff Keen? 

“I realized, (as) if I didn’t already 

know, that his influence spanned 
generations.”

PHOTO COURTESY OF RICK BAY

Legendary Michigan coach Cliff Keen was inducted to the State of Michigan Sports Hall of Fame in 1981.

MADDY STONE-WHEATLEY

For The Daily

ALLISON ENGKVIST/Daily

Michigan coach Mel Pearson felt disappointed about the two-week pause.

Cliff Keen: Tales of a Michigan Legend

PHOTO COURTESY OF RICK BAY 

Legendary Michigan coach Cliff Keen made wrestling a family.

JOSH TAUBMAN
Daily Sports Writer

Michigan coach Mel Pearson reflects on what pause means for season