Where would you like to begin a story about Adam Keefe, the son of a Marine, the husband of an Olympian, the budding politician, the outdoorsman, the volleyball player, the pro basketball player, the Garbage Man?
Do we begin with the possibility that he might run for office someday? Do we talk about his ascent of icy mountains? His friendship with Sen. Orrin Hatch? His penchant for blocking elbows with his face? His all-pro marriage, soon to produce twins?We begin with . . .
The work ethic
"He is a self-made player. It's not that he didn't have skills. But other players out there were more talented whom we played against in high school, but he worked harder. He had a vision and went after it." - Derrick Odum, friend and former high school and junior high school teammate.
As a high school freshman, Keefe was 6-foot-4, 140 pounds. He wasn't skinny; he was invisible. "It's hard for people to understand how disproportionate that is," he says. But it was a blessing. Because he couldn't overpower opponents, he employed sound fundamentals and finesse. He was such a stickler for fundamentals that he once berated himself for using poor technique on a simple chest pass. He attempted to go through an entire collegiate season without missing a layup - in pregame warm-ups.
"He had no aspirations for basketball really; he just enjoyed it," says Keefe's father, Miles. "He didn't know he was working on it. But there aren't many guys who do drills with a partner in the park for hours every day. Instead of playing strictly pickup games, he did post drills and worked on different shots in the paint, one-on-one with Vince Bryan, who eventually played for BYU."
Keefe's future wife, Kristin, a Stanford volleyball player who was just getting to know him at the time, noticed the same intensity when she saw him in practice while waiting for her own practice to begin. "They would run all these sprints, and he would finish first every time," she says. "I remember thinking, `That's impressive. He's the star on the team and he works as hard as a freshman.' "
Meanwhile, Keefe began to visit the weight room and bulked up to 245 pounds at Stanford. He could bench-press 320 and run the mile in under five minutes.
All these years later, Keefe has lost none of his drive. He reports early each season to participate in the free-agent/rookie camp, and he usually stays behind after practice. During the off-season, he works on a phase of his game. Last summer he enlisted a shooting coach and changed his shooting style. It appears to have paid off.
Keefe is shooting 53 percent from the field this season, which is second on the team (although most of his shots are layups and dunks). He also is shooting 85 percent from the foul line - up from a career average of 69.5.
Keefe downplays his own abilities so often that it's easy to forget that he is a fine athlete. As a high school senior, he was USA Today's California Player of the Year, averaging 27.2 points and 12.7 rebounds. At Stanford he was a star on the basketball team and the volleyball team and helped the latter to reach the NCAA Final Four. At the 1989 Olympic festival, he played volleyball and basketball.
"I was a much better volleyball player than a basketball player," he says. "I was on the national team when I was 18 and 19, and I was the high school MVP in California. But there's not much money in it. The money gives you the opportunity to do a lot for yourself and others."
He was the 10th player taken in the 1992 NBA Draft. When the Hawks announced their pick, Hawks' fans booed - and Don Nelson tried to trade star guard Sarunas Marciulionis for his rights.
Keefe started every game his rookie year, but the next season the Hawks hired a new coach and an injury forced Keefe to miss training camp and two weeks of the season. After that he was a spot player. He was traded to Utah - and couldn't have been happier about it.
"It (Atlanta) was an ugly team," Keefe said. "People didn't get along."
When Keefe arrived, Frank Layden told him, "Don't cheat yourself, because the next stop is Italy."
The Garbage Man
"Maybe you're not going to get 20 points a night out of him, but you're going to get a day's work. The guy just plays basketball." - Jerry Sloan.
That, better than anything, describes Keefe's game. Unless you prefer Keefe's own description: "My job is to create havoc."
Teammates used to call him the garbage man, although the moniker seems to have faded a little. The name was inspired by his knack for scoring layups and dunks off junk - loose balls, rebounds, steals, follow-ups, tip-ins - which resulted from a style of play that can only be described as scrappy. If a cocker spaniel puppy played basketball, he would play like Keefe. Once, teammates razzed Keefe about his 60 percent field-goal shooting: "That means you missed four of 10 layups."
"I'm out there for hustle plays," Keefe explains, "a bunch of little things that for the most part are not really seen. I'm not a flashy player. I'm a player who grows on people the more they see me play. You don't get a real appreciation for what I do in one night."
Keefe's style of play frequently seems to place him in harm's way. He catches a lot of elbows, most of them with his face. "Adam doesn't jump over anyone, so his face is always at elbow level," Jazz President Frank Layden has said. Keefe had five different sets of stitches in one season alone. During one 35-game stretch, he required 28 stitches for cuts located everywhere from his lower lip to above his left eye.
"You've got to love the way the guy plays," Sloan once said.
"Adam," John Stockton said, "doesn't mind doing the so-called dirty work."
"Some players succeed because they're talented or a good shooter," says Keefe. "I succeed by knowing the game. How it's played. Where to be. Getting there is the other part. Everyone knows 75 percent of shots fall on the weak side of the rebound. It's a question of getting there."
Keefe couldn't play such a game if he weren't adaptable and unselfish. His Stanford coach, Mike Montgomery, constantly had to urge him to shoot more. Montgomery wanted him to take 15 to 20 shots a game. Bill Walton, the former NBA great who invited Keefe to his home, told him to set a goal of 20 shots a game. Once he called Keefe at home after a game and asked him, "How many shots did you take?" Keefe told him, "It went pretty well. I took 16." Walton said, "Sixteen! I told you 20!"
Keefe can be whatever a coach needs him to be. He averaged 20 points a game for three years at Stanford and led the Pac-10 in rebounding for three years. By the time he left Stanford, he ranked second in scoring and first in rebounding on Stanford's all-time career list.
While with the Atlanta Hawks for two seasons, he was a 245-pound power forward-center. When he came to the Jazz three years ago, he found a team that already had players at his position. The Jazz asked him to play small forward, which meant he needed to be quicker and lighter. No problem. Keefe cut out fried foods, dairy foods and eating after 5 p.m. and shed 25 pounds in six weeks, cutting his body fat from 14 percent to 7.
Keefe has found a home with the Jazz, although he has had an uneven stay with the team. A year ago he fell out of favor and out of the rotation.
This season he didn't play a minute in the sixth game but was in the starting lineup the next game. He has been there ever since, averaging 23 minutes, 7 points and 5 rebounds per game.
The Student
"I don't know how this is going to sound, but imagine you're leaving Stanford and you go to the Atlanta Hawks. I had professors who were advisers to Reagan and Bush; now I'm with guys who can't talk about anything but basketball and women. You strive for something more meaningful. There are more important things to do. You see guys watching X-Man cartoons on TV and you think, `Hey, I could use my time better.' " - Adam Keefe.
Keefe is not merely a student of the game, he is a student of history, politics, outdoor sports, issues of the day, life, you name it. He has a healthy interest in everything and was perfectly happy to be a student at Stanford. He was one class shy of graduating from Stanford in three years. He could have left school early for the NBA Draft and easily gotten his degree later. Instead, he took out a $2 million insurance policy against an injury and returned to school, simply because he liked the college atmosphere.
He never went to Stanford to become an NBA player. It didn't even occur to him that he was an NBA prospect until his junior year. "He was just happy to get a college scholarship," says Odum.
Keefe went to Stanford for the education. Otherwise, he would have gone to one of the more prestigious basketball schools. He had his pick of schools. He visited Duke, North Carolina, Cal-Berkeley and Stanford and canceled a trip to Notre Dame.
At Stanford, he lived quietly and humbly, refusing to play the role of BMOC. He didn't even own a car. He rode everywhere on a 10-speed bike. He liked to stay after class and visit with professors. He says he did so because he wasn't "the sharpest tool in the shed," but he also did it because he simply enjoyed the dialogue.
He was a political science major, and most of his classes were on constitutional law. He wrote papers on political protests in South Africa and the effect of liquidation of American capital after the U.S. abandoned the gold standard in 1971.
"In high school I was an A student, with some Bs," he says. "That changed in a hurry when I got to Stanford. It took me a while to adjust, and when I saw what they wanted and how to do it, then I got on a roll."
And then he stepped into the intellectual black hole of the NBA, with its long dead hours of waiting in airports and sitting on buses and airplanes. During Keefe's rookie year with the Hawks, Bob Weiss, then the head coach, gave him mind puzzles to occupy him. Keefe took it from there.
In the NBA, most players kill airplane rides playing cards or watching bad action movies with high body counts. There are exceptions, and Keefe is one of them. He prefers to sit in the back of the plane doing crossword puzzles (armed with a book of antonyms and synonyms), reading books and discussing politics and other issues of the day with like-minded teammates. He sometimes borrowed a reporter's laptop and wrote word plays, such as alliteration, and short stories.
"We have an amazing group of guys on the team," says Keefe. "Guys who watch the news and talk about it. We'll come to practice, and they'll say, `Hey, did you see what happened?' The Jazz are different. Most of them read."
Enter Keefe's hotel room on a road trip, and you're likely to see books. He usually has two or three going at a time, and we're not talking about Danielle Steel here. His tastes run to books on Ireland (his ancestral home), military history, world history, biographies. If he reads fiction, it's Tom Clancy. If the TV in his room is on, it's to watch CNN, Arts and Entertainment, the Discovery Channel, the History Channel.
The Politician?
"Do you think a conservative Catholic could get elected in Utah?" - Adam Keefe, to Deseret News sports writer Rich Evans.
Keefe is thinking about running for political office someday, but he's still weighing his options. All he'll say is, "I'm interested in teaching and politics. I've always liked politics. My grandfather was a state legislator in New Hampshire."
What are his political leanings? "I'm pretty conservative, but it's tough to put a label on someone."
Keefe is being encouraged by none other than Sen. Hatch, with whom he has struck up a friendship. They have lunch together occasionally and stay in touch through letters and phone calls. He has invited Keefe to his office several times. Hatch likes to collect books he think Keefe will enjoy and send them to him.
"We talk fairly often," says Keefe. "We talk about politics. He's been really nice to me."
"He's a great young man," says Hatch. "He's very intelligent, he's a voracious reader and he has a great interest in politics. He likes to stay involved."
Will Keefe run for office? "I hope so," says Hatch. "I am encouraging him. He's the kind of guy we need. He's a young man who could give a lot. He never quits. He fights. He has heart and guts. He could make an easy transition to government because he's honest, sincere, dedicated, decent, compassionate. He's a wonderful man. I'd call him brilliant. I just think the world of Adam Keefe. He can do anything he wants."
The All-Pro Marriage
"I kick his butt in tennis." Kristin Klein Keefe.
They met at a volleyball tournament at Stanford and seemed a natural couple. Klein was a four-time All-American on the volleyball team, he was a two-time All-American on the basketball team. He liked the outdoors, so did she. He liked all sports, so did she. She is 6 feet, he is 6-9. He came from an athletic family, so did she.
Her father, Bob, was an all-pro tight end with the Los Angeles Rams. Her mother taught aerobics. Her two brothers got scholarships in football and volleyball.
After Keefe and Klein graduated from Stanford, they conducted a long-distance romance for four years. He was in the NBA. She played for the national volleyball team, which was based in San Diego, and she played on the pro beach circuit in the summer. They saw each other maybe once a month when he was in Atlanta.
"It sounds like hell, but you adapt," says Kristin, who has played for the Utah Predators.
After playing in the Atlanta Olympics, Klein left the national team and married Keefe that summer. If a successful couple requires common interests, this is a match made in heaven. They do many things together: tennis, hiking, workouts at the gym, golf, jogging, biking. Now they are going to try parenting. Klein is close to delivering the couple's first children - twins.
The Regular Guy
"The thing that kills me is when people change when they get money." - Adam Keefe
Keefe lives in a nice, but not extravagant, upper-class neighborhood in a bright, airy home that overlooks the valley. The neighbor kids can knock on the door, and they have been known to do that. He has, on occasion, gone out and played ball with them, letting them see he is so regular that he is nothing to fuss over. He doesn't fuss over himself. He is a T-shirts and jeans guy. He works hard, takes a nap in the afternoon, spends money carefully, attends church on Sunday with his wife and drives nothing fancier than a Suburban.
Keefe, 27, has dark red hair, an open, friendly face. He's as comfortable as an old pair of khakis and puts visitors instantly at ease.
"He's just a normal guy from Irvine," says Odum.
Keefe's father was a lieutenant colonel in the Marines, although Miles' jovial nature and friendliness belie this. He retired from the military when Adam was in the fifth grade, and the family settled in Irvine, Calif., where Miles worked for the Hughes Corp. and his wife, Suzanne, taught special education.
Adam was the youngest of three children and the only one not to join the military. Ed is a Marine captain and pilot, his sister Kristan is a former Army captain. Adam, who considered attending the military academies, describes his military prospects this way: "Too tall to fly, too tall for ships, too tall for infantry - probably because they don't want to provide clothing."
Keefe has made an effort not to let money, success and fame change him. "I see how that can skew someone's perception of his place in life," he once said. "You have to remind yourself. You can tell a lot by the people you hang with. Suddenly, a guy is hanging with guys he doesn't know. Who you hang out with is going to affect you."
Before he married, Keefe spent the off-season sharing a California beach house with guys he had known since grade school. Miles describes the beach house as a dump.
He grew up every bit a Californian, enjoying the beach sports. But in Utah he hikes, backpacks and explores the mountains along the south end of the valley. Each summer he embarks on a new adventure. Last summer he climbed an 11,500-foot peak in Oregon. A few years ago he backpacked to the top of 14,500-foot Mt. Whitney, the highest peak in the continental 48. On the descent, he got caught in a blowing spring snowstorm.
"It was beyond numbing cold," says Keefe. "It was the most physically demanding thing I've done."
Keefe has spent many hours hiking the Wasatch mountains behind his house, sometimes dragging an exhausted friend along with him, but often he goes alone. The trade to Utah was fortuitous. He can play basketball and indulge his love of the outdoors.
"I love it out here," he says, sitting in the sun on the back deck of his house, staring out at the valley below. "I love the mountains. The fans are great. The papers are great. The community is great. I am truly lucky I came out here."
*****
Adam Keefe
Non-starter Starter Total
G 5 20 25
Min* 16.2 25.9 23.9
FG 9 62 71
FGA 20 117 137
PCT .450 .530 .518
FT 9 30 39
FTA 11 37 48
PCT .818 .811 .813
Off 10 49 59
Def 9 68 77
Tot 19 117 136
RPG 3.8 5.9 5.4
PPG 5.4 7.7 7.2
* Minutes per game