Persistent Comber native finally makes Lancers volleyball squad.
Twice McKeen was cut following tryouts for the Windsor Lancers of the OUA men’s volleyball league.
Undeterred, the sociology student continued to work on his game and showed up for camp again this fall.
This time, he made the grade.
“He’s the hardest working guy I know,” Lancers coach Shawn Lippert said of the 21-yearold native of Comber.
During the team’s annual testing combine, McKeen jumped through the roof of the St. Denis Centre.
His numbers were higher, longer and bigger than veteran Kyle Williamson, a CIS all-Canadian.
Of 13 different categories, McKeen bested everyone on the team in eight categories, including an approach jump that topped out at an astonishing 11 feet, six inches.
“To come into camp and have those kinds of crazy numbers is unreal,” Lippert said. “He just wouldn’t give up.”
Like a true prize fighter, McKeen absorbed the first gut punch two years ago thinking, “I’ll get you next year.”
When he got the bad news again last fall, he thought, “Well, that wasn’t nice.”
Ironically, Lippert accidentally left McKeen hanging for several days after the 2012 camp ended with the traditional Blue and Gold game on a Friday night.
He usually sits down with all the candidates the following Monday but other duties kept him from that, forcing him to reschedule McKeen’s meeting to that Wednesday.
“I had anxiety attacks the night before,” McKeen said. “I spent the night puking in the bathroom.”
A man of few words, McKeen was asked what kept bringing him back, especially after being spurned a second time.
“I was determined I wasn’t going to quit,” he said. “I’m very goal oriented and I’m not afraid to fail.”
McKeen heeded Lippert’s advice and spent the past two winters improving his skills with the Riverside men’s travel team, which serves as a quasiLancer practice squad.
“I’m 100 times better,” he said of his skill set since that first tryout. “In everything, defence, offence, I can attack a ball, I can serve.”
At six-foot-three and 210 pounds, McKeen has the potential to put up an imposing block on the right side for the Lancers.
“He’s got all the physical attributes, now he has to follow them up with the skills,” Lippert said.
McKeen’s success comes as no surprise to his Tilbury high school coach, Tim Leidl, who saw his tenacity up close.
“He’s the epitome of everything you look for in an athlete,” said Leidl, who is now coaching at Chatham-Kent.
“He’s a physical specimen but the big thing for him is his determination. When he told me the first time that he had made the (Riverside) practice squad, you could see in his eyes he was happy but you could also see he wasn’t done yet.”
mcaton@windsorstar.com or 519-255-5726
Read more:http://www.windsorstar.com/Three+times+charm+McKeen/7257377/story.html#ixzz26qZV3jgI
Lancer Volleyball Club 