KNOXVILLE – Ron McKeefery missed “just having fun with the guys.”
McKeefery, the University of Tennessee football team’s head strength and conditioning coach, said he didn’t get the day-to-day interactions he does now when he was the human performance coordinator for the U.S. Army Special Forces, 160th Special Operations Aviations Regiment.
“At the end of the day, I love to work with athletes,” McKeefery said at his first media opportunity since being hired on Jan. 17. “I love to touch them on a daily basis, and I love to have an impact on their lives.”
But McKeefery wants that impact to last longer than players’ tenures with the Volunteers and to carry off the field as well.
“I’m all about character and making sure I have an impact on these players’ lives beyond the four or five years that they’re here,” he said. “I tell them on a recruiting visit, my job is to make you better husbands, better fathers, better citizens.