It was the kind of moment that defines a person's life, and K.C. Keeler, HNS '81, wasn't sure he was ready for it.

Nineteen years ago, one of the best linebackers Delaware football has produced in the last 25 years stood outside the coaches' office of the Philadelphia Eagles and waited.

He waited for word on whether his dream, the one that keeps little boys up nights, would come true, the dream of playing in the National Football League.

He had worked six weeks in training camp, and he knew there was only one spot left on the Eagles' final roster for the 1983 season, and the local boy from Emmaus, Pa., thought sure he'd get it.

Except he didn't. The Eagles kept another young player named Wes Hopkins, and Keeler was set adrift.

"It was very painful and surprising, because I'd come so far and really thought I had a good shot," he says now. "As a player, you never think you're going to be told you're not good enough, and, when you are, it hits you pretty hard."

Today, it's pretty safe to say Keeler handled that setback just fine.

This UD graduate has become one of the finest small college football coaches in America. Currently in his ninth season as head coach of Division III Rowan University in Glassboro, N.J., Keeler has already won seven Eastern Regional championships, two D-3 coach of the year awards and managed to lead Rowan to five Stagg Bowls, the D-3 national championship game.

His winning percentage is nearly 80 percent, and he surpassed the school record for wins in just seven seasons.

"We've been so successful here that sometimes we forget to stop and smell the roses, but I have to say I'm very proud of what we've been able to do," Keeler says. "I've been blessed with a lot of great teachers along the way and have had some great kids to work with."

One of those teachers, University of North Carolina head football coach John Bunting, isn't at all surprised at Keeler's success. "He's such an aggressive, enthusiastic person that he just wouldn't accept anything but success," says Bunting, who preceded Keeler as Rowan's coach. "He has always had such an overriding passion for the game and for the kids, and that is such an important thing to have. He's a heck of a football coach."

Keeler's aggressive, fiery nature was a major reason for his success at all levels. A schoolboy standout in Emmaus, Keeler was recruited by legendary Delaware head coach Tubby Raymond.

"I knew he was going to be a big-time player for us. He was a tenacious tackler and a great pursuer," Raymond says. "He was one of those players who was always around the ball and always in position to make the play."

Upon arriving on campus in 1977, the hard-hitting defender quickly learned how special playing for UD was.

"Probably the biggest thing I got from Tubby is a thought that I try to use today. He stressed to us how important the Delaware tradition was and how we weren't just playing for ourselves. We were playing for everyone who ever played there," Keeler says. 'He made you feel like if you weren't giving every ounce of effort on every play, you were letting the whole team, and the whole university, down."

Keeler was a standout on the Blue Hens 1979 national championship team, and in 1981, he was voted the team's most valuable player by the Wilmington Touchdown Club.

After his failed tryouts with the Eagles in 1982 and '83, Keeler came into his current profession almost by accident. "I wasn't sure what I was going to do, and then my old position coach at Delaware, Ed Maley, recommended I go up to Amherst College in Massachussetts to become an assistant coach," Keeler recalls.

"At that time, that was like a fallback for me, because I still believed I could be a pro player. But I went up there and liked it, and just went from there," he says.

Keeler eventually came to Rowan for graduate school, and in 1985, he earned his master's degree in health and physical education. Soon after, he became an assistant coach at Rowan, and for five years under Bunting, he was the Profs' offensive coordinator.

"It was so much fun in the early days, because John and I had this tiny little office we shared and we would dream big," Keeler says. "We'd stay up all hours of the night planning how we were going to win and how to get good players in our program.

"John always considered me an equal coach, so when the time came that I became head coach, I was as ready as could be."

Prior to the early 1990s, Rowan (formerly Glassboro State) didn't have much of a football tradition, but Keeler's dogged recruiting and enthusiasm began to pay off. As a coach in Division III, where athletic scholarships are not offered, Keeler has to work extra hard to convince talented gridiron stars to come play for his program.

"For a lot of kids, we're certainly Plan B, if not Plan C," he says. "Kids have big dreams of playing at a Penn State or a Rutgers or a Delaware; they're not jumping up and down about going to Rowan. But, once the larger schools fall away and lose interest, that's where we come in.

"I tell kids that, yes, they'll have to pay for school, and, yes we're not D-I, but we offer a winning environment, good academics and a chance to play."

Keeler says a major part of his success with Rowan has simply been making his players a part of how things are done. "Every year in the spring, I gather the seniors and ask them, 'Are we doing things the right way here? Is there anything you think we could do better?'" Keeler says. "And, the response I usually get from the kids is that from day one, they felt like they were a part of something special here, and not to change a thing.

"If there's nothing else I can teach these players, it's that losing is not about getting knocked down. It's in not getting back up," he says. "Adversity is a part of life, and how you handle it determines the kind of person you're going to be."

For all of Keeler's success, though, the brass ring still eludes him. Five times the Profs have gone to the Stagg Bowl with a chance to win the national title, and each time, they've lost. In 1999, perhaps Rowan's best team, they snapped powerhouse Mt. Union's 54-game winning streak in the semifinals, but fell to Pacific Lutheran in the title game.

While their failures in the big game have led some to call the Profs "the Buffalo Bills of D-III," Keeler says the defeats don't haunt him. "Of course. I'd like to have won a few of them, but it wasn't like we were losing to pushovers; we lost to great football teams," he says. "We've set the bar so high that just winning games isn't enough. We want to stick our necks out there and say we want to be the best, and to me, losing the championship games doesn't mar what we've done."

Bunting says, "I've been around football a lot, and just getting to the title game at your level is amazing. How many other programs would love to be in five title games?"

Keeler's coaching career is still young, but with success have come opportunities to leave Rowan and move up the ladder to a bigger school. But, he says, each time a chance arose, his priorities stayed true.

"My wife and my kids love living in New Jersey, and I haven't wanted to sacrifice my family's happiness for anything," he says. "I don't have a resum´e. I'm not currently looking for a job, but you never say never. If something came up, I'd have to consider it."

Of course, being in New Jersey has allowed Keeler to keep an eye on Raymond and the Hens. "It may sound like a cliché, but I do bleed blue and gold," he says. "I love the program and am so impressed by how successful they are year in and year out."

For right now, though, Keeler is content to scour the playing fields looking for talented kids who the major schools overlook, bringing them to the city of Glassboro and molding them into champions.

"It's amazing, one day last week, I came home after a good day of practice and said to my wife, 'Man, I love this job'" he says. "Not everybody gets to do what they love, but I love my job every day."