High hopes ride on new coach for Santa Fe football

Keeler

It’s game-on at Santa Fe High School. That’s the plan, at least.

Shea Showers has been the school’s head football coach for the past three years, but now he’s stepping down, and Tommy Keeler, the head coach and athletic director from Newberry High School, will be taking his place.

“He [Showers] saw a need for the program to move in a different direction,” said Santa Fe Athletic Director Michele Faulk.

“It was a mutual agreement.”

Keeler met with his new players Wednesday afternoon, and he said he’d be starting workouts with them Jan. 24. He wasn’t sure yet when he’s going to start teaching at Santa Fe, but he did express his excitement for it, saying he wanted the new position in part to get back to teaching weight lifting and coaching football.

As a dean and athletic director at Newberry, ‘It’s hard to give the kids my full time and attention while also dealing with everything else.”

“I’m not an administrator. My heart is in working with the kids.”

He makes his devotion to the sport clear, too, without even speaking. Instead of hearing a ring sounding for him to answer his cell phone, the Florida State Seminoles’fight song announces an incoming call.

He and his wife are both ‘Noles, but, he said, “My daughter’s a traitor.” She went to the University of Florida, he explains.

Santa Fe High School is rich in football tradition, though the past few years have been rough, he said. But, he declared, “We’re going to have success again.”

Faulk said the school is excited about the new edition to the team.

Newberry’s football program, she explained, was in a similar situation to Santa Fe’s now, and Keeler turned it around. She’s confident he’ll bring new ideas, energy and discipline to the Raiders.

Showers will continue teaching his weight lifting class at Santa Fe until the end of this school year, Faulk said. When he leaves, Keeler will take over that as well.