{"id":5125,"date":"2018-05-18T01:33:46","date_gmt":"2018-05-18T01:33:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ecm.eng.auburn.edu\/wp\/emag\/?p=5125"},"modified":"2018-05-22T13:32:50","modified_gmt":"2018-05-22T13:32:50","slug":"one-of-a-keim","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ecm.eng.auburn.edu\/wp\/emag\/?p=5125","title":{"rendered":"One of a Keim"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/ecm.eng.auburn.edu\/wp\/emag\/files\/2018\/05\/Patrick-Keim-Photos-5-2.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-5298 size-full\" src=\"http:\/\/ecm.eng.auburn.edu\/wp\/emag\/files\/2018\/05\/Patrick-Keim-Photos-5-2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1000\" height=\"667\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The 2018 Auburn men\u2019s basketball team, playing with only one senior on the squad, won its first SEC regular season championship in nearly 20 years and made the NCAA Tournament for the first time in 15 years.<\/p>\n<p>Although the lone senior \u2013 Patrick Keim, \u201918 industrial and systems engineering \u2013 didn\u2019t score the most points or pull down the most rebounds, his leadership role on the court and in the classroom had a huge impact on the team\u2019s success. The remarkable turnaround under the helm of head coach Bruce Pearl was four years in the making and was engineered on the backs of elite talent, both on and off the court.<\/p>\n<p>In March 2015 \u2013 Pearl\u2019s first full season as head coach \u2013 following an upset victory over LSU in the SEC Tournament giving Auburn its third consecutive victory in the tournament for the first time in 30 years, Pearl bragged on the SEC Network about one of his bench players who had a huge game defensively.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDevin Waddell really stepped up for us. He\u2019s my engineer, my non-scholarship engineer. Everybody needs one of those, by the way,\u201d Pearl said of Waddell, \u201917 chemical engineering.<\/p>\n<div class=\"video-container\" style=\"margin-bottom: 15px;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/5zB0o8wy120\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p>Since then, Pearl has added multiple Auburn engineers to the squad, including Keim; Cole Blackstock, electrical engineering; Brett Easterling, mechanical engineering; and Will Macoy, industrial and systems engineering.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe fact that Auburn basketball is known for having a corps of engineers from one of the finest public engineering colleges in the country, I think it speaks volumes about what being a student-athlete is all about,\u201d Pearl said.<\/p>\n<p>Having individuals such as Waddell, and most recently Keim, being leaders on the court and in the classroom has helped set the foundation of what a championship program is all about, Pearl said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDevin is at Duke right now, settling on a lesser education than he received at Auburn, but that\u2019s OK, and maybe a little better basketball program,\u201d Pearl said with a laugh. \u201cIt\u2019s what we\u2019re here for. This is our job, to help these kids get from here to there, whether it\u2019s through engineering, through basketball, through ministry. Those kids walk the walk and talk the talk, on and off the court, and the discipline it takes to be a great student-athlete is embodied in those guys. We proudly wear that emblem on our sleeve.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t know that I can think of two student-athletes that embody what Auburn is all about more than Devin Waddell and Patrick Keim,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_5297\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-5297\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-image-5297\" src=\"http:\/\/ecm.eng.auburn.edu\/wp\/emag\/files\/2018\/05\/9643830_1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"240\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-5297\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Kevin drains a buzzer-beater against cross-state rival Alabama in 2017 to put the Tide away, 84-64.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><strong>EARNING HIS PLACE<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>At Mountain Brook High School, Keim was a part of arguably the greatest run in the Spartans\u2019 history. The three-time captain won back-to-back Class 6A state championships, was the Over The Mountain Boys Athlete of the Year, The Birmingham News South Basketball Player of the Year and finished with 111 wins in his varsity career, the most in school history. But he decided to hang up his basketball shoes and pursue his dream of attending Auburn University.<\/p>\n<p>He attended his first Auburn football game when he was only 10 days old. Both of his parents graduated from Auburn, and both of his brothers pursued engineering degrees.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s always been a dream to be here,\u201d he said. \u201cI always knew I would go to Auburn, but it wasn\u2019t until high school when I realized I wanted to pursue an engineering degree.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He also didn\u2019t realize that Pearl was going to be hired as the new head coach, and the court would begin calling once again.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen I saw Bruce Pearl show up at Auburn, I wanted to go walk on, I wanted to go play for that guy,\u201d Keim said. \u201cIt was something I wanted to be a part of. I obviously didn\u2019t know what it was going to turn into my senior year, but I saw who he was and I wanted to pursue it at least for a year.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>During Keim\u2019s Camp War Eagle session, he got a text from an assistant coach asking to meet up to discuss his desire to play. He met with Pearl and his staff knowing his role would be that of a walk-on, but one particular part of the conversation stuck with him.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t remember much of that conversation, but I do remember Coach Pearl saying that he has given walk-on scholarships before. I guess I\u2019ll never forget that moment. I don\u2019t know why that moment stuck with me, but it instilled in me a passion just to come in and do whatever I could to help this team,\u201d Keim said.<\/p>\n<p>Once on the team, Keim quickly learned that there was no separation in expectations between being a blue chip recruit and an invited walk-on.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere\u2019s probably no difference being a walk-on than being a scholarship player. I treat them all as badly as I treat the others,\u201d Pearl said with a laugh. \u201cThe expectations are the same, the support\u2019s the same, the commitment\u2019s the same. You look in this locker room and my non-scholarship players are right next to my scholarship players. They get the same equipment, they have the same practice demands. Now, they may not get as much playing time, sometimes by virtue of their abilities, but they are absolutely, 100 percent bona fide members of this basketball program.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>For Keim, however, he did see a lot of playing time early in his career. As Pearl begin rebuilding the program, he had to rely on every player on the roster to build depth. Keim played in eight games his freshman year and 23 his sophomore year. That number dwindled to five games his junior year and 13 appearances his senior year.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNormally a player comes in as a freshman, they\u2019ve got no ability to play, but they can practice. They work, they get better and maybe by the time they\u2019re a junior or a senior, maybe they can contribute. It was exactly opposite for Patrick and that\u2019s because of the talent in our program,\u201d Pearl said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy first year was his first year, so we weren\u2019t a very deep, talented team. As a result, we\u2019re an injury away from Pat Keim being in the regular rotation playing back-up point guard as a freshman at Auburn,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p>Although his time was limited on the court, he did have his moments of glory. He nailed a three-pointer against Kentucky in the SEC Tournament his freshman year and repeated that feat two years later in a victory over archrival Alabama at the final buzzer in Auburn Arena to send the crowd to their feet.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTo come down here and play against Bama was so surreal because I\u2019ve always watched and now I\u2019m getting to live it,\u201d Keim said. \u201cThat shot was a culmination of a lot of years of being heckled by my Bama friends and now I could take a moment, the final seconds of an Auburn-Alabama basketball game, and say to them \u2018stick it\u2019 and \u2018how does that feel?\u2019 to all my old friends.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He also had another moment that fans will remember, but it happened off the court and went viral online.<\/p>\n<p>Following the Tigers\u2019 victory over Gardner-Webb on Dec. 6, 2017, Keim received the surprise of his career. A video crew had been following him around during the day under the pretense that they were documenting the day-in-the-life of a walk-on player.<\/p>\n<p>What he didn\u2019t know was that they were there to document the moment when he would find out that he was no longer a walk-on, but instead a scholarship member of the team.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI had no idea. It\u2019s just one of those moments where you spend four years of your life making sure the last thing you think about is yourself, and to have a moment that most walk-ons don\u2019t get to see, for me to have this reward, was humbling,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>For Pearl, it was always part of his plan to reward Keim for his hard work, dedication and commitment. But it wasn\u2019t easy after the Tigers lost two scholarship players before the 2018 season due to rules infractions, another player who had to sit out a season and a late injury to playmaker Anfernee McLemore, lowering the number of scholarship players to eight.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat started out as a good plan turned out to, maybe, not be such a good plan, but it was my intention to reward Pat for a job well done. He deserved that scholarship,\u201d Pearl said. \u201cWhether it was the smart thing to do or not, I actually think God kind of rewarded us for doing the right thing. It meant a lot to Pat, not that he necessarily needed it financially, but that it was just one more step, one more check saying he belonged at the highest level.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/ecm.eng.auburn.edu\/wp\/emag\/files\/2018\/05\/Pat-Keim-Class-Shot-1-of-1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-5502\" src=\"http:\/\/ecm.eng.auburn.edu\/wp\/emag\/files\/2018\/05\/Pat-Keim-Class-Shot-1-of-1.jpg\" alt=\"Patrick Keim in class\" width=\"300\" height=\"165\" \/><\/a>WORK, HARD WORK<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>While earning a scholarship on the team was difficult, so too was the task of juggling an arduous engineering curriculum while playing collegiate basketball at the highest level.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBeing an engineering student and a basketball player is a complete grind. I contemplated quitting just because of how hard it was, but I soon realized that I was getting an experience that not many people get,\u201d Keim said. \u201cI wanted to stay locked in on two of the hardest things Auburn had to offer and conquer those because I felt like if I could get to those two things then I knew I can handle anything to the best of my ability.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He not only learned a lot about industrial and systems engineering and basketball, he also learned a lot about himself along the way.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt forces you to grow up pretty quickly. You can\u2019t take a day and just do whatever you want and then just expect not to have havoc on the rest of the week trying catch up,\u201d he said. \u201cIt requires you to step up to a different level of maturity, of time management, of discipline. It forces you to grow character inside of you that a lot of people may push off till later in life.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s that mentality that inspired Pearl to ask Keim to return to the team his senior year, to be a leader on and off the court and to finish what they started together.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHard work alone won\u2019t guarantee success, but without hard work I guarantee you won\u2019t have success, and that\u2019s your choice. Pat Keim has chosen to put himself in position to be successful,\u201d Pearl said. \u201cIt\u2019s taken a lot of time, himself, to be in condition, to train, to be able to perform on the basketball court, and it\u2019s taken a lot of time to compete in the classroom. Yet, when you look at Pat, it\u2019s all the time he spends helping others, it\u2019s all the time he spends serving others. I don\u2019t know where he finds the time, but I\u2019m certainly glad he found the time to make history at Auburn.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The 2018 Auburn men\u2019s basketball team, playing with only one senior on the squad, won its first SEC regular season championship in nearly 20 years and made the NCAA Tournament for the first time in 15 years. Although the lone senior \u2013 Patrick Keim, \u201918 industrial and systems engineering \u2013 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":31,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v20.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>One of a Keim &raquo; Auburn Engineer<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/ecm.eng.auburn.edu\/wp\/emag\/?p=5125\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"One of a Keim &raquo; Auburn Engineer\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The 2018 Auburn men\u2019s basketball team, playing with only one senior on the squad, won its first SEC regular season championship in nearly 20 years and made the NCAA Tournament for the first time in 15 years. 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