Remembering the 'ultimate Triton kid'

Former Triton High School football coach Pete Goetz used to say he loved "coaching Triton kids."

Current Triton football coach Dom Tomeo wants his Mustangs to play "like a bunch of Triton kids."

Brian Keller was the ultimate Triton kid.

In Runnemede, in Bellmawr, in sports circles in the blue-collar, Black Horse Pike towns with some connection to the school and its athletic programs - that's a special designation, a badge of honor.

It's a testament of mental and physical toughness, can-do determination, and an underdog's grit.

Keller, who died on June 25 from injuries suffered in an automobile accident, exemplified those qualities during his athletic career with the Mustangs. He was the heart and soul of the 2011 Triton football team.

A quarterback and defensive end, Keller led the Mustangs to an 8-3 record, with all three losses to sectional championship teams - two to South Jersey Group 4 champion Pennsauken and one to South Jersey Group 3 champion Timber Creek.

Timber Creek coach Rob Hinson used to call Keller "Tebow" because the athlete's bruising running style was reminiscent of Tim Tebow, the former University of Florida star and just-released Eagles reserve quarterback.

His former coaches still talk about Keller's performance with a shoulder injury against Woodrow Wilson - "He wouldn't let us lose," Tomeo said - and his ability to push that 2011 team to one of the best seasons in the history of the program.

At the time of his death, Keller was preparing for his senior season as a tight end for the Lafayette College football team. He was a top student as an engineering major.

"It was just devastating to everybody who knew him," Tomeo said. "Me and Pete Goetz, we had just seen him a couple of days before that. He was doing great."

Triton and its sister schools in the Black Horse Pike district - Timber Creek and Highland - will honor Keller this season by wearing "15" decals on the back of their helmets in reference to the No. 15 that Keller wore at Triton.

On Oct. 2, Triton will retire Keller's No. 15 jersey during halftime of the team's homecoming game against Highland.

The night in Runnemede will overflow with emotion for new Highland coach Brian Leary, who was the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach at Triton during Keller's career with the Mustangs.

"It's going to be special," said Leary, who struggled to control his emotions in discussing his former player and neighbor. "It's fitting. He [Keller] deserves it."

Triton is no athletic powerhouse, cranking out championship team after championship team. Triton is not Shawnee, not Haddonfield.

The Mustangs squads in most sports - and this is a broad generalization - tend to be scrappy, relying more on tenacity and teamwork than pure talent.

Keller was an exception to that rule. He was a big, strong, fast kid with good hands who excelled on the basketball court as well as the football field.

But he was a Triton kid, through and through, embracing the Mustangs ethos with a straight-ahead style and fearless attitude.

As a senior, he spoke in a no-nonsense manner of his love for his Mustangs and his pride in his school during his final football season and during his final basketball season - when the team was coached by the late Butch McLean, who was in the latter stages of a battle with cancer.

For Triton football to win eight games, including a South Jersey Group 4 playoff game, that was a big deal.

For the Mustangs to have a first-team all-South Jersey player, that was a big deal.

For Keller to earn a scholarship to Lafayette and excel in school and on the football field, that was a big deal.

That's why Leary unsuccessfully fought back tears in discussing his old quarterback.

That's why Tomeo and Goetz still get that numb, disbelieving tone in their voices when talking of the events of that terrible June 24 night.

That's why all those players will wear No. 15 decals on the back of their helmets and all those people hold their breaths at halftime of the homecoming game.

And that's why a framed No. 15 jersey, along with a framed No. 57 jersey - retired for former standout Nick Parisi, another classic Triton kid who died in 2004 in a rock-climbing accident - will soon be displayed in the Mustangs' weight room.

And why an inscription above the two jerseys will read, "Once a Mustang, Always a Mustang."