Lebanon
Check that. Kehoe’s assistant coach has been known to put her foot down.
“She has the guts to say, ‘Dad, you need to chill,’ and that’s really helped me,” Kehoe said with a chuckle, glancing at his 23-year-old daughter, Emily, both seated in the cinder-block cubicle that passes for the Raiders’ coaches office. “Sometimes it’s better coming from a family member.”
Especially one who’s developed thick skin. A 5-foot-6 guard, Emily Kehoe spent her freshman and sophomore years often at war with her father, then helped turn their relationship 180 degrees, culminating in an undefeated season and a 2013 NHIAA Division II title. The first-team All-State player later appeared in 76 games for St. Joseph’s College in Standish, Maine, and taught at West Canaan’s Indian River Middle School during the 2017-18 school year.
When Lebanon had an opening for a health teacher last summer, Emily Kehoe moved back into the building where she’d all but grown up, dating to when the Ascutney native attended her father’s practices as an elementary school student. Neither she nor her father recalls a precise moment when they agreed to coach together, but the results have been compelling for the 12-0 Raiders.
“They’re a funny combination because they’re similar in so many ways,” senior forward Izzy Peress said. “I think the way they get along comes from their mutual love of basketball. It’s a way to bond with each other. They’re incredible coaches and we’re super lucky to have them.”
Emily Kehoe said she was not much good at basketball when she started playing as a fourth-grader. Dyslexia sapped her energy and focus, and Lebanon High was her third school in as many years when she arrived as a freshman. Playing JV basketball that winter and serving as a varsity reserve the next put strain on her relationship with her father, and the two devised a rule to keep their shared rides home reasonably civil.
“It was a half-hour drive and we could talk about basketball only until we reached Interstate 91,” said Emily Kehoe, whose older brother, Ryan, was a Nordic skier at Lebanon. “He would say something snippy and then I wouldn’t talk, or vice-visa. But after those 10 minutes, we could become father and daughter again. By my senior year, we knew each other’s triggers and how to avoid them.”
Tim Kehoe said the 2012-13 season was stressful for himself and his wife, Jennifer, mostly because he desperately wanted Emily and her classmates to go out on top. He attributes part of that team’s success to his having learned that he couldn’t overstep his parental boundaries.
“As she got older, I got smarter,” the coach said ruefully, gazing at the floor. “I was a jerk to her until that year, because I wanted her to be better, but I’d say things to her in practice that I wouldn’t say to other kids, and that wasn’t fair.
“She was a great player and a hardworking kid, the kid you want as a coach.”
And to coach with, it turns out. Emily Kehoe, who worked part-time with Lebanon last season, has been a benefit in multiple ways. Fit and cerebral, she can interpret her father’s words for his young audience and demonstrate their meaning by jumping into drills. Tim Kehoe said his daughter’s presence has revitalized his love of coaching and may well prolong his career.
Emily Kehoe, who earned all-conference academic honors in college and understands the rigors of being a student-athlete, uses that knowledge to build strong relationships with the Raiders. Many of them stop by her classroom during breaks, and their bond resembles those of older and younger sisters.
“She’s positive and upbeat all the time and gives everyone a smile in the hall and brightens everyone’s day,” Peress said.
Said Tim Kehoe: “There are things teenage girls don’t want to talk to me about, and now they have someone they can relate to and who they look up to as a teacher and a basketball player.”
Mention to Emily Kehoe that her 52-year-old father, a Rhode Island native who played at Massachusetts’ Gordon College, seems to have mellowed in recent years, and she agrees. However, she adds the caveat that high school students today are rarely as willing to dedicate their lives to a sport as she believes she and her teammates did six and seven years ago.
“Basketball was our life and that was the norm,” she said. “We had four kids I played with here who later played in college.”
A Lebanon High physical education teacher, Tim Kehoe long relied on a string of his former players to be part-time assistants because they understood his passion, frustrations and idiosyncrasies. Almost all, however, either had job or family conflicts. Now, he has an assistant who doesn’t miss a minute of practice, can make every road trip and who peels off from team drills to work on skills or comprehension with individual players.
“I’m the guy who runs everything in practice and dominates and dictates things,” Tim Kehoe said. “But Emily’s taken the reins more than most. She’s a great communicator and I think she’d be a good (head) coach if she ever decided she wanted to do it.”
That won’t be in the near future, said his daughter, who expressed a desire to improve her classroom skills and building personal and professional relationships. No one knows the demands on a coach better than his or her family, and Emily Kehoe has watched her father obsess over basketball for decades.
“It’s a lot of work,” she said. “I don’t know that I could match the amount of dedication he puts into it, the amount that’s needed to win a championship.
“This isn’t just a team. It’s a family and a community and we hold everyone in it to higher standards.”
Tris Wykes can be reached at twykes@vnews.com.