Most 73-year old people are enjoying retirement and have scaled back on their work life. That is not Jimmie Keeling, the 19th-year head coach of the Hardin-Simmons football team. If anything, he is working harder to get the Cowboys’ back among the nation’s elite.

Keeling was hired as the head coach to revive Hardin-Simmons’ football program after a 37-year absence in 1990. He has put together one of the top Division III programs in the country and HSU is the winningest collegiate team in Texas since 1990. His teams have posted a record of 149-45.

The eighth game of the 2008 season, against Sul Ross State, will be the 500th game as a head coach combining the high school and collegiate level.

His collegiate resume also includes 10 conference titles, 19 NAIA or NCAA Division III playoff games, six conference coach of the year awards and he ranks sixth among active Division III coaches with a .768 winning percentage. He also ranks 10th in the nation in active wins by a Division III coaches.

Last year's 6-4 record marked the program's 16th-straight winning season, which ranks 12th in all divisions of NCAA football. It is the fourth-longest streak in Division III. The four losses were remarkably the most by HSU since the 1991 season.

In 1997, he became HSU's all-time wins leader, surpassing the late Warren Woodson. When Keeling's team took the field against Chapman on Sept. 19, 1998, it was his 89th game, passing Woodson for the most games ever as an HSU coach.

Keeling graduated from Evant High School in 1953. He started his collegiate career at Tarleton State University, then a junior college, and finished his undergraduate work at Howard Payne in 1958. His first coaching job came soon after, taking the reins as head coach and athletic director at Dublin in 1959.

Later came stops in Tulia and Elgin. In 1968, Keeling enjoyed perhaps his finest hour as a high school coach when his Lubbock Estacado squad went 14-0 and claimed the Class 4A state championship. Two years later, he helped Andrews to the Class 4A quarterfinals. Later, in 1978, he led Lamar Consolidated to a regional championship.

That success continued when Keeling became head coach at San Angelo Central in 1979, and remained there for 10 seasons. His Bobcats advanced all the way to the Class 5A regional championships in 1982 and in 1988, reached the state quarterfinals. Keeling's last high school stop was at John Tyler High School in Tyler for one year.

In 1990, Keeling was chosen to revive the Cowboy program, which hadn't played a football game since 1963. The Cowboys went 3-6 with a team comprised of almost all freshmen the first season. The next year, the Cowboys challenged for the TIAA title in 1991, going 5-5. Keeling guided the next five Cowboys squads to the playoffs, including a NAIA Division II semifinal game against Westminster (Pa.) in 1993.

Keeling succeeded Dr. Merlin Morrow as director of athletics in 1995, a position he held two years. On May 7, 1997, Keeling officially relinquished his post as athletic director so he could focus solely on coaching.

In 1995, Keeling was rewarded for his 30 years of excellence in high-school coaching when he was inducted into the Texas High School Coaches Association Hall of Honor. Keeling posted a career high school record of 196-91-11.

In July of 2003, he received the Head Football Coaching Award by the All-American Football Foundation. In 2004, he was given the Grant Teaff Lifetime Achievement Award by the Fellowship of Christian Athletes.

Keeling, born in San Angelo on Aug. 10, 1935, is a member of the American Football Coaches Association Nominating Committee. He is married to the former Susan Zesch, and the couple has five grown children. Dale, who is the head football coach and athletic director at Everman High School; Judy, who lives in Tyler; Lisa, who lives in Las Vegas; Lana, who lives in Austin and Kelly, who now resides in Graham. He has 11 grandchildren.

Susan, a native of Mason and a graduate of Texas Tech, is a former business teacher and past president of the American Football Coaches Association Wives Association, she was also honored as the Woman of the Year by the Texas High School Coaches Wives Association

The Keelings are active members of the First Baptist Church in Abilene.

Steve Barrows is in the first year as the co-defensive coordinator for the Cowboys. He will coach the linebackers for the Cowboys.

He joined the program in January after spending last season as the defensive coordinator and linebacker coach at Indiana State University. Prior to that, he spent four years as the assistant head coach and defensive coordinator at Charleston Southern University.

In his time at CSU, the team went from 1-11 to 9-2 and at one point had a 14-game winning streak over two years. His 2006 team was 13th in the nation in rushing defense and that team was 22nd in the nation in scoring defense allowing only 18 points per game.

Barrows has experience as a Division III head coach at Anderson University in Indiana from 1999 to 2002. The team was 2-18 the two years prior to him coming in and he was 6-14 the first two years and improved it to 15-5 over his final two seasons.

His other coaching stops include Bethany College in Kansas, where he was the associate head coach and offensive coordinator from 1996 to 1998. His offense was No. 1 in the nation in passing, scoring and total offense. He coached with Hall of Fame Coach Ted Kessinger. Prior to that, he coached for two seasons as the defensive coordinator at the University of Minnesota - Morris.

He also was an assistant coach at Jacksonville High School in North Carolina, was an offensive coordinator at William Penn College in Iowa and spent time as a graduate assistant at the University of Washington and Ohio University.

He and his wife Jennifer have been married 18 years and have an 11-year old daughter, Emma. He is a native of Lithopolis, Ohio. He has a bachelor of science degree in physical education from Ohio University and a master's in Athletic Administration also from Ohio University.

Jesse Burleson enters his third season as the Cowboys' offensive line coach. He is also the assistant head coach for the program. He has had one of the top offensive lines in the conference each of his first two years and the 2008 version will likely feature four senior starters.

He guided center Josh Knox to All-American honors and also the Rimington Trophy as the nation's top center in 2006. James Arnold was an honorable mention All-American in 2007, continuing the Cowboys streak of having an All-American offensive lineman every year since 1999.

Both Knox and Arnold have been selected to compete in the Aztec Bowl, which is a Division III all-star game.
Burleson was an all-ASC selection as a player at Hardin-Simmons and was also an academic standout where he was academic all-ASC, academic All-American and graduated Magna Cum Laude from HSU.

He spent time as a student assistant coach at Hardin-Simmons after his playing career.

He has had high school coaching stops at Clyde (his hometown), South Grand Prairie, Temple and most recently the offensive coordinator at Odessa Permian High School.

He and his wife, Lois, have two daughters - Marisa and Lainey.

Jay Niemann is in his first season as the co-defensive coordinator and secondary coach for the Cowboys.

Niemann served as the head football coach at Simpson from 2002-2007. Niemann was named Iowa Conference Coach of the Year in 2003 after leading the Storm to a 9-2 record and the NCAA playoffs.

Niemann compiled a 32-29 record (a .526 winning percentage). Niemann ended his career third in school history in victories and he is only the eighth Simpson coach (of 30 all-time) to win at least 20 games as the Storm mentor. Niemann also served as the Storm defensive coordinator and defensive backs coach.

Niemann came to Simpson from the University of Northern Iowa where he served as the secondary coach (1997, 2001), linebacker coach (1998-1999), and defensive coordinator (1999-2000) for the Panthers. Northern Iowa made it to the semifinals of the NCAA Division I-AA playoffs in 2001 before losing to No. 1 Montana.

Niemann moved to Cedar Falls after a seven-year stint (1989-1996) at Drake University. During Niemann's tenure at Drake, he served as the assistant head coach, defensive coordinator and secondary coach. In his final three seasons, the Bulldogs' defense was ranked in the top 10 nationally in NCAA Division I-AA scoring defense, pass efficiency defense and total defense.

Niemann joined the Drake staff after serving as a graduate assistant at the University of Washington. Niemann worked with the Huskies' inside linebackers and defensive backs. While at Washington, the Huskies played in two bowl games, the 1986 Sun Bowl against Alabama and the 1987 Independence Bowl against Tulane.

Niemann was an assistant football coach at Western Washington University (1985) and received his master's in educational administration from Western Washington in 1987.
Niemann began his coaching career in 1983 as a student assistant at Iowa State University after playing for the Cyclones from 1979-82. He was recruited to Iowa State by former Simpson Head Coach Jim Williams.

Niemann earned a B.S. from Iowa State University in physical education. Niemann was an All-State football selection for Avo-Ha High School on two occasions and was a captain in the 1979 Shrine Bowl. He lettered for Avo-Ha in baseball, basketball, football, and track.

Jay and his wife Lou Ann have two sons, Benjamin and Nicholas.

Veteran defensive line and junior varsity coach Sam Shields returns to Hardin-Simmons after a six-year absence.

He had been coaching in the Plano School District. Shields had spent seven seasons as the junior varsity and defensive line coach at Hardin-Simmons prior to that.

He originally came to HSU in 1995 from Plano East Senior High School. This season will mark his 49th at coach either on the high school, collegiate or professional level.

He was a high school head coach in Jacksonville, Nacogdoches and San Antonio. He also spent a season as the offensive line coach for the Dallas Texans of the Arena Football League and his line allowed the fewest sacks in the league.

Shields is a 1990 graduate of Austin College, where he earned 14 letters in football, baseball, track and basketball. He was inducted into the Austin College Hall of Honor in 1983.

Shields and his wife, Peggy, are the parents of three children, Liz, Sammy and Jennifer.

Alan Wartes is back for his 19th season as the offensive coordinator for the Cowboys and his offense have established themselves as one of the most consistently elite in the nation.

The Cowboys have been in the top 20 in the nation in offense in 10 of the last 12 years and ranked 10thnationally a year ago. Quarterback Justin Feaster ranked fourth nationally in passing efficiency and ninth in total offense.

Coaches from all levels of play take pages out of the HSU playbook and his Big Country Passing Camp is a big hit among quarterbacks and receivers all over the Southwest.
Since 1990, HSU quarterbacks have thrown 387 touchdown passes and more than 46,000 yards. Wartes has coached four All-American quarterbacks, Tom Enloe, Kevin Beam, Todd Baumann and Dustin Proctor, as well as eight All-American receivers.

He has coached 123 offensive players to all-conference honors at HSU, including seven ASC or TIAA players of the year.

The native of the Panhandle town of Hereford, served as quarterback coach at John Tyler High School in Tyler under then-head coach Jimmie Keeling. Prior to that, he was a graduate assistant at Texas Tech, where he earned a master's degree.

The 1986 Howard Payne University graduate, is married to the former Sharon Harmon of Dallas. They are the parents of daughters Abbey, 20, and Erin, 18.