Tubby Raymond

On Thursdays, Tubby Raymond paints. He prefers morning light. He paints to relax, to forget about who is going to start at quarterback or tackle, to chase the X's and O's out of his head. As his brush works against the canvas, his mind goes blank except for the colors in front of him, and soon he finds himself worrying about other things - whether the shading on the finely cropped crew cut he's painting is too dark. When Thursday comes and he sits in front of his easel set up in the football office, Tubby Raymond never has a shortage of models.

The old man searched for something in the young man's face. Tubby Raymond's nose moved to within a few inches of the makeshift easel. His blue eyes narrowed as they scanned his acrylic portrait of Delaware defensive back Bashawn Dixon. "Not quite right," mumbled Raymond, lifting the thin brush to the poster board again. Delaware's 73-year-old football coach dabbed and swept until, finally, a dreamy, far-off gaze inhabited Dixon's dark eyes. "That's better," Raymond said.

Delaware, the Yankee Conference champion, was one of two schools selected yesterday as a first-round host for the NCAA Division I-AA playoffs, which begin on Nov. 28. Delaware's opponent will be determined on Sunday when the NCAA Football Committee announces the complete 16-team playoff pairings. The Blue Hens (8-2 overall, 7-1 in the conference) are ranked 10th in the latest poll. Villanova (8-2, 6-2), ranked seventh this week, is assured of a berth if it defeats Maine on Saturday.

Perhaps Delaware coach Tubby Raymond will win his 200th game. And most likely the loser will be out of the running for the Yankee Conference title. But when Villanova (2-3 overall, 1-1 league) hosts Delaware (3-2, 2-1) tomorrow at 1:30 p.m. at Villanova Stadium, a few of the players will have a narrower focus. "I know that there's a lot more at stake than just beating Delaware," Villanova linebacker Rich Sernyak said. "We'll have a lot of games after Saturday. But this one is real special.

Five Philadelphia-area football players headed a list of 16 recruits signed yesterday by Delaware. Central Bucks West's Dave Camburn, Pennridge's Jason Rhoades, Strath Haven's Mike Connor and John Mulhern, and Norristown's Lou Samba were among the 14 high school players and two transfers joining the Blue Hens. Camburn (5-foot-11, 190 pounds) played running back, wide receiver, defensive back and kick returner during a standout career at Central Bucks West. Rhoades (5-10, 180)

Rowan University football coach K. C. Keeler, a former Delaware linebacker, will be introduced this afternoon as the Blue Hens' football coach, according to sources familiar with the school's search. A University of Delaware spokesman confirmed only that a news conference had been scheduled for 2 p.m. today to announce the replacement for Tubby Raymond, who retired last month after 36 years and 300 victories. Keeler, a 1981 Delaware graduate and three-year starter, had an 88-21-1 record in nine seasons as Rowan's coach.

Former Rowan football coach K.C. Keeler, who replaced Tubby Raymond at Delaware on March 5, applauds his old school's decision to conduct a national search for his replacement. But he said the answer lies close to home. Keeler is endorsing Jay Accorsi, his longtime assistant, to take over one of the top Division III programs in the nation. "It's a good idea to do a national search," Keeler said. "They're just taking a step back and seeing what's out there. This way, if they do hire Jay, it just reaffirms to them that they got the right guy. " Keeler filled out his staff at Delaware earlier this week and considered bringing Accorsi with him. "We had a talk about him coming with me over to Delaware, but he wants to be a head coach," Keeler said.

As expected, senior Darrell Booker, Delaware's two-time All-America linebacker, has been suspended from the university. Booker, Delaware's career leader in tackles and a certain NFL prospect, was officially suspended yesterday for repeated violations of the university's judicial code of conduct. In announcing the suspension, Dr. Timothy Brooks, the university's dean of students, said the violations did not involve alcohol, drugs or criminal infractions. After an appeal hearing yesterday, Booker's suspension was reduced from two years to the rest of the fall semester and the winter session.

Kerry Joseph threw a school-record five touchdown passes as McNeese State, returning two kickoffs for touchdowns, walloped Delaware, 52-18, in an NCAA Division I-AA quarterfinal. McNeese raised its record to 13-0 and will advance to play Marshall, a winner over Northern Iowa yesterday. Delaware finished 11-2. It was only the fourth time in the 30-year career of coach Tubby Raymond at Delaware that a team had scored 50 or more points against the Blue Hens. McNeese, ranked No. 1 in I-AA, took control early, with Joseph connecting for TDs twice each with Marrico Wilson and Terence Davis.

Matt DeGennaro passed for two touchdowns, and Kevin Wesley ran for a third as Connecticut defeated Delaware, 21-17, in a Yankee Conference game yesterday. The loss effectively ended any postseason hopes of Delaware and eliminated the Blue Hens from the Yankee Conference title race. "This was the story of our season," said Delaware's head coach, Tubby Raymond. "We played well enough to be close, but not well enough to put it away. "We didn't make the big plays needed to win. We dropped passes that could have been made.

After a whirlwind weekend, Chip Kelly and the Oregon Ducks are right back where they started. Oregon's enigmatic head coach flirted with a trio of NFL teams including the Eagles before deciding late Sunday night to stay with the No. 5 Ducks. On Monday, it was back to business. Kelly was at a coaches' convention in Tennessee. Oregon did not formally announce Kelly's decision - his status hadn't changed, he's still the head coach - but athletic director Rob Mullens said he was "ecstatic" about it. It was an anticlimactic end to the three-day whirl that started soon after Oregon's 35-17 Fiesta Bowl win over Kansas State Thursday night.

In a college football culture in which most coaches go through contortions to keep expectations from getting too high, the words national championship roll easily off K.C. Keeler's tongue. He said them when he succeeded the legendary Tubby Raymond as Delaware's head coach before the 2002 season, and he said them when he hoisted an impressive trophy in front of a roaring Blue Hens basketball crowd at the Bob Carpenter Center in December. By the way, the trophy was for winning the national championship.

K.C. Keeler always had that sunglasses-on-a-cloudy-day sort of swagger. Delaware's second-year head football coach may have grown up in Emmaus, just south of Allentown, but when he played linebacker for the Blue Hens, he nicknamed himself Hollywood. "He always had a very confident way about him," said Bo Dennis, an old Delaware teammate. "He still does. He believes in himself. " Keeler didn't just back it up. He figured out in advance how it needed to be done. Right after Keeler's senior season, Dennis remembers watching the 215-pound linebacker methodically turn himself into something else - a faster, leaner defensive back.

Delaware's football recruiting class, the first for coach K.C. Keeler, put the emphasis on two areas, speed and strength. The Blue Hens, 6-6 last season under the first-year coach, found that their personnel didn't always match up with Keeler's wide-open, three- and four-receiver offense with one "super" back. The Blue Hens had been a wing-T team with three running backs under former coach Tubby Raymond. Yesterday, the Blue Hens announced the signing of 12 players on the first day recruits could sign binding letters of intent.

The University of Delaware is not asking too much of K.C. Keeler. All Keeler has to do in his first game as head football coach of the Blue Hens is walk on the field before the contest alongside his predecessor, Tubby Raymond, who won three national championships and 300 games in his 36 years at Delaware; accept a symbolic "changing-of-the-guard" football from his former coach; applaud the ceremony dedicating Tubby Raymond Field at Delaware Stadium;...

Former Rowan football coach K.C. Keeler, who replaced Tubby Raymond at Delaware on March 5, applauds his old school's decision to conduct a national search for his replacement. But he said the answer lies close to home. Keeler is endorsing Jay Accorsi, his longtime assistant, to take over one of the top Division III programs in the nation. "It's a good idea to do a national search," Keeler said. "They're just taking a step back and seeing what's out there. This way, if they do hire Jay, it just reaffirms to them that they got the right guy. " Keeler filled out his staff at Delaware earlier this week and considered bringing Accorsi with him. "We had a talk about him coming with me over to Delaware, but he wants to be a head coach," Keeler said.

K. C. Keeler called it his "dream job. " Delaware hired the former Blue Hens player and Rowan University head coach yesterday to succeed Tubby Raymond, who retired Feb. 18 after 36 seasons. "I've pinched myself so many times that my body is turning black and blue," Keeler said. Keeler, 42, whose given name is Kurt, served as head coach at Division III Rowan University in Glassboro for the last nine seasons. He joined the Profs' staff in 1985 and became head coach in 1993.

Rowan University football coach K. C. Keeler, a former Delaware linebacker, will be introduced this afternoon as the Blue Hens' football coach, according to sources familiar with the school's search. A University of Delaware spokesman confirmed only that a news conference had been scheduled for 2 p.m. today to announce the replacement for Tubby Raymond, who retired last month after 36 years and 300 victories. Keeler, a 1981 Delaware graduate and three-year starter, had an 88-21-1 record in nine seasons as Rowan's coach.

Delaware football coach Harold "Tubby" Raymond, one of nine coaches in the history of college football to win 300 games, yesterday announced his retirement after 36 seasons of leading the Blue Hens. One of only four coaches in his profession to attain 300 victories at one school, Raymond, famous for his Delaware Wing-T offense, retires with exactly 300 wins. His final coaching record is 300-119-3. "I think you recognize that nothing lasts forever," Raymond said at a news conference yesterday.

Four area football players were among 19 signing national letters of intent yesterday with Delaware. Defensive end Brian Heavens (6-foot-3, 250 pounds) of Valley Forge Military Junior College; defensive end Mike Mailey (6-4, 245) of St. Joseph's Prep; running back Brent Steinmetz (5-9, 184) of Pottsgrove; and running back Zach Thomas (6-0, 178) of North Penn headline a class that features players from 10 states. "We have expanded our recruiting base in the South, which has paid off with some outstanding prospects," Blue Hens coach Tubby Raymond said.