In the fall of 1999, the top men’s swimming coaches in college rolled through the Phoenix home of Kelly and Karen Keller. They were making their final recruiting pitches to the Kellers’ son, Klete, a strapping, 6' 6" freestyle phenom.
But the visits were notably awkward. Jon Urbanchek, Michigan’s coach at the time, was in the Kellers’ home the night before national letter-of-intent signing day, and he’s never forgotten what Karen murmured to him. “Jon, you’re wasting your time,” he says she told him. “He’s never going to make it through college.” Urbanchek was taken aback.
“This was stunning, coming from his mom,” Urbanchek says.