Andrew Keffaber
Andrew Keffaber has spent the past five years as an assistant coach for one of the state’s top boys cross-country programs.
Now, Keffaber will get a chance to lead the Columbus North team. He was selected last week to succeed Danny Fisher, who led the Bull Dogs to the state title in 2020 and a third-place finish last fall.
A Wabash native, Keffaber ran for Northfield High School, then at Anderson University and Purdue. He coached at Westfield Middle School for 14 years before coming to North seven years ago.
Keffaber and he has taught biology and zoology at North the past seven years. His wife is a Columbus native, and they have three boys.
“Part of what drew us down here was the community and place to raise our family,” Keffaber said.
This week, Keffaber is wrapping up his first season as an assistant track coach for the Bull Dogs. He has been working with the distance runners, who will have a huge presence in this weekend’s state finals at Indiana University.
While he has mostly worked with the boys distance runners this spring, Keffaber has helped head boys and girls coach Rick Sluder with the girls, and Sluder has helped Keffaber with the boys. They plan to continue that practice into cross-country season.
”We’re going to be working together,” Keffaber said. “This is a program where all of us are supporting each other. Rick is supporting me this track season, and we’ve worked well together. I’ll be working with the girls just as much as I’m working with the boys, and that goes for our assistants, as well. So that will be a continuation of what we try to do this summer as we try to get ready this fall.”
One of those assistants who will be working with Keffaber and Sluder is former longtime North coach Rick Weinheimer. Weinheimer, who led the Bull Dogs to five boys and one girls state cross-country championship, has been helping Keffaber and Sluder this track season.
“He’s been a huge support to me this spring,” Keffaber said. “Coach Weinheimer is huge for the kids, and he’s just a great source of support for us and for the kids.”
North girls won the state title in cross-country last fall and return their top three runners from that team, plus two others who saw significant varsity action. The boys lose four varsity runners to graduation, including individual state champion Reese Kilbarger-Stumpff, but return three other varsity runners.
“All of the boys, and all of the girls have had really good training and have put in the work,” Keffaber said. “We have good juniors and seniors that have had two to three years of good training and have put in the work, and we have a good freshman class coming in. The freshmen that are going to be sophomores have had a good year of training. They’ve had a good winter and a good track season. The foundation is in place that if we have a good summer, we should be able to have a really good fall. I’m not going to put any predictions on what we want to do, but I will say we can be as successful as we’ve been in the past, and it will just come down to what we do this summer.”
