He started his coaching career in football. Cliff Keen's 1925 high school team at Frederick, Oklahoma, scored 355 points and yielded but three. Then he decided to see what he could do with wrestlers.

After 45 years at the University of Michigan, the longest coaching career in wrestling history, the answer was clear. He could develop champions.

Cliff Keen was an undefeated wrestler under Edward C. Gallagher at Oklahoma State University and won the Missouri Valley national invitational championship. In 1924, he won the Olympic trials but was sidelined by a broken rib. His substitute ultimately lost in the Olympic finals at Paris. He also was a football and track star.

His Michigan teams twice were NCAA runners-up and they won 13 Big Ten Conference championships, placing in the top three in the conference 40 times. They won 276 dual meets against 88 losses and 11 ties. His wrestlers captured 11 National Collegiate titles and 81 conference crowns.

But Cliff Keen's impact on the world of wrestling had no state or national boundaries. He served on the U.S. Olympic Committee from 1928 to 1952 and was manager of the 1948 Olympic team in London.

He was an original member and later president of the National Wrestling Coaches Association and also presided over the national rules committee. For many years he pioneered the development of safe, effective, wrestling equipment such as the headgear which bears his name. There is no role of service to wrestling which has not borne the stamp of Cliff Keen.

He obtained a law degree from Michigan in 1933 and served three years as a Navy commander during World War II.

In recognition of his great coaching career and contributions to wrestling spanning more than 60 years, Clifford Patrick Keen is honored as a Distinguished Member of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame.