Rochester Quarterbacks Club adds four members to its Hall of Fame
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ROCHESTER The Rochester Quarterbacks Club Hall of Fame grew by four members on Monday as Tom Kane, Alia (Fischer) Keys, Ruth Brennan Morrey and Jeff Teal were all inducted.
There are now 126 members in the Hall of Fame, which had its first class inducted in 1991.
Pat Lund was given the Ben Sternberg Award posthumously. That award is for outstanding contributions to sports within the Rochester community and southeastern Minnesota. Lund was a sportscaster for KTTC television for 30 years.
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We all have a story, Keys said.
Her background included having athletic parents a father who played Division I football at Wake Forest and a mother who was an elite water skier as well as athletic siblings.
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We had a lot of athletes in the family, Keys admitted.
After excelling at John Marshall, Keys played womens basketball at Washington University in St. Louis. Keys was part of three Division III womens basketball national championship teams. She was the D-III National Player of the Year three straight years from 1998-2000. And as the teams starting center, she finished with 1,974 points, 969 rebounds and 219 blocked shots, all school records.
Shortly after her playing career in her final semester as a senior, she met her future husband, Tim. The couple has been married for 20 years and they have six children and have resided in St. Louis since 2007.
Back in Rochester for the induction ceremony, Keys wanted to share some of her childhood memories so her family spent a few extra days here.
There were a few things that I felt kind of defined me as a child and so Ive been wanting to share those with the kids, she said.
So Keys spent a day going around Rochester with her family to relive some of those experiences with her family.
It was really fun to just share some of those memories, she said. It was just a great chance to think of the stories that make us who we are.
Kane was the first boys soccer coach for Lourdes in 1997 and he guided the team until 2020. In that span he posted a 387-89-35 record, won 19 Hiawatha Valley League titles, 14 Section 1A titles and three Class A state championships.
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You can never stop learning or improving your skills as a coach, Kane said.
Kane first started the Eagles program in 1994 and Lourdes had club teams in 1995 and 96. The Eagles quickly hit the ground running when they joined the Minnesota State High School League as the boys won state titles in 1998 and 99.
The players helped me establish the foundation of the program, Kane said.
Kane also said he tried to surround his program with the best assistant coaches he could find. He said a consistency to coaching throughout all levels of the program was important.
We all trained them the same way, Kane said. They knew what was expected of them and they came ready to play.
Kanes family also played a big role. His wife was very active helping out when he coached and his son, Sean, took over as the head coach after he retired.
Teal is probably better known as a hockey player, but he was also an excellent golfer. He was the 1977 Golf Association Junior Player of the Year in Minnesota and in 1978 he was the State Junior Champion. Then in 1987 he captured the State Amateur title in match-play competition.
But in hockey, Teal was a member of the fabled 1977 John Marshall Minnesota state champion team when he was a junior. He also helped the Rockets earn a state berth the following year.
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Winning that tournament has just been a lifelong memory, Teal said.
In college, he won an NCAA national championship at the University of Minnesota in 1979 under Herb Brooks. As a professional, he was part of a team that won the American Hockey League Calder Cup championship.
Teal got to play in six games in the NHL with Montreal in 1985, his first game being against Wayne Gretzky and the Edmonton Oilers.
Now its my turn to give back a little bit and try to pass on some of the knowledge that I learned playing the game, Teal said.
Teal coaches his son and has been active in the Minnetonka hockey community as a coach for nine years and as a hockey development director for 14 years. Minnetonka earned a Class AA state berth during the 2022-23 season.
That was a lot of fun working with kids there, Teal said.
Like Teal, Brennan Morrey excelled in more than one sport, but at different times. She was an elite soccer player growing up, first at Mayo High School and then playing for the University of Wisconsin.
I didnt know this at the time, but my soccer career would only be phase one of my athletic career, Brennan Morrey said.
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After she concluded playing college soccer, Brennan Morrey took up running marathons and she qualified for the U.S. Olympic Trials in both 2000 and 2020, at age 23 and 43.
In between those two marathon stints, while raising her family, she also was training 25 hours a week and was a professional ironman triathlete for eight years.
But there was also a 10-year stint of her life that was absent of competition. While she might not have been an active competitor during that 10-year stretch, Brennan Morrey certainly kept busy. She had three children and earned a PhD.
My kids made me a better athlete, Brennan Morrey said.
I had a sports rebirth, she added. I began competing again and this time for more than myself, for gratitude of my God-given gifts, for my renewed obsession for movement to professional triathlon.
She still runs marathons and hopes to take a shot at earning a qualifying time for the 2024 U.S. Olympic Trials.
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Tuesday, April 11, 2023 at 6:52 pm