Rudy Keeling Position: Commissioner Institution: Eastern College Athletic Conference

Rudy Keeling was named the Commissioner of the Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC) on May 1, 2007 after most recently serving as the Director of Athletics at Emerson College in Boston, Massachusetts. He is the seventh commissioner of the ECAC and the first African-American to assume this prestigious position.

Named to the position at Emerson in October of 2002, Keeling, through cooperative work with the City of Boston, has overseen the development of multi-million dollar state-of-the-art athletic facilities. The creation of these structures has enabled the College to make significant enhancements to its Athletics Department and increase the number of varsity athletic teams.

In addition to his responsibilities at Emerson, Keeling served on the NCAA Division III Management Council as the Great Northeastern Athletic Conference (GNAC) representative. He was also a member of the ECAC Board of Directors where he served as Chair of the Marketing Committee.

A graduate of Quincy College, where he majored in history, Keeling began his professional career in 1980 as an assistant men's basketball coach at Bradley University in Peoria, Ill. In addition to his assistant coaching responsibilities, he planned and created the Academic Assistance Program for Student/Athletes. In 1986, he was named the assistant men's basketball coach at Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

In 1988, Keeling began his head coaching career at the University of Maine, Orono. He guided the Black Bears until 1996, when he was named the head men's basketball coach at Northeastern University in Boston, a position he held until April of 2002. Throughout his tenure as a head coach, Keeling has demonstrated his high level of commitment to the academic and athletic success of student-athletes, graduating almost every student-athlete he ever coached.