Following a record-breaking 2024 season, the 7-time professional football champion Rob Keefe is back in 2025 as Head Coach and President of Football Operations for the Bay Area Panthers.
Last year, Bay Area earned the Western Conference’s No. 1 playoff seed with a 13-3 record, simultaneously establishing a franchise record for wins. This also signified the second consecutive campaign wherein the Panthers reached the Indoor Football League playoffs while sharing the IFL lead for most regular-season wins.
A lifelong steward of defense, Keefe is also the team’s defensive coordinator. In 2024, Bay Area ranked second in the IFL in points allowed (37.1), tops against the run (59.7 yards per game), tied for second in sacks (24) and paced the league in third-down conversion defense.
In 2023 under Keefe, the Panthers won their first title in team history with a 51-41 win over the Sioux Falls Storm in the IFL National Championship Game. That season, Bay Area finished fourth in scoring defense and fourth in sacks.
Additionally, the Panthers did not surrender 50 points in any of the final seven contests of 2023, closing the year with five-straight wins to finish 13-5 (after the franchise went 1-15 in 2022).
Keefe was a key figure in the Northern Arizona Wranglers' turnaround in 2022. The Wranglers went 12-4 over the regular season en route to hoisting the IFL Championship versus the Quad City Steamwheelers in Henderson, NV. Under his tutelage, NAZ had the top-rated defense during the regular season, allowed the fewest yards to opponents, finished second in scoring defense and first in quarterback sacks.
Keefe also won a ring in New York’s capital city, coaching the Albany Empire for two seasons throughout 2018-2019, highlighted by triumph in ArenaBowl XXXII. Prior to his time in Albany, Keefe was head coach of the Orlando Predators for three seasons from 2014 to 2016.
In 2009, he started his coaching career by working with Spokane Shock’s secondary group. From there, Keefe became the youngest head coach in AFL history (29) to win an Arena Football League Championship by guiding the Shock to an ArenaBowl victory in their first year in the AFL. Following his first head coaching job, Keefe became the defensive coordinator of the Utah Blaze from 2012 to 2013.
Keefe posted a career 83-40 record as a head coach in the AFL. He boasts a top-six win percentage all-time as an AFL head coach (.674) and is tied for fourth when it comes to ArenaBowl Championships as a head coach (2).
As a player, Keefe was a defensive back on the AFL Philadelphia Soul 2008 championship team, which makes him the only person in Arena Football history to win an Arena Cup (AF2) and ArenaBowl (AFL) title as both a player and a coach. He also contributed as a defensive back on the 2006 Spokane team that won the Arena Cup in their AF2 inaugural campaign.
Prior to the pros, Keefe played defensive back and returned kicks at Mercyhurst College in Erie, PA between 1999 and 2003. He was twice named a captain and earned team MVP for the Lakers his final season.
Throughout his college career, Keefe compiled 10 interceptions, 166 tackles, 41 pass breakups, 643 punt return yards, 383 kick return yards and five touchdowns in 40 games before graduating from Mercyhurst with a degree in Criminal Justice. He earned 2003 all-GLIAC second-team Defense and 2003 DAKTRONICS All-American Honorable Mention accolades, among others.
Keefe—originally a native of Springfield, VA—also spent a prep year at Maine’s Bridgton Academy, competing in both football and baseball for the Wolverines during the 1998-99 campaign. Prior, Keefe starred at Gonzaga College High School in Washington, D.C. As a member of the football team, he helped the Purple Eagles win back-to-back Washington Catholic Athletic Conference titles in 1996 & 1997.
Rob Keefe’s Coaching Background:
- 2024: Bay Area Panthers HC
- 2023: Bay Area Panthers AHC/DC/ST
- 2022: Northern Arizona Wranglers AHC/DC/ST
- 2021: Iowa Barnstormers AHC/DC/ST
- 2019: Albany Empire HC
- 2018: Albany Empire HC
- 2016: Orlando Predators HC
- 2015: Orlando Predators HC
- 2014: Orlando Predators HC
- 2013: Utah Blaze DC
- 2012: Utah Blaze DC
- 2011: Spokane Shock HC
- 2010: Spokane Shock HC
- 2009: Spokane Shock DC
