After 26 years, Morris’ Todd Kein still enjoys ‘happy marriage’ coaching baseball and teaching literature

When Todd Kein was a junior in high school in 1993, his Ottawa High School baseball team visited Morris. It was an eye-opening experience for him.

“At the time we played them, I think they were something like 31-0 and ranked nationally,” Kein said about the visit. “That gave me my first glimpse into how their program operated.

“I had good coaches growing up in Ottawa, but I watched [Morris head coach] Denny Steele and [assistant coach] Todd Crose and how they went about things and I thought, ‘Those are the types of coaches I want to play for and a program I would love to be a part of.’”

Kein graduated from Ottawa in 1994 and went on to the University of Illinois-Chicago, where he played baseball and earned his bachelor’s degree in education and English in 1999. He spent the spring semester of 1999 student teaching at Seneca, where he heard there would be an opening at Morris the next year.

“I had two interviews set up,” Kein said. “I had one in Morris and one in Geneva the next day. I had the interview in Morris in the morning, and around 3 that afternoon, I got a call offering me the job. I immediately accepted, then called Geneva and canceled that interview.”

And he’s been at Morris ever since.

Kein began teaching sophomore English, which he still does, and later received his master’s in education from Graceland University. He became the chair of the English Department in 2007 and has coached both baseball and basketball throughout his career.

He began as an assistant sophomore baseball coach in 2000 before becoming a varsity assistant under Crose in 2001. He was John Darlington’s assistant varsity coach from 2002-2005 before taking over as the head coach in 2006.

 “I became a teacher because I felt I could make a difference. If you don’t believe that, then this job can be tough.”

—  Todd Kein, Morris High School teacher and coach

He is currently the winningest baseball coach in school history, surpassing Steele last season, and directed Morris to a third-place state finish in Class 3A last season.

But as much as Kein’s love of baseball and coaching are prominent in his life, he has another passion that is just as important to him.

“I developed a passion for literature,” he said. “I love to read and analyze classic literature. The beauty and power of literature are that it never changes. Those words that someone wrote years and years ago never change, but the way you look at them does. Teaching sophomore English, I have read ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ every year for 26 years, and it never gets old.

“As an athlete growing up, I always saw myself coaching someday. Then I pursued the literary field and saw that going into education would be a great way to do both. It has been a very happy marriage.”

Even after 26 years of teaching, Kein still enjoys it.

“The students and my interactions with them are my favorite thing,” he said. “I became a teacher because I felt I could make a difference. If you don’t believe that, then this job can be tough. I still believe that in year 26 the same as I did in year one.

“Sometimes these kids, as teenagers, feel they have no power. They always have to listen to their parents or their teachers, but they have a lot of power. They are the ones who make everything at school work every day.”

Kein believes that communicating with students on a personal level is key.

“In a small town like this, the kids get a chance to see that their teachers and coaches are regular people. They go to the grocery store, they take their kids to the park. We as teachers sometimes forget that they are people, too,” he said.

“As a high school teacher, I like to try to talk to the kids as human beings. Not as a teacher or a coach, but just ask them how they are doing and how things are going. The impact I can have by doing that is way more important than teaching them parts of speech.”

Even though he hails from a town that has long been a rival of Morris in the athletic arena, Kein wouldn’t change anything about his career path.

“I have no regrets at all,” he said. “That speaks to how people are treated here at Morris. There is a welcoming quality from everyone here. I have absolutely no doubt that I made the right choice.”