So far playing three years on the varsity football team, junior Keith Maguire has impacted games both offensively and defensively.
He has caught the eyes of college coaches throughout the country. He is focused on helping the team win the Inter-Ac this year for the 33rd time in school history. And to top it off, he was on SportsCenter’s Top 10 plays after making an unbelievable catch against The Haverford School.
Junior Keith Maguire is currently a starting linebacker and wide receiver on Malvern’s varsity football team. While playing for Malvern, he wears number four, and it has been his number since he first started playing.
“That was the first number I had, and I kept getting, so I stuck with it,” Maguire said.
On October 28, the football team played The Haverford School at Malvern Prep. In this game, Maguire made the play of his life.
With a little under a minute left in the first half of the game, junior quarterback Drew Gunther lobbed a fade pass towards the right corner of the end zone. In a manner that could be described as “Odell Beckham like”, Keith Maguire jumped up, glided back, and caught the catch with one hand, while the other hand was secured on his defender.
The next day, this catch was rated on SportsCenter Top 10 as the second best play of the day.
“It was pretty crazy,” Maguire said. “I was in shock when I heard it was on there. It’s just something you would never think would happen. Everyone was really proud of me. They were in shock too. It was just a weird crazy moment.”
— SFBN (@The_SFBN) October 28, 2017
Although Maguire’s best play of his career so far was on offense, he prefers playing defense more.
“I like defense better, but offense is right there. Offense is more exciting, getting the ball and scoring, but making big plays on defense is more fun,” he said.
Maguire described his history with the sport.
“When I was about six, I started playing flag football, and when I was seven I started playing tackle football,” Maguire said. “I just liked it. I enjoyed playing it as a kid and was pretty good at it, so it was fun to play.”
His passion for football was influenced by many people, but one of the main people behind this was his father.
“My dad coached me up until high school, and he helped me a lot. He made me tougher and helped me learn some things about football to get better,” Maguire said.
Over the course of his time playing for the varsity football team, Maguire has had a few mentors on the field as well. Some have been seniors who have left that have imparted wisdom of the game during Maguire’s freshman year.
“When you’re younger, the guys above you try to ease you in, so a lot of the seniors mentored me, but there wasn’t one individual person who did it,” Maguire said.
One player in the program who Maguire considers a friend and mentor is senior linebacker Cole McCabe. They both have played together for the past three years and learned a lot from each other.
“I know during freshman year, Keith used to look up to me because we were both the younger guys on the team,” McCabe said. “I just tried to teach him how to be a leader and lead the defense, and just be him. He’s a talented kid, I mean all he has to do is go out there and just do him.”
According to McCabe, Maguire is the same guy on and off the field.
“Keith is just a great guy in general. He is a great teammate, he leads by example, and all the younger guys look up to him,” McCabe said.
One player on the team who looks up to Maguire is his little brother, sophomore Ryan Maguire, who has learned a lot from him on and off the field.
“He is a great brother, very positive and humble,” Ryan said. “We work out together and just do almost everything together. He is always keeping my confidence up.”
“His biggest strengths are being a leader and not focusing on the outside noise and just playing his game, doing his job,” Ryan added.
So far, Keith has seven offers from various universities, including UNC, WVU, Vanderbilt, Duke, UVA, Temple, and Army.
“I’m trying to go with a scholarship, so whatever schools look at me is what I will be choosing from,” he said.
