When coach Joe McKeown traveled to Philadelphia in December for the Hawk Classic at Saint Joseph’s University, it wasn’t just another stop on Northwestern’s non-conference schedule. It was a return to his roots.
The longtime women’s basketball coach, whose career has spanned more than four decades, took his staff to Dalessandro’s, a famous cheesesteak spot in northwest Philadelphia. With a smile, McKeown declared it the best sandwich in the city.
He also noticed something new: ATMs outside the cash-only corner hoagie shop, a small but telling sign of change in a city he still calls home, even though he left in 1983 for his first coaching job away from his alma mater.
That year, McKeown’s journey took him far from his roots in Philadelphia, but his career would wind its way back through New Mexico State, George Washington and ultimately, NU, where he’s been head coach since 2008.
McKeown has now won 775 games, but to those who’ve worked with him, his legacy isn’t just about victories — it’s his ability to forge families out of strangers.
“He’s just got that Philly swag about him,” said Tajama Abraham Ngongba, who played for McKeown at GW.
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McKeown grew up in northeast Philadelphia, attending Father Judge High School before enrolling at Mercer County Community College in Trenton, New Jersey. There, he earned Junior College National Small Player of the Year honors before transferring to Kent State.
The former guard played in 53 games for the Golden Flashes, averaging 3.4 points, 1.7 rebounds and 4.2 assists per game in his two-year mid-major career. Nearly 50 years later, McKeown’s 15 assists against Bowling Green still stands as a Kent State single-game record.
Before basketball took him to the national stage, McKeown found other ways of hustling. In the late 70s, he worked as a beer vendor at Veterans Stadium — the former home of the Phillies and Eagles — where rowdy fans often threw drinks back at him.
During college, McKeown would catch the train back from Trenton on Sundays, spending 12-hour shifts alongside childhood friends at local staple Tastykake.
“That was my NIL,” McKeown joked, reflecting on his early grind.
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Soon after, McKeown’s path took him from the City of Brotherly Love to the Sooner State, where a three-year stint as an assistant coach altered both the course of his career and his personal life.
During a “Bedlam” rivalry football game between Oklahoma and Oklahoma State, McKeown met Laura, a student at Oklahoma State who was a friend of one of his Oklahoma players. His thick Philly accent made him nearly incomprehensible to her, and when he asked if she wanted to go out for a cocktail, she had no idea what he meant. Still, the two ended up at Eskimo Joe’s, a popular Stillwater, Oklahoma, bar.
At the end of the night, all McKeown could remember was that her name was Laura, she was from Purcell, Oklahoma, and her sorority had a Delta symbol in it. Determined to track her down, McKeown spent hours calling every fraternity and sorority at Oklahoma State until he found the right one — Delta Delta Delta.
“He’s a good recruiter,” said Meghan McKeown, the couple’s eldest daughter, reflecting on how her parents met.
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Joe and Laura married and moved west in 1986 when McKeown took his first head coaching job at New Mexico State. During his three years in Las Cruces, New Mexico, McKeown transformed the program, leading the team to its first two NCAA Tournament appearances in 1987 and 1988 before moving to GW.
It was there, in the nation’s capital, where McKeown spent the longest portion of his career and raised his family.
In 1991, the McKeowns welcomed their daughter Meghan. Now a commentator for Big Ten Network and a former NU basketball player, Meghan McKeown (Medill ’14) grew up surrounded by the game. As a kid, she’d sit in the corner of her dad’s practices, watching Disney movies on the VCR, before eventually getting the chance to step onto the court herself.
When Joe McKeown arrived at GW, he inherited a program that had never made an NCAA Tournament appearance. He was excited by the challenge, knowing that players who had yet to experience postseason success would be more willing to listen to a coach who had already achieved it at New Mexico State.

As he traveled for recruiting, Joe McKeown always brought Meghan along, involving her in every aspect of the process — from picking out rental cars to handing her a notepad to take notes during his conversations with recruits.
“I grew up with a father who dedicated his whole entire career to uplifting women and uplifting women in women’s sports before that was a cool thing to do,” Meghan McKeown said.
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Under McKeown’s leadership, GW made 15 NCAA Tournament appearances in 19 seasons, including four Sweet Sixteen berths and one Elite Eight run. For the McKeown family, tournament games became a spring break tradition. Laura would pull Meghan, along with younger siblings Joey and Ally, out of school to attend games.
“My mom is the real MVP of this story, by the way,” Meghan McKeown said.
Ngongba, who played for McKeown at GW from 1993-97, said watching how McKeown integrated his family into the fabric of his teams had a profound impact on her as she pursued her own coaching career.
“Joe just did such a great job of showing, especially for women, that you can balance family and work and be really successful at it at the same time,” Ngongba said.

She recalled the coach’s family joining bus trips. She said Meghan was “like her little sister” and Laura was “the queen bee.”
During Ngongba’s time at GW, the team made extended postseason runs each year, including an Elite Eight appearance during her senior season in 1997.
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Myriah Cain, formerly Lonergan, played alongside Ngongba at GW, and credits McKeown with changing her not only as a player but as a person, too.
Cain, who grew up in a small unincorporated town outside Shelbyville, Tennessee, knew that McKeown’s world was different from hers.
Raised by a single mother, she spent her childhood playing basketball with a dirt-top hoop with a horse in the yard. When McKeown visited her during the recruiting process, she could tell his experience had been far removed from the simplicity of her own life.
“He’s definitely a city-fied guy. But then there’s something so simple and genuine about him that he can be comfortable anywhere, and he can be comfortable around anyone,” Cain said.
Despite her uncertainty about leaving home, Cain was drawn to the idea of being part of something bigger in Washington, a city she had visited after winning an essay contest in high school. But her first season at GW was difficult. Feeling overwhelmed and disconnected, Cain packed up her things at the end of the year and planned to return home.
That’s when McKeown stepped in.
One day, she received a call from McKeown on her rotary phone. His message was simple: “Lonergan, I need you to meet me in Chattanooga.”
When they met for a meal, McKeown reassured Cain that she belonged at the school and that if she gave it another chance, she would eventually see it was the right fit for her.
“I feel like he stepped outside of himself as a coach in that moment, and dealt with me as a father figure,” Kane said.
But their relationship wasn’t always smooth sailing. During Cain’s junior year, McKeown suspended her for talking back at practice. In response, Cain threw her jersey in the air and watched as it slowly parachuted down onto McKeown’s head. Her teammates couldn’t help but gasp at the spectacle.
The two joke about the incident today. The following season, McKeown named Cain the team’s sole captain, telling her to “redirect that energy, grow up and use all of that for good.”
“He gave me grace,” Cain said. “Even when I’m not sure I deserved that grace.”
Years later, McKeown showed up once again for Cain when her wedding was scheduled during the chaos of the 9/11 attacks. Many of her invited guests couldn’t attend, but Joe and Laura McKeown made the drive to South Carolina to ensure they could be there for her special day.
In McKeown, Cain not only found a coach who pushed her to be better on the court but also a mentor who cared deeply for her well-being off of it. The veteran coach taught her the value of both tough love and unwavering support.
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McKeown’s success wasn’t confined to the court. While his teams routinely reached new heights in the competitive Atlantic 10 conference, what his players remember most are the moments outside of practice and games — experiences that helped shape them as people, not just athletes.

Sarah-Jo Lawrence, who played for McKeown from 2004 to 2008, recalls one of her favorite team memories: a surprise trip to a Los Angeles Lakers game.
“We just turned the corner and there’s the Staples Center,” Lawrence said. “And it all clicked. I remember we just started jumping around and hugging each other and, like, laughing and crying on the bus.”
McKeown knew that the moment would be unforgettable — especially since Kobe Bryant was a hero to so many of his players.
“(Bryant) dropped like 50 that day, and I dropped a lot of money trying to get them tickets. But that’s okay. It was fun,” McKeown said.
For McKeown, those moments were part of his larger mission to give his players life experiences they’d never forget.
Whether it was taking the team to Broadway shows, dining at the best restaurants or making sure they felt part of something bigger than basketball, McKeown saw these experiences as essential to his responsibility as a coach.
“Part of my job is to prepare you for life after college,” McKeown said.
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After nearly two decades in Washington, McKeown was offered the head coaching job at NU — a program that had been largely dormant, having finished the previous season last in the Big Ten.
Leaving behind a team he worked tirelessly to build into one of the nation’s best squads wasn’t an easy decision. But as a father, he knew it was the right one. His son, Joey, who is autistic, had been struggling with the lack of resources available to him at his school near Washington.
“Schools didn’t want to deal with the special needs world, so we really were fighting hard at that,” McKeown said.

McKeown wrestled with the decision for some time before making the final call. But it was a round of golf with then-Washington Post beat writer and ESPN’s “Pardon the Interruption” commentator Michael Wilbon (Medill ’80) that helped him settle on the move.
During their day at a Maryland golf course, Wilbon encouraged McKeown to take a closer look at his alma mater and consider the goals of NU’s new athletic director, Jim Phillips, and then-president, Henry Bienen.
“He says, ‘Joe, I think these people coming in are going to be different,’” McKeown said. “‘I think you’d like a lot of what they have going on.’”
Another important factor in McKeown’s decision was the school’s successful women’s sports programs. He had mutual friends with NU women’s lacrosse coach Kelly Amonte Hiller, whom he’d followed during her playing days at Maryland. As McKeown pondered a move to the Midwest, Amonte Hiller had already amassed four consecutive national championships in Evanston.
“I remember people telling me, ‘Look, you can win in women’s sports here,’ and that was important to me,” McKeown said.
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Just as he had at GW, McKeown inherited an NU program in dire need of a spark. Before coming to NU, he never had a losing season, and while his first year in Evanston was marked by growing pains — an 8-23 record — the program soon turned in a positive direction.
In 2009-10, McKeown led the ’Cats to the Women’s NIT, the school’s best finish since 1998. That fall, Meghan McKeown joined his team, and for the first time, Joe McKeown was coaching his daughter.
Meghan said she had initial reservations about playing for her father, worrying people might question whether she deserved her spot on the roster.
“For our family and for the situation we were in with my brother (Joey), it just felt like the right decision,” Meghan McKeown said. “And obviously, it was a great opportunity to play at Northwestern and play for him.”

Joe McKeown led NU to its first NCAA Tournament appearance of the 21st century in 2015. He did it again in 2021, but McKeown often says that the team’s best shot at national success would have come in 2020, before the NCAA tournament was canceled due to COVID-19.
“I’ve had five, maybe six, teams over my career that I thought could get to the Final Four,” Joe McKeown said. “But our team here in 2020 was at that level.”
From 2018 to 2022, McKeown had Veronica Burton on his roster — an eventual first-round WNBA pick who was recently selected in the expansion draft to play for the Golden State Valkyries.
Though Burton and McKeown never ascended the postseason heights they had hoped for, McKeown continues to speak of her playing days as one of the pinnacles of his coaching career.
McKeown and Associate Head Coach Tangela Smith attended the WNBA draft when Burton was selected in 2022.
“You’re sitting there like, ‘Wow, it’s just surreal what we’ve been through,’” McKeown said.
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In the aftermath of Burton’s graduation, McKeown’s program has struggled to recuperate in an increasingly competitive, realigned Big Ten landscape. In its last two seasons, NU has collected just six conference wins and 30 losses.
Despite the lack of traction in the win column, McKeown remains optimistic as he looks to rebuild his program around a fresh talent pool.
Ahead of the 2024-25 season, McKeown bolstered his roster with three high-impact transfers: Kyla Jones, Taylor Williams and Grace Sullivan. Although NU has yet to secure its first Big Ten win this season, McKeown’s lifelong recruiting acumen shines through, as these new additions have consistently made their mark as key contributors.
“Some years you have a great year, in spite of your record,” he said.
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