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Standing united with students
Professor of sociology, McKeever fond of his students and their political rights
Michaia Hernandez/ Roundup
Born to a dysfunctional and troubled household that turned to violence and substance abuse on a continual basis, a sociology professor barely escaped the confinement of prison life.
When he was 13 years old, he began coaching in what he describes as a low-income, predominantly-Latino park in North Hollywood; to this day, he still trains kids in basketball, baseball and football at the very same park.
“[Coaching] is what really got me out of trouble,” said the 47-year-old Pierce College assistant sociology professor. “In a lot of ways, the park saved my life.”
He attributes the impact that the experience made on his life primarily to Bill Dusenberry, the park director at the time he began coaching.
Because of McKeever’s youth, many parents protested against allowing him to train their children.
Dusenberry was unyielding in his decision to let him coach, however.
“He really stood up for me in a way that no one ever did,” said McKeever. “It really made a big difference in my life.”
He also lists his family as one of the factors that kept him out of a troubled childhood.
“People tell me all the time that I’m the exception [among my siblings] in that I made better choices, and that’s not it at all,” McKeever said. “I had things going for me that my brothers and sisters didn’t, and that was them.”
Placing importance in learning is a somewhat universal practice, but this runs a bit deeper with McKeever. Education is something that he’s immersed himself in, both as a student and as a working professional.
It took McKeever nine years to go through community college and get his associate degree, because he was “a single father during the recession.”
“They used to call me ‘James W. McKeever,’” he said. “The ‘W’ stood for ‘withdraw.’”
Despite the fact that McKeever only attended Pierce as a student for one semester, it is actually the very school that led him choosing sociology as his area of concentration.
According to McKeever, he deviated from his original plan of pursuing a degree in history to gaining one in sociology after taking a class with professor Chuck O’Connell.
Higher education through the community college system has left such a personal impact on McKeever that he decided to incorporate it once again to his daily life—this time around as a profession.
“I feel like community college has given me opportunities that I wouldn’t have had if it didn’t exist,” he said. “I mean, who else lets you go to school for nine years?”
Through his experience with the system in general, McKeever has learned to value not just education through community colleges, but education as a whole.
“Education represents hope for a lot of people,” he said. “If we take it away, what are they left with?”
McKeever has always been vocal about his support of accessible higher education.
“When people ask me why I care so much I just want to ask them, ‘why don’t you?’” McKeever said.
Of all of his accomplishments to date, McKeever says that what he considers his greatest one is that “[he] tried.”
“Sometimes, all any of us can do is try,” he added.
