Honoring the Legacy of the Legendary UF Wrestling Coach Keith Tennant

2026

by Alisha Katz, APR, MAMC

2025 marked the 50^th anniversary of the Gator Grappler’s Southeastern Conference title

The Florida Gym has been a treasure to the University of Florida, hosting sporting events, concerts and other university functions. However, one lesser-known gem associated with this iconic venue is the UF wrestling team and its founder, Coach Keith Tennant.

Tennant, born in Gainesville, Florida, and raised in Longwood, Florida, had the muscular build of a wrestler. He discovered wrestling in high school and went on to compete in AAU wrestling and play football during his college years. As an undergraduate, he played guard and linebacker for Florida State University and transferred to Howard College, in Alabama under Coach Bobby Bowden. However, Tennant left football to continue his education at UF, where he earned his bachelor’s, master’s, educational specialist degrees and eventually a doctor of philosophy in movement science education. While at the university, Tennant wrestled at the club level since a varsity program did not exist. After graduating and serving as head wrestling coach at St. John’s River State College in Palatka, Florida, he was recruited by then UF athletic director Ray Graves to revitalize UF’s wrestling program, the university’s first in 40 years.

From 1969 to 1974, he coached the team, known as the Gator Grapplers. Laurie Tennant, Keith’s wife, shares that given his closeness in age to the wrestlers, passion for the sport and caring personality, Keith developed a tight-knit bond with his team. Keith was a leader who was gifted with extraordinary people skills. “They all respected him – there were three or four of them who shared, ‘we’d never want to disappoint coach.’ It was a family, a brotherhood,” Laurie said.

In the team’s first year, they won six of the seven matches and began to draw attention from across the university. As the team dominated, crowds in the Florida Gym increased from 75 to 2,000 people each match. The sport also drew attention from university athletics, with more scholarship dollars for wrestling and facility improvements. Most remarkably, in four of the five seasons Keith coached, the team was among the top five in the Southeastern Conference, and, in 1975, the team won the SEC Championship.

During his tenure as the wrestling coach, Keith started UF’s scuba program in 1971 which was reported by the Florida Alligator to be the largest in the United States in 1987. Many of his wrestlers enrolled in his scuba classes and enjoyed making dives around Florida.

After leading the team to remarkable success during his tenure, Keith retired from coaching to focus on academia, specializing in sports psychology in the UF College of Health & Human Performance’s Department of Exercise & Sport Sciences, now the Department of Applied Physiology & Kinesiology. For 30 years, Keith called the college “home,” working 10 years in administration as the assistant and associate department chair and retiring from UF as Associate Professor Emeritus. It was also here that he met Laurie, an HHP graduate.

On April 2, 1993, Keith was inducted by the UF Athletic Hall of Fame as an Honorary Letterwinner, an individual who is recognized for their significant contributions to Florida athletics. It was the first time an individual who wrestled at UF had been inducted. Later, he would be recognized by the National Wrestling Hall of Fame.

After retiring from UF in 1997, Keith served as a full professor and department chair at both the University of West Georgia and later the University of Kansas where he retired as Full Professor Emeritus. He was highly respected by not only his wrestlers but also by the many undergraduate students that he taught and the graduate students that he both advised and taught. Upon retirement, Keith relocated with Laurie to Vero Beach, Florida.

Keith’s Legacy

During retirement, Laurie and Keith contemplated their legacy. After searching for a cause that was most meaningful to them, they decided to donate to Alzheimer’s Disease research.

“Alzheimer’s is a disease that is just devastating” Laurie said and on January 13, 2023 Keith passed away from this disease.

“I’m incredibly grateful that I had him in my life,” Laurie said. “I’m not sure how many people are out there who can say they married the love of their life … we were soul mates.” “There was something magical about him,” Laurie said. “I was just crazy about him; he was a wonderful man.”

The following year after Keith’s passing, Laurie was approached by one of his former team members, who told her about endowment opportunities at UF. After learning more about research in Alzheimer’s headed up by David Vaillancourt, Ph.D., chair for the Department of Applied Physiology & Kinesiology, Laurie felt like the opportunity was quintessential.

“The cool thing is this [research] is being conducted in the department that Keith taught in for 30 years, in the college where I graduated from, and in the college and the department where I met him,” Laurie said.

Now, the L. Keith Tennant Ph.D. Alzheimer’s & Other Dementia Diseases Research Fund at UF supports the research and research collaborations in the areas of Alzheimer’s Disease and other types of dementia. A similar endowment has been set up with the Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center at the University of Kansas Medical Center.

While the wrestling program was discontinued in 1979, Keith’s indelible mark on those he coached, taught, and cared for is not forgotten.

In his eulogy, Dave Rothman, a former wrestler and Gator grad, spoke about Keith’s impact.

“I know I speak for all of us when I say that Keith Tennant’s mark forever lives on in all of us.”