McKeever was a very versatile player as evidenced by his playing in all positions with the exception of goalkeeper and wing half-back during his Derry career.
[5] Other skills in his repertoire include his surging runs forwards from midfield, shooting accuracy and free taking ability.
"[5] McKeever was born in 1931[5] into a GAA interested home,[2] in the small townland of Ballymaguigan on the western shores of Lough Neagh.
[2] In 1957 he returned to St Mary's in Belfast, this time as a lecturer, and would spend the rest of his working life at the college until his retirement in 1992.
[2] In 1950 he flew back from England to play a significant role in Derry's Dr Lagan Cup success.
[3] They beat Limerick in the All-Ireland Junior Championship semi-final, a game in which he marked Kerry legend Eoin Liston's father, a fact McKeever didn't find out until 50 years later.
[7] In 1958, McKeever captained[3] Derry to the county's first ever Ulster Senior Championship success, beating Down in the final by four points (1–11 to 2–04).
[3] On 24 August, Derry caused one of the biggest shocks in the history of Gaelic football[9] when the first-time Ulster champions beat Kerry in the All-Ireland semi-final 2-06 to 2–05.
[2] They met Dublin in that year's All-Ireland final and, despite McKeever being "by far and away the outstanding player on view", Derry were defeated.
[2] It has been claimed a series of poor refereeing decisions in that game cost Derry greatly,[2] but McKeever himself refuses to make any excuses saying in a 2002 interview, "It was an exceptionally good Dublin team".
[2] Along with Meath's Colm O'Rourke in 1991, he is the only player who has won the award, despite not being part of that year's All-Ireland winning team.
[2] The 1950s was a decade of very high standards of football and was a very difficult era to win an All-Ireland, with the likes of Mayo, Galway, Kerry, Louth, Cavan, Meath and Dublin having very strong teams at the time.
[2] Unfortunately for Derry, they never quite managed to keep that team together, and failed to win another Ulster title during McKeever's (who was 27 at the time of the final[3]) career.
They did, however, reach the National League final in both 1958/59 and 1960/61, but they lost out to Kerry on both occasions, partly due to key forward Sean O'Connell being suspended for both deciders.
Despite being 39/40?, in 1970 McKeever (who converted seven frees in the last 20 minutes) put in a man of the match display as Ballymaguigan won the South Derry Junior Championship, defeating Greenlough in the final.
[2] Underage football wasn't very well organised when McKeever was young and it was at St. Malachy's College in Belfast that his career started to flourish.
[2] He captained the school to two consecutive MacRory Cup finals in 1948 and 1949,[2] but they lost out on both occasions to St. Patrick's, Cavan and St. Colman's, Newry respectively.
[2] In 1964, along with Joe Lennon and Jim McDonnell, McKeever ran the first-ever residential GAA coaching course in Gormanston.