John O’Keeffe, former Gaelic footballer, is born on April 15, 1951 in Tralee, County Kerry. He plays with the local Austin Stacks GAA sports club and is a member of the Kerry GAA senior inter-county team from 1969 until 1984. He is a highly talented midfielder, and one of the most stylish and accomplished full-backs in Gaelic football history. He later becomes the Ireland international rules football team manager.

O’Keeffe’s father, Frank (1923-2014), is also a Gaelic footballer who plays as a left corner-forward for the Kerry senior team.

O’Keeffe wins seven All-Ireland Senior Football Championship medals and twelve Munster Senior Club Football Championship medals. Other honours won include seven National Football League medals and eight GAA Interprovincial Championship (Railway Cup) medals between Munster GAA and Combined Universities GAA. He also wins a Munster Junior Championship medal in 1969.

O’Keeffe is among the leading recipients of GAA GPA All Stars Awards, with five awards from 1973, 1975, 1976, 1978, and 1979. He is also named the Texaco Footballer of the Year in 1975.

O’Keeffe retires reluctantly on medical advice after the 1984 Munster Final with a serious hip complaint, having played relatively few games in the previous eighteen months. He has hip replacement surgery some twenty years later. His last game for Kerry is in the full back position against Tipperary in the 1984 Munster Senior Club Football Championship semi-final. He always maintains that his most dangerous opponent is likely Dublin‘s Jimmy Keaveney, with whom he enjoys several battles. His performance against Offaly‘s Matt Connor in the 1982 All-Ireland final is all the more remarkable considering he has little or no training preparation owing to injury. He is consistently named as full back in various GAA players/managers best ever team selections, particularly in the years leading up to the GAA’s Centenary and beyond.

O’Keeffe is captain of the Austin Stacks team that wins the 1976 County Senior Football Championship. He also wins medals in 1973, 1974, 1979 and 1986 (following a brief comeback), as well as a Munster Club Championship in 1976 and an All-Ireland in 1977. He also wins a County Minor Hurling Championship with the club in 1967. He also captains the St. Brendan’s College, Killarney side to the school’s first Hogan Cup title in 1969.

With the University College Dublin GAA team, O’Keeffe wins a Dublin County Championship in 1974, and the Leinster Club Championships and All-Ireland Club Championships in 1973-74 and 1974-75. He also wins Sigerson Cup medals in 1973, 1974, and 1975.

O’Keeffe teaches history, Social, Personal and Health Education (SPHE), and Physical Education at Tralee Christian Brothers School before retiring after forty years in 2011.

In May 2020, the Irish Independent places O’Keeffe at number ten in its “Top 20 footballers in Ireland over the past 50 years.”