John Kean is in his 34th year as the athletic communications director at Missouri S&T, where he is in charge of the external communications and promotional efforts for the university’s 17 athletic teams.

Kean began his career at Missouri S&T in June 1990 and during his 33-plus years in the program, has worked to promote the accomplishments of the Miner teams and student-athletes.  During that span, S&T has had numerous teams win conference championships, earn NCAA Division II Tournament berths and had many student-athletes earn All-America honors.  Since starting in 1990, a total of 103 S&T student-athletes have earned Academic All-America honors from the College Sports Communicators.

In addition, the Miner program has had six Academic All-America of the Year selections, 18 student-athletes named as GLVC Scholar-Athletes of the Year, six named as winners of the Richard F. Scharf Paragon Award by the Great Lakes Valley Conference and two more selected as the Ken B. Jones Student-Athlete of the year by the Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletics Association.  Missouri S&T has also had five of its former student-athletes inducted into the GLVC Hall of Fame and three others associated with the program that were inducted into the MIAA Hall of Fame.

During his tenure at S&T, Kean has earned recognition on the both the conference and national levels.  He was inducted in 2021 to the College Sports Communicators Hall of Fame and was the recipient of the Dr. Thomas Kearns Service Award from the GLVC in 2018 and the Roy Pickerill Distinguished Service Award from the NCAA Division II Sports Information Directors Association (D2SIDA) in 2023.  He also served for four years as the president of D2SIDA before doing a three-year term on the CSC Board of Directors from 2018-21.  He was also the president of the MIAA sports information directors during the 1995-96 academic year.

He has also served on various committees, including as a vice chairman on the College Division Management Advisory Committee within CSC, the GLVC’s scheduling committee and the programming subcommittee during the creation of the GLVC Sports Network.  He has also assisted with several NCAA regional and national events, including eight men’s basketball and two women’s basketball Elite Eight championships and was the internal public address announcer for the 2017 NCAA Division II football championship game in Kansas City, Kan.  In addition, Kean has been part of the Division II CCA All-America program, serving as the national coordinator for the softball program for 15 seasons and as a regional coordinator for the men's basketball program.

Kean has earned two district writing awards from CSC, earning a first place award in the historical feature category for District Seven in 2006 and the second in 2022.

The native of Florissant, Mo., began his career in athletic communications as a graduate assistant in the department at Southeast Missouri State University, where he earned his bachelor’s degree in communications in 1986.