After serving in the
United States Navy during
World War II, Kearney attended
Seattle Pacific University and attained his
BA degree in
history. He was also a member of the SPU basketball team. This was then followed by teaching and coaching stints in Paradise High School (
Paradise, California); the
University of Washington (as assistant basketball coach for
Tippy Dye) and Sunnyside High School (
Sunnyside, Washington). He then became a high school principal in the state of Washington when he was hired by Onalaska High School (
Onalaska, Washington), where he also taught and coached. In 1961, he was appointed as the inaugural principal at
Tumwater High School in
Tumwater, Washington. He concurrently pursued and completed a
master's degree in education at
San Jose State University and moved back to the University of Washington to finish his
PhD, where he was also strongly linked to the UW Athletic Department and quickly rose to the rank of assistant athletic director under
Jim Owens, who was Washington's football coach and athletic director when Kearney joined the Athletic Department. From this position, he was appointed athletic director for the University of Washington when Owens decided to focus solely on his job as football coach. In addition to the above roles, Kearney also served as the Assistant Executive Director of the
Washington Interscholastic Activities Association (WIAA). For 16 years he served the
United States Olympic Committee (USOC) as a committee member and later as a USOC Committee Chairman. He was then named to the USOC Board of Directors and in 1996 he was awarded the USOC Olympic Torch Award. In the 1978–79 season at
Michigan State University, his teams captured the
Big Ten Conference titles in
football,
basketball and
baseball—the so-called triple crown. The
1978–79 Michigan State Spartans men's basketball team, led by future NBA Hall of Fame forward
Magic Johnson, defeated
Indiana State (led by fellow future NBA Hall of Famer
Larry Bird) in the title game of the
1979 NCAA Division I Basketball Tournament. Kearney hired and worked with some of the most prominent coaches in university athletics, including Hall of Fame football player,
Jim Owens, college football coaching hall of famer
Don James (football), and
Darryl Rogers in football. In basketball, he worked with three
Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame inductees:
Marv Harshman,
Jud Heathcote and
Tex Winter. In other sports he worked with such outstanding coaches as
Dick Erickson and
Bob Ernst in crew,
Earl Ellis in swimming, Dr.
Eric Hughes in gymnastics,
Ken Shannon in track and field, the legendary
Danny Litwhiler in baseball,
Joe Baum in soccer, and
Amo Bessone and
Ron Mason in ice hockey. Bessone and Mason both won
NCAA Men's Ice Hockey Championships, with Mason retiring with the all-time highest number of wins in Division One ice hockey. Mason was the athletic director at
Michigan State University until his retirement in early 2008, when he was succeeded by
Mark Hollis, who was basketball team manager on
Jud Heathcote's staff at Michigan State and on Kearney's staff at the Western Athletic Conference. ==Honors==