I first met Tom Steinke at Westminster College's Payne Gymnasium in 1979. As the school's athletic director, he had invited a group of newspaper writers to play basketball with him one afternoon.
As it turned out, it was a learning experience for both of us. He learned not to invite writers to play serious hoops, and I learned I was better suited to watching basketball, not playing it. Steinke was some 20 years older than the rest of us but ended up running us all into the ground. He was in his mid-40s, pushing the ball up court and yelling at the twentysomethings for not filling the lanes on the break.Since then, Steinke hasn't changed much. He still loves pickup games, still loves to win. And he still has jet black hair, a clean-shaven face and a 31-inch waist. In fact, he weighs the same as he did 44 years ago when he was an All-American at BYU.
"Maybe a pound lighter," he says.
Most people can't stay within a pound of their optimum weight through the Christmas holidays. Steinke did it for more than four decades.
Steinke will retire this April after 34 years at Westminster. In that time, he's seen plenty of changes: building projects, differing student body makeups, the school's financial ups and downs. There were years when the Jazz held their summer league in the tiny, outdated gymnasium and years when the school was in peril of closing for lack of funding. He's seen the Jazz come and go as the primary tenant of the gymnasium. He's even seen the school mascot change from Parsons to Griffins.
Through it all, Steinke has been a constant. He got himself hired more than three decades ago and could never bring himself to leave. During a 10-year span when he coached the men's basketball team -- winning two-thirds of his games -- several job opportunities arose. But he never seriously pursued another job.
"I've never regretted it," he says.
That isn't to say he didn't ever work for anyone else. But those jobs were just appendages to his day job at the leafy school on 1300 East. He has been men's basketball coach, dean of men, athletic director, class instructor, fitness instructor and chairman of the P.E. department. But he has also been a color commentator on BYU basketball television broadcasts, a member of the state boxing commission and for 25 years the physical fitness instructor at the Utah Police Academy. The combined coaching and teaching at the Academy -- which involves pushups, running, stretching and situps, three days a week -- has much to do with the fact that he looks two decades younger than his 64 years.
A friend recently told him: "I didn't have a body like you do now when I was 16."
For his part, Steinke simply believes you live what you preach. "Thing is, it's like a fat coach telling his player to get in shape, or a guy telling you to buy a Buick when he drives a Chevy. In my mind, it's very important to be an example," he says.
A graduate of Salt Lake's Granite High, Steinke attended BYU on a baseball scholarship. He did well enough to make second-team all-conference, hitting .345 his sophomore year. But soon "the basketball bug took over." He was a basketball All-American in 1955-56; the next year he led the team in scoring, averaging 19.7 points.
Steinke always did things with a sort of amused elegance. He was an after-shave and tie-bar sort of guy, always wearing his hair wet and combed back. His long-standing joke was that you should always have your team looking sharp, or "dapper."
"They might be able to out play you, but they should never out-dap you," he once said.
Nobody ever outdapped Steinke. He was Pat Riley before Riley even dreamed of slicking his hair straight back.
He took on his final peripheral assignment this fall, when he added duties as the women's basketball coach. Consequently, earlier this week he was in Billings, coaching the women against Rocky Mountain College, then sticking around for the 8 p.m. men's game.
There's something symmetrical about him coaching again as he finishes out his career. It gives him one last chance to make the rounds. It has been a nice run; now comes the final chance to enjoy not only the coaching but the banter that goes on with all teams on all road trips. It's a last opportunity to savor the camaraderie that only teams understand.
Shortly after the season's end, he'll retire. He'll spend his time traveling and visiting his son, Brad, the former KSL-TV sportscaster who is working in Miami.
But don't expect him to retire from his workouts. He wouldn't dream of it. Odds are good you'll still be able to catch him at the gym, looking for pickup games. Don't plan on winning if you're on the opposite team. Take it from one who knows -- it wouldn't even be a contest.