Steven M. Sipple: Steinkuhler's son's time in the limelight
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SYRACUSE — He emerges from the front door of the construction business wearing a smile and graciously extends his huge right hand, as though he might actually be glad to see you. You have to wonder because you’ve heard that Dean Steinkuhler rarely does interviews. In fact, he can’t remember the last time he did one.
“I try to stay away from that stuff,” the former Nebraska All-American offensive tackle says. “It’s my boys’ time now. It’s not the old man’s time. They have enough pressure on them.”
Ty Steinkuhler will be a senior defensive tackle at Nebraska this coming season, and brother Baker Steinkuhler is the most decorated member of the Huskers’ 2008 football recruiting class, a 6-foot-5, 280-pound package of raw power and explosiveness, so much so that Rivals.com ranks him No. 8 overall among the nation’s high school seniors.
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Baker Steinkuhler, a two-way lineman for Lincoln Southwest, will sign his national letter of intent today at the school. A variety of family and friends will be on hand, but not big Dean. Oh, Baker and his dad get along just fine, Baker says. Staying away is just Dean being Dean.
In six years as Southwest’s head football coach, Mark King says, he never has spoken to the elder Steinkuhler.
Dean says he stayed away because didn’t want to put pressure on anybody, including King.
“That’s Mark’s team,” the elder Steinkuhler says. “He does a good job. My boys were successful there.”
Dean Steinkuhler, one of the best offensive linemen in college football history, works for a construction firm and lives a few miles south of Syracuse (population 1,760), about a 25-minute drive from Lincoln. He and Sue Steinkuhler have been divorced for more than five years. Dean attended Southwest’s home football games this past season, always sitting on the visiting team’s side of the stadium.
“Nobody bothers you over there,” he says. “There’s not a big crowd. You don’t have to deal with the freaking band. I just wanted to go there and watch my kid play.”
Boy, did Baker Steinkuhler play. He was a force on both sides of the ball (he’s unsure which side he’ll play at Nebraska). You can’t help but chuckle as you watch him on a highlight video mauling helpless defenders. He either buries them in the turf or shoves them completely out of the play (here’s hoping he plays offensive tackle in college, just like his dad did). Baker is big, strong and athletic and, well, when you meet Dean you understand where all that strength and size originated.
Dean Steinkuhler, 47, still looks like he could play in the NFL, which he did for eight seasons after receiving the 1983 Lombardi Award and Outland Trophy, the top awards presented to college linemen. He stands 6-3 and weighs 280. At 3:15 p.m. on a Friday, he’s wrapping up his workday at the construction firm’s shop a mile west of Syracuse on Nebraska 2.
“I’m kind of the maintenance man,” he says. “I run the shop. I deliver equipment. Whatever they need me to do.”
He didn’t exactly beg to do this interview. In fact, he apparently tried to back out of it, Dean being Dean.
“We had to do some convincing,” Baker says in what amounts to a startling revelation when you consider that the Steinkuhler men would rather chew tinfoil than discuss family matters — or virtually any matter. Oh, they’re friendly enough fellows. They smile and laugh easily. But they’re not much for small talk, or really any talk.
Which probably also helps explain Dean’s determination to remain in the background.
Says King: “The (Steinkuhler) kids and Sue, they all hope Dean kind of changes. And I think he feels a little guilty that he’s been incognito for so long.”
Dean leans back in an office chair situated behind a cluttered and dusty desk in a small room in a corner of the shop. Outside the office, there’s a workbench and various pieces of heavy machinery scattered on a cold concrete floor. Dean puffs cigarettes and sips Mountain Dew. He wears glasses nowadays and no longer has that mop of curly blond hair; his head is shaved. Some fans might not recognize him at all anymore.
But Nebraska fans will forever recognize the name. Steinkuhler made every All-American list in 1983. The “Burr Oak” — his hometown is nearby Burr — was selected by the Houston Oilers with the second overall pick in the 1984 NFL Draft, right behind ex-Husker teammate Irving Fryar.
So, perhaps the exalted family name puts a certain amount of pressure on Steinkuhler’s sons. But maybe Dean prepared them for that pressure.
“I put a lot of pressure on them when I coached them in Little League — baseball, basketball, football,” he says. “I always demanded more out of them than anybody else. I was hard on those boys.”
Dean coached Ty until Ty was in junior high and Baker until about the sixth grade. When Dean and Sue divorced, the boys moved to Lincoln. These days, Dean says, he tries to talk to his sons at least once a week.
“I’ve always tried to tell them that everybody in college is big, strong, fast and can run,” Dean says. “I told them that when everybody else is taking a day off, that’s when you should keep working. Work hard.”
When Dean watches Baker play, “I can’t believe that’s my little kid,” Dean says. “I mean, he always was a big kid. But he was kind of overweight, kind of a fleshy-type kid. Not now. I think Ty’s really helped Baker out. They’re pretty close.”
Dean Steinkuhler has followed Nebraska football closely over the years, but he never attended a game as a spectator until Ty began playing for Big Red. This past season Dean attended every home game and two road games. In a 45-minute interview, it became clear he’s an astute football observer. For a guy who doesn’t like doing interviews, well, he’s pretty good at it.
“Our defense just plain sucked,” he says. “That’s putting it mildly. I saw some stuff they had Ty doing last season, and I’d call him after the game and say, ‘What the hell was that all about?’”
Don’t be surprised this spring if you see the elder Steinkuhler attending a Nebraska practice or two, wearing his big work boots and ball cap, all the while remaining in the background. After all, this is his sons’ time, not Dean’s.
“I don’t know if I’d say the boys are really following in my footsteps — they’ve kind of made their own way,” the elder Steinkuhler says. “And I’m proud of them. Very proud.”
Reach Steven M. Sipple at 473-7440 or ssipple@journalstar.com.
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