Coaches Spotlight: Les Steckel

By John Raffel, NFLHS.com

When he returned to the NFL coaching ranks in February, Buffalo Bills' new running backs coach Les Steckel couldn't have been happier.

But the time he took off from the NFL to coach in the high school ranks was extremely rewarding for the man who has coached for eight different franchises.

Steckel spent last football season as a volunteer assistant for Brentwood High School in Tennessee. His son, Luke, was a standout player for the team, which wound up winning the state championship.

Steckel was involved with Brentwood's program for the 2001 and 2002 seasons, with his main priority being to bring some stability in his family's life.

"I was biting the bullet," he said. "You could say I was taking a two-year sabbatical. After coaching in the NFL 20 years, we decided we didn't want our children attending high school at more than two different places."

Steckel said after he left the Tampa Bay coaching staff in 2000, he was offered various assistant coaching positions.

"We elected to move back to Tennessee," he said.

At Brentwood, Steckel's son Luke, a middle linebacker and H-back, was the county's defensive player of the year for 2002.

"He's going to play at Princeton," Steckel said. "He was recruited heavily by them."

Steckel has coached every offensive position as an NFL assistant and has been an offensive coordinator and one year as head coach for the Minnesota Vikings in 1984. He had coached with the Vikings from 1979-83 as wide receivers and special teams coach.

Prior to coming to coach at Brentwood, Steckel was Tampa Bay's offensive coordinator in 2000 after spending the previous three seasons with the Tennessee Titans as offensive coordinator. He's also been with the Houston Oilers (1995-96) as receivers coach; Denver Broncos (1993-94) as tight ends coach; New England Patriots (1985-88) as quarterbacks/wide receivers coach and San Francisco (1978) as wide receivers-tight ends coach.

Steckel also coached in the collegiate ranks at Colorado, Navy and Brown.

He was an offensive coordinator at Brentwood.

"Luke was at Brentwood in the ninth grade. His sophomore year, he started as middle linebacker in Florida," Les Steckel said. "Then after I left the Bucs, we elected to move back to Tennessee. It was familiar territory for everyone since I had been there with the Titans for three years.

"We placed family as a high priority as we hashed it out. We made the decision and made it collectively. I was confident with that decision and it turned into a blessing."

Having an NFL coach on his staff was a joy for Brentwood coach Ron Crawford.

"Les did a tremendous job here," Crawford said. "Luke was a senior for us and things worked out so that Les could spend some time with him. He did an outstanding job of coaching coaches as well as coaching the players. I think the world of Les. It was a great experience."

"I worked with Luke but with other young men as well," Steckel said. "We had different levels of athletes."

Brentwood had a 14-1 season en route to the state title.

"It was tremendous," Steckel said. "We preached all year that together we can do the job and be successful. When you stick together as a group of people, you'll have success. Our players developed as good athletes and saw how important the team concept was."

And the "team" included Steckel's wife, Chris, Luke's mother. "She typed up the game plan most of the time," Les Steckel said. "She was kind of like my secretary."

Steckel is looking forward to his newest NFL job.

"My first reaction is how thrilled I am about the opportunity," Steckel said in a statement after getting the Buffalo job. "I know the quality of head coach that the Bills have in Gregg Williams and also the tremendous reputation that the organization enjoys."

Steckel admitted it was a challenging adjustment to go from NFL to high school, but he enjoyed the experience and his son enjoyed having dad on the team.

"My junior year, he helped coach but I only played on defense," Luke Steckel said. "I played some offense this year and got to work with him. And that was a blast. I had spent so many years watching him on the sidelines in the pros and college."

Working with his dad on a player-coach relationship, Luke Steckel's respect of his father's coaching abilities grew.

"One thing about my dad is that when he's going to do something, he'll do it 100 percent," Luke Steckel said. "He was a tremendous help. He brought some key insight to the football program that's never been experienced before. When you have someone with all of that knowledge it really helps. We had an incredible coaching staff."

The combination of coaching staff and players combined for the school's first-ever Class 5A title. Brentwood defeated defending state champion Riverdale 10-7 in the title game.

Luke Steckel had an interception with 14 seconds left in the game to seal the win for Brentwood.

Ironically, Crawford, in his first year with Brentwood, was defensive coordinator for Riverdale before coming to Brentwood.

"He had a lot to do with us going as far as we did this year," Luke Steckel said.

And Les Steckel's contributions were also invaluable. He's back in the NFL but the fall football season of 2002 for Les Steckel - high school style - will never be forgotten in Brentwood and Tennessee.

Story courtesy Red Line Editorial, Inc.