A king of the court leaves his throne
Brookfield Central’s Steinbach retires after 38 years
Dave Steinbach's life in tennis really took off one Saturday morning 65 years ago when he woke up early to hit balls by himself.
His timing was perfect, and we're not taking about how the future hall of fame coach swung his racket.
Sports is about seizing the moment. Steinbach's fork in the road came that day during his freshman year at UW Oshkosh when, with a lazy Saturday on the horizon, he chose instead to take an impromptu trip to Stevens Point.
The decision pointed him to the path of coaching greatness.
“When Dave speaks, people listen,” Hartford coach Andy Andress said. “The WIAA, the other coaches in a seeding committee meeting. … Any aspect of tennis, his knowledge shines through.”
Steinbach announced his retirement as Brookfield Central's girls tennis coach recently. With the decision, the 84-year-old closed the books on a 38-year career as a varsity coach in which he won more than 500 matches for both Central's boys and girls programs, produced individual state qualifiers in every season but one and built a reputation that carried well beyond the state's borders.
You can't tell the story of Wisconsin high school tennis without including Steinbach, and yet it easily could have not happened. That is how far-fetched that day was in the spring of 1955.
As Steinbach hit balls off one of the buildings on campus that day, he caught the eye of the university's ten
nis coach, Joe Bleckinger. The Titans were set to travel to Stevens Point for a match, and one of their players was a no show. Five minutes before the team was scheduled to leave, Bleckinger approached Steinbach.
“Do you go to school here?” he asked. “What are you doing today?”
The coach needed a body to fill the lineup and at that moment Steinbach was his best option.
Not only did Steinbach attend UWOshkosh, but he had nothing going on that day.
He was a distance runner on the Titans' track team, but there was no meet that day so he accepted the offer. He played at No. 6 singles and won.
“On the way back to Oshkosh they asked me if I'd like to be on the team and I asked the track coach, who was Bob Kolf, the legend at Oshkosh, if I could be released, and he did the best thing any coach has done for me,” Steinbach recalled. “He allowed me to switch sports in the middle of the season and the rest is history.”
Unlikely start
Steinbach went on to spend 60 years in the Elmbrook school district. A physical education teacher, Steinbach was a junior high and junior varsity coach in the district before becoming Central's boys tennis coach in 1982. That summer he landed the girls job at Central as well.
The numbers Brookfield Central produced with Steinbach over the next 38 years were beyond impressive. He had 513 wins, four state championships and six runner-up finishes when he stepped down as boys coach after the 2017 season. His girls teams won 588 matches, captured nine state championships and posted seven second-place finishes at state.
Individually three boys and three girls singles players/doubles teams were state champions.
“He has a highly successful program in terms of achievements, but he also has a completely inclusive program where everyone is valued from the top to the bottom ...” said Jon Vogt, a former Steinbach assistant who took over the boys program in 2018. “That doesn't happen in the same program that often.”
No-cut policy pays off
When Steinbach took over at Central his only stipulation was that the teams have a no-cut policy. As a basketball coach, he had to cut kids and found it be hard on the player and coach.
“When you see a 15-year-old boy cry because you told him he wasn't good enough, that was hard,” Steinbach said.
The no-cut policy led to huge participation numbers in the boys and girls programs. Each regularly had 100 players with the boys program topping out at 130 one year.
That philosophy led to work with the United States Tennis Association, talking to coaches about the benefits of a no-cut program.
“He's always been a good sounding board," said Erika Wentz-Russell, a 1994 Central graduate who used to work with the USTA. "He knows a lot of people. He knows a lot about tennis. He knows how the industry works.”
The no-cut policy was a major part of Steinbach's programs at Central. So was developing good body language and mental toughness. At Central, he called it the Lancer Walk.
“His goal was to be able to watch your match from 200, 300 yards away and if you and your opponent were wearing identical clothing, he should be able to point out the Lancer,” said Waukesha South coach Dan Schreier, a Brookfield Central alum. “The Lancer was someone walking tall with their racket in their non-dominant hand. Never shrugging their shoulders if they weren't doing well and never being too boisterous if they were doing well. They were just going about the match and being smart about what they do between points.”
A casualty of the pandemic
None of that was on display this spring. The coronavirus pandemic caused the cancellation of high school tennis in the spring and the UW-Whitewater camp Steinbach runs during the summer.
The pandemic and the uncertainly it is creating for prep sports is what is pushing Steinbach out the door. The risk that comes with COVID-19 for someone Steinbach's age is too great.
And so he leaves coaching thankful for his wife Patsy's support and hopeful that his players were able to take a piece of the game with them.
“I've coached a lot of sports, but none of them pertain to life as much as tennis,” Steinbach said. “It boils down to every stroke. Either you're successful or you're not successful. … You get so many opportunities to reinforce how you're going to handle success and how you're going to handle failure and I think that is the most important part about the game of tennis.”