Coach's Nature Is To Nurture

The image of his daughter's tear-streaked face is one that Ed Steele can't forget.

More than 20 years ago, Christine Steele had just finished pitching in a high school softball game, and her coach had her run laps as punishment for walking too many batters. Ed Steele watched Christine run and cry, and he was not happy. The coach had converted Christine, a left fielder, to pitcher because she had a strong arm. Expecting pinpoint control from her did not seem right to her dad.

"I decided I would never do that to a kid and put them in a position they can't succeed in," said Steele, who at the time was coaching Little League baseball. "I try and give my kids -- whether in the classroom or on the field -- expectations based on their talent."

Following that philosophy, Ed Steele has become one of the Washington area's most successful -- and respected -- high school coaches. He has coached the softball team at Broad Run, The Post's top-ranked team, for 16 seasons, going 285-81 with seven district championships, six region championships and one state title. He also was the Ashburn school's wrestling coach from 1985 to 2004, earning 200 victories and coaching four individual state champions.

This spring, Broad Run is 26-0, ranked No. 6 nationally by USA Today and will host Poquoson at 7 p.m. today in a Virginia AA quarterfinal. And this afternoon, Steele will be honored at The Post's annual All-Met luncheon with the Morgan Wootten Award, which is given to an All-Met coach of the year who also sports an impressive career coaching résumé.

"I try to be like a football coach and say, 'What can you do well?' " said Steele, who also heads the science department at Broad Run. "Not, 'You are playing my system because I know it works.' "

Steele's success might be traced back to that one moment with his daughter. He built a dynasty in wrestling and softball with an even-keeled manner and the idea that players and talent should be nurtured.

"He is a legend at this school," Spartans junior pitcher and two-time All-Met Caitlyn Delahaba said. "He succeeds because he gives everyone a fair chance. He is exactly what you would want from your high school coach."

Softball practice at Broad Run isn't what one might expect from a powerhouse program that regularly produces Division I talent. Steele's practices usually involve a few constructive games and an ongoing banter between coach and players.

"He knows how to joke around," sophomore Reagan Doiron said. "Usually when you talk to someone older, you are worried you might say something stupid, but with him you can joke around about it and you're not afraid to joke back with him. It makes the whole practice go by a little easier."

If it isn't obvious, the 62-year-old Steele says he still enjoys what he does and has no plans to retire from coaching softball anytime soon.

"I'm not one of those persons who gets up and says, 'Darn, I don't want to go to work,' " Steele said. "I figure when I do, then it's time to retire. I don't want to have a job where I don't want to be there. I don't want to do any job just for the money."

Steele applied to teach at Broad Run in 1983 -- with no desire to be a coach.

"When I interviewed for the job, they asked what I can coach," Steele said. "I told them I wrestled a little in high school and coached some baseball and [youth league] football, but said that I really didn't want to coach."

The next week, after being hired as a teacher, Steele received a school handbook. He flipped to the sports section and, to his surprise, saw his name listed as an assistant coach for wrestling and softball.

"I went home and said to my wife, 'You're not going to believe this,' " Steele recalled with a deep chuckle. "I'm the new guy there, so of course I wasn't going to quit."

In his first year as an assistant wrestling coach, Steele was given total control over the junior varsity because the varsity coach was retiring the next year. Steele led the junior varsity to an undefeated season and took over the varsity the next season.

"He would go after those kids as ninth-graders, and he would just work them and work them and work them until he made them wrestlers," said Broad Run Athletic Director Jack Kirby, who has been at the school for eight years.

Steele took over as varsity softball coach in 1992 and had instant success. He patched together a team of athletes from various sports, taught them the basics of softball and won the district title in his first year. By 1994, the Spartans were in the state final, and they have made two more appearances, winning it all in 2000.

"In some ways, coaching is more gratifying than teaching because you get results in a short amount of time," Steele said. "In chemistry, I'm not sure if I helped you or not, but there are a lot of instances of girls on a sports team that have created success together and achieving that has helped them grow as a person."

The softball program began its climb to elite status in 1999, when freshman Christy Anch joined the team. Since then, the Spartans have won five region titles behind a string of great pitchers. First there was Anch (a three-time All-Met who went on to play at Tennessee), then Jenny Clohan (an All-Met as a senior who now plays for James Madison), and now Delahaba.

"He just lets his players play and doesn't try and change anything," Clohan said. "He just lets them do their thing and is there to support them."

Loudoun County has become a hotbed for softball talent, but those closest to Broad Run's program say Steele's low-key approach has had as much to do with the Spartans' success as the talent he inherits.

"In the years that I have been around him, I have never heard him yell, scream or curse or anything like that at the girls," Kirby said. "They always seem to have fun, even when he is working them hard and they are running. He's a teacher first and has always been a gentleman. I don't think you could find anyone that could say anything negative about him."