Giving Back…

“How are your fingers?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well you haven’t called in a while, so I figured all your fingers were broken”.

It is hard to deal with the fact that we will not have any exchanges anymore and that hurts a lot more than any post practice sprints we ever did (Ohio State trip included)...I have not remained as close as I would have liked too but every time our paths would cross, no matter how long in between, it was as though nothing had changed, the way true friends are.

I will remember him riding us hard, day in and day out, and at the time thinking that this guy is nuts. It took some time to learn how to deal with him, and when you thought you had a good standing, he would knock you on your ass to let you know that he expected more from you. He never let any of us slide becouse he knew the importance of hard work, and he instilled that in all of us. He pushed all of us and made us all want to be better lacrosse players which in turn made us better people. He pushed us all to what we thought was our limit but he knew that he could get more. He saw in each one of us the potential to be and do so much more than lacrosse. And like many people have talked about, after you are done playing his teachings do not end and his love for all of us does not and will not go away.

I will remember that he was the one who pushed me to play in college, and only after he told me I could, did I think I had a chance. His words meant so much to me, but now in thinking back on it, it was his actions that have made the lasting memory for me.

I will remember that of all the lessons I learned from Steel, the one that has lived on with me the most, is the importance of giving back. Steel will always be known as the DeSmet lacrosse coach but as all of us have stated he is much more than that. We all benefited from having Steel in our lives and the best way to honor him is by continuing to give back. He spent so much of his time helping to build DeSmet Lacrosse, Missouri Lacrosse, and lacrosse in the Midwest. And in the process he built up a community of better people, who aspire to be anything close to the man that he was. So get out there and coach/mentor or help out with a team/group in your area, push your friends to be better people, be a better person in your relationships, but just make sure you are helping people. This is the same way he lived his life. Becouse as I have learned from Steel, by giving back you get so much more through the satisfaction of knowing your helping others.

Steel will never be forgotten and hopefully someday we will all have the opportunity to touch even a fraction of the amount of lives that he has touched in his much too short of time on earth. I will be unable to make it home for the services but make sure that we raise a glass in honor of Steel, continue to tell stories, and never stop giving back becouse that is the best tribute that we could give him. We always learned about being “Men for Others” at DeSmet and I don’t know of anyone who followed this more than Steel .

Thank you for giving me the confidence to try…
Thank you for giving me the confidence to fail…
Thank you for giving me the confidence to get back up and try again…

John Sanders ‘99