Thomas J. Yousse - Freddie Steinmark: Faith, Family, Football

FREDDIE STEINMARK

Faith, Family, Football

BOWER YOUSSE AND THOMAS J. CRYAN

University of Texas Press
Austin

: When asked by reporters for his reaction after the Cotton Bowl game, Freddie Steinmark replied, It was the greatest day of my life.

Single capital letters indicate photos in the first unnumbered section. Double capital letters indicate photos in the second unnumbered section. Frontispiece (, courtesy of the University of Texas at Austin. Photo UU courtesy of Roger Balettie.

Copyright 2015 by FJS Productions Inc.

All rights reserved

First edition, 2015

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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Yousse, Bower, author.

Freddie Steinmark : faith, family, football / Bower Yousse and Thomas J. Cryan. First edition.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-4773-0821-9 (cloth)

ISBN 978-1-4773-0822-6 (library e-book)

ISBN 978-1-4773-0823-3 (non-library e-book)

1. Steinmark, Freddie. 2. Football playersUnited StatesBiography. 3. CancerPatientsUnited StatesBiography. I. Cryan, Thomas J., author. II. Title.

GV939.S74Y68 2015

796.332092dc23 2015004079

doi:10.7560/308219

To the enduring spirit of Freddie Joe Steinmark, still lighting it up.

My heart leaps up when I behold

A rainbow in the sky:

So was it when my life began;

So is it now I am a man;

So be it when I shall grow old,

Or let me die!

The Child is father of the Man;

And I could wish my days to be

Bound each to each by natural piety.

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

AUTHORS NOTE

IN AUGUST 1967, A SOFT-SPOKEN, UNDERSIZED eighteen-year-old athlete from Wheat Ridge, Colorado, arrived in Austin, Texas, to pursue a college degree and play football for the University of Texas Longhorns. Two years later, he competed in the national championship game against the University of Arkansas, performing in great pain. Six days after the game, doctors removed his cancer-ridden left leg. This young man met that challenge with bravery, grace, and dignity. His name was Freddie Steinmark.

Today, Freddie occupies a singular place in the history and rich tradition of the Longhorns. He endures as an inspiration for football players as they stream through the tunnel into Darrell K RoyalTexas Memorial Stadium and the thunderous embrace of a hundred thousand burnt-orange-clad fans. His name adorns the stadium scoreboard.

This book is an exploration of how Freddie rose to become such a symbol of perseverance and how he continues to stand for hope and strength in the face of obstacles and tribulations. We have attempted to capture his true essence. While some of Freddies story may be familiar to the Longhorn nation and to devoted college football fans, much of his journey has remained, until now, unspoken. Freddies time on earth was brief but catalytic, and you may find that a deeper understanding of the way he lived his life reveals many truths. His is a story of determination, passion, and faith. It is a story encompassing a time in our countrys history fraught with upheaval and despair. It is a story of a familys bond, unbroken for decades. It is a story of how one prepares for and addresses the ultimate. And most especially, it is a story of love.

Freddie and I (Bower Yousse) were friends. We grew up together in Denver, in the shadow of the Rocky Mountains. Our families lives were intertwined, revolving around sports. Freddies father, Big Fred, was our baseball and football coach for many of the years we were teammates. The Steinmarks are a second family to me.

Additionally, my coauthor, Thomas Cryan, has been a close associate of the Steinmarks for more than twenty years. He too is intimately acquainted with aspects of Freddies life not known to the general public.

We feel that our unrestricted and unprecedented access to documents associated with Freddie, and our personal knowledge of him, have enabled us to provide precise insight into his character. We have been able to examine how he touched the collective consciousness of a nation and to explore the still-rippling effects of his life.

We dont claim to be unbiased or impartial in this rendering of Freddies life. What we do claim is to present an authentic story distilled from our relationships with Freddie, his family, his friends, his teammates, and his coaches. At crucial junctures in this narrative, when it seems justified, I speculate on Freddies thoughts and feelings, something that previous accounts of Freddie have not done. These attempts are based on either what he communicated to me or how I knew him to be. In the pages that follow, we present a narrative that begins with the childhoods of Freddies parents, Gloria Marchitti and Fred Steinmark (Big Fred), how they met, their marriage, and the birth of their first child, Freddie Joe, because an understanding of Freddie cannot be achieved separate from that of his family.

When I attended Freddies funeral in 1971, I was twenty-two years old and in shock. We all were. It was incomprehensible that Freddie was no longer with us. In the Steinmark home afterward, a man who was there as President Nixons representative pulled Freddies mother aside and asked whether there was anything the president could do to comfort her. Gloria made one request: Tell him to fight cancer just as he would fight any other war.

It was shortly thereafter that Congress went to work crafting legislation for the National Cancer Act. This bill, which marked the start of President Nixons War on Cancer, was signed into law on December 23, 1971.

But that is just part of the journey that was Freddie Joe Steinmarks life.

This is the rest of his story.

BOWER YOUSSE

THOMAS J. CRYAN

PART ONE

19291967

I will play the game hard and clean and never be a quitter. What matters is courage. It is no disgrace to be beaten; the great disgrace is to quit or turn yellow.

THE ROUGH RIDERS CREED

CHAPTER 1

THE ALL-AMERICAN BOY

THE THIRD TIME JOE DUNCAN SNAPPED OPEN the newspaper, Gloria Marchitti stirred from her deep sleep. She lay in her twin bed, in the pink bedroom that she shared with her sister Lena. Her soon-to-be brother-in-law stood alongside the bed, continuing to rustle the newspaper. She glared at him over her right shoulder. It was eight on a summer morning. Teenage Gloria had wanted to sleep in.

Hey, Joe said cheerfully, peering over the top of the Rocky Mountain News. A cigarette bounced on his lip. Look at this, Gloria. He held the tabloid in front of her face. See this guy? This is the guy you gotta date when you start North High School. A handsome young man grinned on the newspaper page. The headline read: Steinmark Selected All-American Boy. The subhead added: North Side Youngster Picked Unanimously. Gloria rolled over, away from Joe. I dont know anything about him.

Im telling you, Gloria, this guy is swell... real swell. Gloria feigned sleep, stared at the wall, and pictured in her mind the handsome boy in the photograph.

BARELY A YEAR HAD PASSED SINCE THE END OF WORLD War II. The joy that came from victory in the war and the return of troops from overseas gave everybody a boost. Baseball fans rejoiced that star players such as Ted Williams had returned from active duty, and the game reasserted itself as Americas pastime.