Vince D’Adamo: What did you enjoy most about competing in athletics throughout your life?
Steen: At first I enjoyed playing and competing with and against my friends. I grew up with a extremely competitive group of friends. Every day you could find us playing football, basketball, golf, wiffle ball or ping pong in someone’s garage or court. As we got older and were able to compete on the same team against neighboring counties, we took pride in representing Napa. We wanted to prove not only to ourselves but to the rest of the Bay Area and Northern California that our crew from Napa wasn’t messing around and you could never take us lightly. The most enjoyable thing about competing in athletics was putting a uniform on that said Napa across the chest and playing next to my best friends.
D’Adamo: What have you been doing since graduating from high school?
Steen: After high school I went to Napa Valley College and played two years of baseball under Bob Freschi, earning my A.A. Degree. I transferred to Chico State in 2010 and graduated with a Degree in Kinesiology in the Spring of 2013. Since then I’ve been pursuing a career in teaching and coaching. I started coaching football as a Special Teams coordinator in 2014 and 2105 for the Napa High Junior Varsity Football team under Nick Tedesco and Troy Mott. I was part of Todd Pridys baseball coaching staff at Napa High in 2014 and 2015. In 2016 I spent the Napa High Junior Varsity Football season as their Defensive Coordinator and now in 2017 I’ve taken on perhaps my biggest job as the Napa High Varsity Defensive Coordinator under Jesus “Chuy” Martinez. Doing so while working toward a single subject teaching credential in Physical Education and teaching P.E. throughout the Napa Valley Unified.
D’Adamo: It's been 10 years since Napa High football's section title, what do you continue to remember about that journey?
Steen: People might not know this but during that season, as a team, we went through a lot of peaks and valleys. Our 13 – 1 record doesn’t make it seem like we had many troubles that year but as a team throughout the community we would hear stuff like, “They’re too small, they’re not strong enough, they have one good player, they have a second year Head Coach, they’re learning a new defense, they’ll never get past the Sacramento schools.” When it comes from people in your own community you might see normal High School Football teams believe and play into that negativity. That 2007 team however was different, we were not “Normal”. Most of us had played together since we were 10 years old for the Napa Saints winning the 2000 Turkey Bowl as Jr. Pee Wees, still the only team ever to do it. All it did was drive us. It made our Captains work harder and the rest followed. It truly brought us together as a team and we became brothers. As cliché as it sounds, that’s what happened. You can have all the talent in the world but if you don’t mesh together as a team and want to work hard with the guy next to you, you will be just another normal high school football team. That’s what I remember about that journey, my teammates, my brothers.
D’Adamo: Now that you are part of the Napa High football coaching staff, what do you hope youngsters learn from you having coached them?
Steen: I think now more than ever, as someone who graduated and played at Napa High it’s important to get back to our roots, our traditions. The things we never went away from, the things that make us Napa High. Things like power football. Things like the Tomahawk Chop. Things like sitting in the front two rows during class. Things that build a community around our school and our town. For the last 25 plus years the Napa High Football program has molded young men to go on and be outstanding members of our community. My job is simple, it’s to carry out and build on the traditions coaches like Coach Mott, Dunlap and Herlocker left before me.
D’Adamo: Within your family, who have been the most influential people?
Steen: I’ve played for a lot of great coaches, but my all time favorite coach is my Dad. He spent his career teaching and coaching at Hogan High and Jesse Bethel High. When I was a kid my Mom, sometimes my Grandpa (see question 7) would rush me down to Vallejo after school on Fridays to take the team bus or meet at Corbus Field where I would ball boy or bat boy for my Dad’s teams. Something people might have confused about me is that when I was growing up I didn’t care about the Napa-Vintage rivalry, I wanted to be down in Vallejo with my dad and watch his teams. Some were very good teams, teams that would come up to Napa and put it on Napa, Vintage and Justin. Some, Vince as you know were very bad teams. But with my dad you really couldn’t tell when he got home if he had won or lost. My dad explained to me very young that the best coaches are never too high with excitement or too low with regret, they’re neutral, right in the middle. That’s how he was and how he acted. Whether he was on the sidelines or in the 3rd base coaches box you could look at his body language and not be able to tell what the score of the game was. That’s something I’ll always take with me. My family influences don’t stop at him though, My Grandfather Bob Steen coached for many years in the valley and was the Athletic Director at Napa Valley Community College. My Uncle Mike Brown was a PE teacher and Coach as well as the Athletic Director at Napa High. My cousin Matt Brown is a teacher and the head baseball coach at American Canyon High. All of whom I’ve learned from and who have influenced me to get to where I am today.
D’Adamo: Name a historical figure, dead or alive, in or out of sports you would most like to meet.
Steen: I believe not to long ago, you performed the same interview with my cousin Matt Brown and I’m going to give you the same answer he did to this question. I would love to meet a lot of historical people in or out of sports but most of all, one more golf lesson or wise words of wisdom from my legend of a Grandfather Bob Steen would be most appropriate for me. When at family gatherings, my cousins and I all go around and tell our most famous story about grandpa. Stories of him and his brothers, stories of him in War, stories about how good of an athlete he was. I didn’t know it when I was younger but my grandpa was a legend. The thing that gets me the most is when I’m out in public and somehow an old timer from Napa finds out that I’m a Steen and they ask if I’m related to Bob Steen, I reply with a yes he’s my grandfather. I then get story after story about not how good of a coach he was, not how good of an athlete he was, but how good of a person he was. How big his heart was and what he stood for. It is then at that moment that I know I am where I’m supposed to be and I’m on the right path. For me coaching in Napa isn’t just a career or a hobby, it’s always been what my life is about, it’s a true calling, it’s the purest form of a “family business” as you can get. My Grandpa is the reason my Dad, Uncle, Cousin and myself do what we do.
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