The ‘Vince Lombardi of Brandon Football’ Doug Steeves has died at 80.
Steeves spent 41 years as a coach and started programs at Vincent Massey, Crocus and Neelin.
He guided the Plainsmen to the Wheat City’s only Winnipeg High School Football League championship in 1987.
"Football was his great love," said son Mike Steeves, the current head coach of the Vincent Massey Vikings. "You really have to become a team and in a sense that’s a family. I think of the friends that I had in high school, the people that I talked to most had something to do with football and the people I had hang around with nowadays have something to do with football because it has such a big footprint."
Steeves was inducted in the Manitoba Sports Hall of Fame in 2005, and in 2013 was enshrined into the Manitoba Football Hall of Fame.
Mike believes it was the little things that his father took the most pride in.
"Seeing kids that maybe didn’t have anything to look forward too at home, but worked their butt off on the football field. To find that little bit of happiness, to find the joy between the sideline to sideline. I think that was it, the winning never meant anything to him because I don’t think he had a great winning record," said Mike with a laugh. "He was all about the friendships."
