12 People You Need to Know in 2016: Dave Steckel

As Missouri State University’s head football coach, the game clock never stops for Dave Steckel. Even in the offseason, with the team in the weight room and staff preparing to hit the recruiting circuit, the former University of Missouri defensive coordinator and 2014 finalist for the Frank Broyles Award – given annually to the best assistant coach in college football – is building a blueprint for 95 players and 21 staff members.

“It’s a big family, and I guess I’m the papa bear,” he says. “I’m not a boss – I like to think of myself as a leader, and if you’re going to be a leader, you have to get out front to pull the wagon.”

His first year was rough. The team finished 1-10 in fall 2015, with no wins in the Missouri Valley Football Conference. But Steckel is confident focusing players and coaches on improving fundamental skills and developing better playing strategies can make a stronger and faster MSU team a competitive force in the fall. Everything from team drills, blackboard exercises and video studies are employed.

With 18 seniors graduating in the spring, Steckel expects to recruit between 13 and 16 incoming freshman from across the Midwest – narrowed from a list of nearly 50 that “bear up” to academic and athletic qualifications. The program’s scholarship budget for this year is $994,217.

With 33 years of coaching experience, including 13 years at MU and stints at Rutgers University, the University of Toledo and Ball State University, Steckel knows talent and success on the field are only one side of the equation.

“We want guys who are dying to graduate from this university and guys who will help us turn Missouri State into a championship team,” Steckel says, noting his game plan depends on cultivating a sense of accountability and discipline within players to work as hard in the classroom as they do on the field. That word family, he says, is not to be minimized and football runs in his blood. Steckel’s brother, Les, is a former NFL head coach for the Minnesota Vikings.

“The one constant in the sport of football is you have to be fair, you have to be consistent, but you also have to be demanding with the players,” says the former Marine. “Coaches are expected to teach players to do the things they don’t want to do in order to make them effective.”

Under NCAA regulations, the staff only has 20 hours per week to work with the athletes – eight in the offseason – but Steckel says it’s more than enough time.

 “In our world, I think all coaches are teachers,” Steckel says. “The only difference is that our students take their exam on Saturday in front of a big crowd.”