Calvin News

One of the most notable figures in Calvin College athletics history has died.

Barney Steen, an educator, coach and administrator for more than 30 years at Calvin passed away on September 23, 2005 at the age of 85. He is survived by his wife of 62 years, Eleanor, as well as Drs. Tom Steen and Libby Rankin of Grand Forks, N.D., Mary and Dr. Dale Terpstra of Holland and Laurie and Steve Pounder of New Era.

Born April 3, 1920 in Prospect, New Jersey, Steen attended Eastern Christian High School and then Calvin College.

He returned to his alma mater in the fall of 1953 after first teaching and coaching at Eastern Christian.

Steen's arrival coincided with Calvin's entrance into the Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association.

Steen, who went on to earn both a master’s and a Ph.D. from Columbia University, stayed at Calvin for 30 years, and during his Calvin tenure he served as a professor, administrator and coach in the Calvin Physical Education Department.

During his first year at Calvin, Steen led the men's basketball team to an MIAA title - the first of six under his leadership over the next 13 years. Steen's tenure as Calvin men's basketball coach was marked by bookend MIAA titles as he also led the Knights to a league title in his final year at the helm in 1965-66.

In addition to coaching men's basketball, Steen also coached men's cross country, men's golf, baseball and men's swimming and diving.

He also served the college as men's athetics director for several years. More importantly, he was instrumental in shaping the Calvin Physical Education Department as several of his former students and athletes returned to Calvin as professors and coaches through his guidance.

One of those individuals was Marv Zuidema who was a freshman during Steen's first year as a Calvin professor and coach in 1953.

"Barney had a knack for picking out people and developing their gifts," says Zuidema who later went on to a distinguished teaching, coaching and administrative career at Calvin. "His philosophy of the teacher-educator role in athletics was what helped shape the Calvin Physical Education Department."

Steen came to Calvin at a time when the college was experiencing rapid growth. With the growth came the move from the Franklin Street campus to the present day campus of what was formerly known as the Knollcrest Farm. The move to the new campus brought the need for new athletic facilities and Steen was directly involved in several projects.

One of his first projects was the construction of a rubber-asphalt track on the new campus in 1960. At the time, the surface was revolutionary and the first of its kind in the nation's far north.

"He was a great guy to work with. Very easygoing but also extremely professional," says longtime Calvin men's athletics director David Tuuk who worked side-by-side with Steen for nearly 30 years. "He was the right man for the job and a real class act when it came time to developing a well thought out system in both physical education and athletics."

Together, Tuuk and Steen worked on developing a fieldhouse for the Knollcrest campus. Behind their direction, the 4,500 seat Calvin Fieldhouse began construction in 1964 and was completed in time for the 1965-66 basketball season.

In 1974, Calvin's swimming and diving facility - the Bergsma Natatorium - was completed. The natatorium was funded largely in part from a generous gift from the Bergsma family. Steen also made a sizable contribution however as he and Tuuk helped organize a concession stand at home Calvin men's basketball games. Included in the concession items were home-made dill pickles made by Steen's wife. The concession area organized by Steen and Tuuk raised $50,000 for the natatorium!

Calvin's swimming and diving team can also trace its roots to Steen. The sport originated as a club in 1959 after a group of students approached Steen about forming a team. Steen agreed to Calvin sponsoring the club and helped appoint its first coach, mathematics professor Carl Sinke. Steen later took over as head coach of the swim team in the fall of 1966 and was still head coach when it became an MIAA championship sport in 1971.

The sport that most fans still remember Steen coaching however is men's basketball. His basketball coaching career was full of highlights. His first three Calvin teams captured the MIAA title. His 1960-61 team not only captured the league crown, but also became the first and only team in school history to go through an entire season undefeated as the Knights finished the year 20-0. As a reward to a loyal group of Calvin student fans that had followed the team to every game that year, Steen allowed the student group to ride the team bus on the way to a late-season game at Adrian and then to a dinner at Schuler's Restaurant on the way home.

His final game as coach was a 79-72 victory over rival Hope at the Calvin Fieldhouse. The victory clinched an outright MIAA title for the Knights and his players carried him off the floor on their shoulders.

Steen's final won-loss total as Calvin men's basketball coach was 188-85. His victory total is the second-highest in Calvin men's basketball history.

During his first few years as Calvin men's basketball coach, Steen played a direct role in shaping the Calvin men's cross country team. Short on runners, Steen infused the Calvin men's cross country team with a fresh wave of talent, instructing all of his basketball players to join the cross country team as part of its fall conditioning.

One of the players was future Calvin president Tony Diekema.

"Part of Barney Steen's training regimen for basketball players during the early years of Calvin's MIAA membership consisted of the requirement that we run with the cross country team, presumably to get in shape," recalls Diekema.

Steen was the first Calvin men's basketball coach to take a team to the West Coast as his 1961-62 team flew out to Southern California for a Christmas break trip.

In the fall of 1963, one of Calvin's non-conference opponents was Northern Michigan University with the game scheduled to be played in Marquette. Always one for great adventures, Steen arranged to have the team fly to its destination.

"We took off from Grand Rapids in a bitterly cold two-engine plane and flew to Green Bay," remembers longtime Calvin professor and coach Jim Timmer Sr., who was a point guard on the team that year "The next was to be Marquette. What Coach hadn't told us was that there was to be an intermediate landing in Iron Mountain, Michigan. This we discovered when the plane began to circle and the flight attendant asked us to look for a person on the ground. It was difficult, she said, to spot the unplowed runway in the UP's snowy whiteness, and this person's location would help us find it. The 12 players in the plane responded by developing an immediate case of severe anxiety, but Steen thought it was great fun."

Steen's sense of fun and humor extended to his later years. This past March, Steen called the Calvin Sports Information office from his winter residence to inquire about the men's basketball team.

When told that current Calvin men's basketball coach Kevin Vande Streek was creeping up on his career win total, Steen quipped: "I guess that means I'll just have to come out of retirement and coach a few games."

Zuidema says that was in character for Steen.

"Barney wrote an academic manual that he used in his classes entitled: Play All Your Lives," says Zuidema. "The theme of the manual was that we should have a playful and celebratory attitude towards everything we do in life. He believed that recreation and play was a wonderful gift that God had given us."

Steen also tried to serve others.

"The phrase 'servant-leadership' has become a popular one and Barney put that phrase into action better than anyone I have ever known," says Zuidema.

Fittingly, a scholarship in Steen's name has been awarded for several years to students entering the senior year at Calvin who are pursuing a major or minor in physical education. Selection is basedon leadership ability, ethical character, academic achievement, ability to articulate a Christian perspective, and service vision.