County football teams to honor Steinbrenner this fall

Posted Aug 13, 2010 by Bill Ward

Updated Aug 13, 2010 at 09:02 PM

To honor the memory of legendary New York Yankees owner and longtime Tampa resident and benefactor George Steinbrenner, Hillsborough County’s public school football teams will place his initials on the back of every player’s helmet for the entire season.

The letters “GS” will be seen on the helmets as a small, circular sticker. The stickers have been distributed to county head coaches and should be visible everywhere in Hillsborough by the time Kickoff Classic games get underway Aug. 27.

Steinbrenner passed away last month after suffering a heart attack in his Tampa home. He was 80.

Friday at Hillsborough’s afternoon practice session, Terriers coach Earl Garcia displayed the stickers for the first time.

“This area owes so much to the Steinbrenner family and this is just one small way to show our appreciation for what he and his family have done,” Garcia said. “As far as I’m concerned, we could leave his initials on our helmets perpetually. Obviously, there’s already a high school named after him but after he stepped in and helped ensure that middle school sports kept going (during the 1990s), I can see naming a middle school after him, too.”

Steinbrenner’s contributions to area middle and high school athletic teams were wide and varied, most of which he wanted to keep out of the media. He stepped in and made a major contribution to the completion of Tampa Catholic’s football stadium and never inquired about naming rights, Crusaders coach Bob Henriquez said.

County athletic director Lanness Robinson said the stickers with Steinbrenner’s initials are “just one way to pay tribute to a great man and show our appreciation for the many things he and his family have done for our area.”

In a more public show of his appreciation of high school coaches, Steinbrenner was the man behind an annual event that came to be known as the “Coaches Prom” at the downtown Tampa Hyatt. The county’s private and public school coaches are invited to the 21-year-old event, at which they can win such things as a car, cash prizes and vacations.

Steinbrenner also replaced stolen equipment for the Interbay Little League youth baseball teams, aided in the purchase of commemorative rings for the University of Tampa’s first national baseball championship and paid for lights at the old Red McEwen Field so South Florida’s baseball team could play night games in the 1970s.