The Fortuitous Fall: Renowned Throws Coach Steve Lemke's Unanticipated Journey to Prominence
Thursday, October 8, 2015 | Track and Field
GAINESVILLE, Fla. – Battling the long, brutal winters of Fargo, N.D. as a teenager, becoming an All-American javelin thrower never crossed Florida track and field associate head coach Steve Lemke's mind. Neither did tutoring eight Olympians and eight collegians to 13 NCAA Division I championships over a 30-plus-year career coaching track and field's throwing events.
Entering his junior year of high school, Lemke had never even picked up a javelin spear.
He golfed all spring, football consumed his summers and falls, basketball held him over until the frigid, snow-laden months passed and warmer weather returned. His girlfriend at the time, a javelin thrower, convinced him to give it a whirl. None of his first attempts were worth discussing.
The next year, despite zero training between his junior and senior seasons, Lemke recorded the state's longest throw, shattering his previous personal best by nearly 40 feet. Shortly thereafter, he accepted a scholarship offer from South Dakota State, a Division II program with a two-man coaching staff and only a grass field—not the synthetic runways utilized in competition—for its javelin throwers to practice on.
Day after day Lemke studied the javelin. In the pre-YouTube era, books and physics, a subject he had a knack for, were the only tools at his disposal. Dissecting the mechanics and science of throwing fascinated him.
His tireless research and countless hours of self-coaching culminated in a fifth-place finish at the 1983 NCAA Division II Outdoor Championships. Two of the men who beat him were 1984 Olympians.
"That's sort of what threw the light switch on for me, because (coaching) was not the plan," said Lemke, noting he thought about earning a master's degree in kinesiology or exercise physiology, or venturing into high school administration. "If I could get better at it, maybe I could help other people do that too.
"I just sort of fell into coaching."
Following graduation and a semester of student teaching at Washburn (N.D.) High School, Lemke received an unexpected offer.
Washburn announced the addition of track and field in the summer of 1983, but it never got around to hiring a coach before the school year commenced. It needed someone right away. Luckily, Lemke, still in the midst of evaluating his future aspirations, required a job.
Everything lined up perfectly.
"You learn a lot about how to make and develop teams at (the high school) level. You have to go out in the halls and you get what you get," said current Florida track and field head coach Mike Holloway, a former high school coach himself. "I think that's a big reason why he's successful. He's come from the grassroots of the sport."
***
There's an old adage about exceptional talent making coaches look like geniuses. And Lemke's remarkable aptitude for recruiting elite-level athletes, particularly those from continental Europe, is unmatched.
Were it not for his willingness to make in-person appearances when recruiting foreigners, Mariam Kevkhishvili, one of the greatest shot putters in Division I history, would've never left Georgia, a Eurasian country about the size of West Virginia. Numerous schools sent letters and e-mails. Lemke was the only one who visited her homeland.
"(My father) was so protective and worried about letting me go overseas," Kevkhishvili said. "After (Coach Lemke) came and met my family, my dad felt a little better. He was willing to go out of his comfort zone and get to know me.
"That's what made my decision."
Kevkhishvili was one of Lemke's first recruits at Florida, where he'd landed in 2005, after spending nine years as a national throws coach and coordinator in Norway and Australia.
Under his watch, she developed into a five-time national champion, something only one other female shot putter in Division I history can claim. The two continued to work together even after her collegiate career concluded, with Lemke coaching her through the 2008 Olympics and 2009 IAAF World Championships.
Today, he calls her the daughter he never had. Kevkhishvili says, after all these years, he's a part of her family.
Kevkhishvili may have been Lemke's first stud at Florida, but she's just one of the numerous international success stories and national champions he's recruited and mentored.
During his 20 seasons as a full-time assistant or associate head coach for throws at the collegiate level, six Europeans account for 11 of the 13 national championships won by Lemke's throwers at University of Texas-El Paso, where he got his first taste of international recruiting back in 1990, Arizona State University, and, now, Florida.
Along with Kevkhishvili, Croatia's Stipe Zunic (shot put) and Netherlands' Evelien Dekkers (javelin) captured national titles for the Gators under Lemke's direction. There's also three-time SEC Champion and 2012 Olympian shot putter Kemal Mesic, a Bosnian native Lemke met purely by chance while scouting another European thrower, and Serbia's Marija Vucenovic, the SEC javelin champion and NCAA Championships runner-up finisher in 2013. Their efforts were vital to Florida's five team national titles from 2010-13.
Six of Lemke's international athletes have totaled 12 Olympics appearances. Come 2016, the number will surely grow.
That group doesn't even include Nick Hysong, an Arizona State pole vaulter Lemke guided to the 1994 national title. Competing for the United States, Hysong won a gold medal at the 2000 Olympics and took bronze at the 2001 IAAF World Championships. Although the two weren't working together at the time, he cited Lemke's influence as a driving force behind those performances.
But Lemke does much more than merely collect talent.
Among his peers, he's renowned for molding Florida's developmental walk-ons into conference champions and All-Americans. Those athletes account for several of the Gators' 28 SEC throwing titles since Lemke's arrival in 2006—nine more than any other SEC program.
Jeremy Postin and Jayla Bostic came to Florida as shot putters. Postin left as a two-time SEC champion, four-time All-American, and school-record holder in the weight and hammer throws. Bostic is a two-time All-American weight thrower who's focusing solely on the hammer throw for her final season of eligibility. David Triassi had no idea how to execute the hammer or weight throws as a true freshman in 2010. He won conference titles in both events and earned All-America honors in the weight throw his senior year.
The pupils Lemke discusses with the utmost pride are the grinders, those unbelievably hard workers that persevered to eclipse expectations.
"You get those athletes and you don't know how it's going to turn out," Lemke said. "When they contribute big, with an SEC Championship or scoring at the NCAA meet … those are the highlights. Mariam, as good as she is with five national championships, you get to expect that after a while. But those other people, they didn't have to put in that time. They weren't on big scholarships.
"I really respect that. Those are moments I'll never forget."
Lemke's ability to tailor unique training regimens for each athlete is his key to success.
Florida's decathletes, heptathletes and pentathletes have been some of the biggest benefactors. All-around athletes aren't always well rehearsed in the throws. They require specialized workouts, unlike those given to the team's throwers. Thanks to Lemke's assistance Florida owns six SEC titles in the all-around events since 2009.
"He can work with the best of them and work with someone who's never thrown before (like me) and make them great," said Gray Horn, a three-time SEC decathlon champion, one of three in conference history, at Florida. "You don't find many coaches like that."
***
There's a lot more to coaching than results. For the well-respected ones, at least. At the collegiate level, the profession is as much about teaching life lessons, caring for young people who are fending for themselves for the first time in their lives, and providing them with unwavering support and confidence as it is about winning championships.
Lemke's athletes, past and present, expressed that he's always there for them. Through the best and worst of times, they know he has their backs. Some even labeled him a father figure.
"I try to be that person for them," Lemke said. "They know they can call me 24 hours a day with anything, and I'll answer the phone and make sure they're taken care of. That's part of the job. It's good to hear them say that."
Fawn Miller knows this better than most of the Gators Lemke's mentored. Having sustained a gruesome injury in a motorcycle accident during the 2012 season, Miller, nearly 1,000 miles from her family and friends in Stoneboro, Pa., didn't know if she'd walk again, let alone throw.
Lemke remained by her side the whole time, routinely making hospital visits, always carrying optimism with him.
When she could throw again, he exuded patience and altered training exercises to reshape her mechanics. Two years after the ordeal, Miller won the 2014 javelin national title.
"He's a great guy," Miller said. "He really carried me through. Him taking the time to figure out how I needed to throw because of my injury was something really important to me."
Another moment symbolic of how passionately Lemke cares for his athletes came at the 2011 SEC Outdoor Championships. Horn needed to run the 1,500 meters in 4:37 or better to break the school's decathlon record. Leading the race after two laps, his legs felt heavier and heavier, until…
"It's one thing to have Coach Holloway yelling at you, because you hear that every day in practice," Horn said. "But once Coach Lemke stood up, came up to the fence at the track and yelled, 'Come on, you're running for a record!' … I got it in gear. Without him, I wouldn't have that record today."
Most importantly, Lemke builds an unbreakable trust with his athletes. Presently, this is largely through positive reinforcement, and a much lighter, humorous demeanor.
"It's funny, a few years ago, Marija (Vucenovic) told me she was a lot more relaxed when I was smiling and a little happier. I tried that, and it seems to work," Lemke said. "If they feel a little more relaxed, I think they'll perform better. I'm out there so long every day that it better be fun. I've heard that a lot recently … that I was getting softer. I don't know if I'm just getting older or mellower."
Some of Lemke's former pupils have gone on to join the coaching ranks, passing down his lessons, training methods and philosophies to their athletes.
Hysong's mentored at least three of America's up-and-coming pole vaulters. Horn is an assistant coach at Tiffin University, a Division II program in Ohio. Kevkhishvili was an assistant coach at Ole Miss for two seasons before returning to Gainesville as a volunteer assistant earlier this year. Mika Laaksonen, a weight and hammer throw national champion for UTEP during Lemke's tenure, has coached his alma mater's throwers since 1999, eventually becoming head coach in April 2010.
"Steve Lemke's influence transcends him," Hysong said.
For someone who fell into coaching and almost never picked up a javelin spear, hearing that must be astonishing.
