Steve Lemke is retiring at the end of the 2021 outdoor season as Florida's longtime throws coach. (Photo: Tim Casey/UAA Communications)
Lemke Savors Journey On A Coach's Road Less Traveled
Friday, April 2, 2021 | Track and Field, Scott Carter
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By: Scott Carter, Senior Writer
FLORIDA – Named Steve Lemke throws coach for women's track and field.
GAINESVILLE, Fla. – If you scanned the transactions wire deep in the Sports section of your local newspaper on the morning of July 2, 2005, you could have come across the above announcement. It would have been easy to miss for even the most astute readers, buried on a page of agate type full of Major League Baseball box scores, standings and other slapdash information.
That is the way life often goes for a throws coach, even one as accomplished as Steve Lemke.
But make no mistake, the 60-year-old Lemke's impact on the Gators track and field program is one head coach Mike Holloway has cherished for the past 16 years, a working relationship that is set to end at the end of the 2021 outdoor season.
"My time with the Gators has been some of the most memorable years of my professional life... and although I am moving on to the next chapter of my life, I will forever be a Florida Gator." - Coach Steve Lemke
— Gators Track and Field & Cross Country (@GatorsTF) March 29, 2021
"He crushed it,'' Holloway said. "I can replace the coach, but you don't replace a friend."
Florida's program has ascended to new heights since Holloway took over both the men's and women's programs in June 2007, winning a combined nine men's indoor/outdoor national championships over that span, often with the less-heralded throwers setting the tone by chipping in with key points at the championship events. The road to those points started in the thrower's pit on UF's campus, visible to joggers and drivers along SW 2nd Ave.
The scene is familiar to close observers: as the sprinters and hurdlers practice on Percy Beard Track, site of this weekend's Pepsi Florida Relays, the throwers are off in the distance under the watchful eye of Lemke.
"I can't even imagine adding up the number of hours that have been spent over there in that corner," Lemke said. "I'll drive by now and won't have to look to see what's going on."
As Lemke reflected on his decision to retire from coaching and enter private business recently inside his office at the Lemerand Center, he recalled getting a call from late UF coach Tom Jones in early 2005 about an opening at Florida. At the time, Holloway coached the men's team and Jones the women. Lemke, who had recently returned to the U.S. after seven years coaching in Australia, spoke to Jones about the job and later accepted the position.
However, the day before Lemke was set to come to Florida, he got a call from Jones, who told Lemke that the cancer he had had battled in the past had returned.
"I understand if you don't want to come,'' Jones told him.
Lemke never considered that option.
"A year and a half later, he passed away,'' Lemke said. "That's how I got here. The best thing I ever did, I think. This is home by far more than any other place."
Lemke's big break came as a young coach at Southeast Missouri State in the mid-1980s. He saw an opening at Yale and decided to apply with the blessing of head coach Joey Haines, a legendary figure in track circles and inducted into the USTFCCCA Hall of Fame in 2014. He got the job, spent two years in the Ivy League, then moved on to the University of Texas El Paso and Arizona State. Next, fulfilling a life-long desire to live overseas, Lemke moved to Australia in 1997 and served as throws coach for the Australian and Norway national teams during that span.
Gators throws coach Steve Lemke, left, with a pair of his prized pupils: AJ McFarland, center, and Thomas Mardal. (Photo: Tim Casey/UAA Communications)
When Jones died at age 63 in March 2007, former UF athletic director Jeremy Foley re-evaluated the program and made what turned into a breakthrough decision. He united the men's and women's teams into one program. Lemke wanted the women's job.
Instead, Foley named Holloway the head coach of both programs. Before that time, Holloway and Lemke knew each other only from their time together with the Gators and were not close friends and bowling partners as today. Holloway credits Lemke for the way he made a situation work that other coaches might not have been willing to.
"He's just a good person,'' said Holloway, whose trust in Lemke prompted him to eventually name him Florida's associate head coach. "People don't realize that Steve wanted to be the women's head coach. Jeremy made the decision to combine the programs. Immediately, Steve said to me, 'Look, I'm your guy. Yes, I wanted to be the women's head coach, but I'm your guy. We can do this together.' He was that guy every day.
"He grinded every day and made it work."
The Gators hit their stride soon thereafter and Lemke's tutelage of the throwers paid huge dividends. He has too many fond memories to name them all, but a couple of firsts have always stood out: former Gators All-American Mariam Kevkhishvili winning the first of her five national shot-put titles at the NCAA Indoor Championships in 2009, and the Gators men's team winning its first national title at the 2010 NCAA Indoor Championships.
Both Lemke and Holloway recall looking at each other and saying: "We've done it."
Over the years, the moments have piled up on Lemke's list, including Thomas Mardal, who was crowned NCAA Indoor national champion last month in the weight/hammer throw.
"I've had a good run,'' he said. "I'm glad I'm finishing here. I can't imagine working someplace else. I never really was interested in looking at another job. It's been fun knowing you have a job that 99 percent of other coaches would love to have. Everyone wants to beat the Florida Gators, but they would also love to be a Gator."
Lemke has come a long way from his days as a javelin thrower at Fargo (N.D.) High, taking up the sport primarily because his girlfriend at the time also threw javelin. He worked on his craft and became an All-American in the event while at South Dakota State. One move led to another, and one year bled into the next.
Along the way, a distinguished career formed.
"The plan was to get a doctorate and probably teach at a university,'' he said. "I was very interested in physics, in biomechanics and a post-doctorate. The coaching went well and Yale University offered me a full-time job. How do you turn down a Yale? I went there and never looked back. I liked it from the beginning.
"It was not the career path I thought I was going to take but it's been a good one."
Lemke said he plans to remain in Gainesville and is in the process of forming a business with his wife. First, he wants to finish his coaching career with perhaps another milestone moment to add to the collection.
Holloway has shared many of those with his longtime colleague over the past 16 years. In some ways, Lemke and his throwers served as the bridge that brought the Gators together on the biggest stages.
Kind of like that conversation between the two when Foley united the programs and named only one head coach.
"You would probably call what Steve has done here as the glue'' Holloway said. "We never had quite enough to get over the hump. The throws kind of became the glue."
One reason why Lemke's looming departure is much more notable than his arrival was.
