Steve Borer has worn a lot of hats.
He’s been a coach, a track starter, an athletic director and an author. Now he can add hall of fame member to the list.
“It was a surprise,” he said of the notification.
Borer will be inducted into the 8-Man Football Hall of Fame this summer.
The Seward resident started his career as the football coach at Wheeler Central in 1978. He then went to Brady where he spent 17 years, 16 of them as the head football coach. As the coach, he was expected to yell at the referees, he said.
When he moved into the principal’s role the last four years of his tenure, “I could yell at them with the best of them,” he said with a smile.
When he started coaching eight-man football, he said his style was strict and hard-nosed. He mellowed over time.
“Wins and losses are important,” Borer said. “But there was too much emphasis on them in the beginning. You figure out it’s the relationships.”
It’s hard to get the wins and losses at the high school level.
“At high school, you get what you get,” he said.
Some teams are blessed with great athletes. Others are filled with hard workers. Borer’s teams were “three yards in a cloud of dust,” he said. “There was not much passing.”
At the time, that style reflected what was happening at the college level, he said. It was running back and fullback in an option set.
“I remember the first time we broke the I,” he said. “We got kids who could throw. We do what we have to do.”
He said his first player who passed for 1,000 yards is a coach now.
As time went on, more athletes came in who could throw and catch. That changed the offensive approach, Borer said.
“It’s all back to personnel,” he said. “I was blessed with some pretty good kids.”
Borer usually focused on the offense and his assistant coach, Doug Pearson, worked with the defense.
With long drives to away games, Borer and his staff spent time with the kids on the bus going through the game plan and reviewing things they might see. They also used that time to build relationships with the athletes, he said.
While Borer had some good teams, they weren’t consistently in the state football playoffs. They qualified three times while he was coach. One of the highlights was beating Elwood and Arnold back to back, he said.
Another was playing archrival Maxwell. The first year, Borer’s team beat them at Maxwell.
He remembered one road trip that included two flat tires and an unbelievable on-field performance by his team.
“The kids wanted to win as much as anyone,” Borer said.
In his last year coaching, he had 13 athletes go out for football.
His last four years at Brady were busy – he taught K-12 physical education, served as the 7-12 principal and athletic director and coached football. Something had to give.
“It was a difficult choice at the time,” Borer said.
But he hung up his coaching whistle in 1997.
“It’s hard to believe it’s been 25 years since I officially coached,” he said.
In 1998, Borer moved to Madison and spent nine years with the Dragons. He moved to Seward in 2007 and served as activities director at Seward High for six years. He retired and then spent one year filling in at David City when their activities director battled cancer.
In looking back over his various roles, Borer said Seward is the highlight of his career.
He is officially retired now but still starts track meets in the spring. He enjoys watching the athletes perform and getting a chance to talk to the coaches.
“You never know what you’ll see,” he said.
He also works part-time at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln on its events staff. He’s gotten to see a lot of Husker football practices and meet a lot of the players.
While he was working at Pinnacle Bank Arena, he got to work a Nebraska/Creighton women’s basketball game in which Alyssa Kamphaus and Emily Cady, both SHS alumni, played against each other.
He also works track and baseball and has enjoyed hanging around the coaches.
“I have been blessed. It’s been a lot of fun,” Borer said. “Sometimes Friday nights I miss it.”
While he was on the sideline, he got to coach his oldest son Jeremy for three years. Jeremy is currently at Sandy Creek High School. He didn’t coach James, his other son, as much. Both helped him as student managers, however. James is an MRI technician in Omaha. Daughter Jenny is a volleyball coach at Elkhorn.
While Borer was coaching the high school, his wife Helen took the kids to their activities, he said.
“I couldn’t do it without her support,” he said.
They have four grandchildren – Halley, Landrey, Emerson and Sully.
Being inducted into the Hall of Fame is the icing on the cake, Borer said.
“The book probably had something to do with it,” he said.
With diagrams and explanations, the book gives eight-man coaches information and ideas. Borer and Pearson put together two books on eight-man football, collecting the best plays from the coaches they knew.
“There was nothing out there,” Borer said. “It’s been fun to see where it went.”
The Eightman Football books have gone all over the world, he said. He got emails from people in Malaysia and Europe, asking for copies.
Overall, Borer looks back with a smile.
“I had a good career. I hope I influenced people in the right direction,” he said. “I tried to do positive things.
“It was more fun than it wasn’t.”
