BVU Baseball Leader Readies for Third Decade on Diamond

February 21, 2020

A t-shirt emblazoned with “Truesdale” on the front hangs in Steve Eddie’s closet, a reminder of his place at the center of “American’s Past-time.”

“I was five years old when I wore it,” Eddie says.

As he pulls on the blue and gold of the Buena Vista Beavers, Steve Eddie expresses gratitude at the ability and fortune of being able to sport a baseball uniform at his place of work, the baseball diamond.

“For 20 years, I’ve been able to put on the uniform and coach the Beavers,” he says. “I don’t take it for granted. I love what I do.”

As Coach Eddie embarks on his 20th season piloting the BVU baseball team, he takes a figurative lap around the bases, starting at tiny Truesdale, the Buena Vista County burg of 78 residents that served as home base for his childhood on the Russ and Gladys Eddie farm. Russ, a 1960 BVU graduate and eventual BVU Athletics Hall of Fame selection, starred at shortstop for the Beavers, playing under an iconic BVU coach, the late, great Jay Beekmann.

“All those relationships and the success our players have enjoyed with their families, that means everything to me.”

Steve Eddie

Russ Eddie coached all the Eddie children at one point. Well into the late 1980s, Russ, then a member of the Iowa Legislature, could be found on Sunday afternoons each autumn, hitting fly balls and sharp grounders to his youngest son at Storm Lake’s Memorial Field.

Steve’s older brother, Rob, earned first-team all-Big Ten accolades in baseball at the University of Iowa. His oldest brother, Tom, played baseball at Morningside College.
 
Steve starred in five sports as a prep at Albert City-Truesdale High School: football, basketball, track, golf, and baseball. He matriculated to the University of Iowa and helped the Hawkeyes claim a Big Ten Conference Championship in 1990.
 
Following his career with the Hawkeyes, he spent seven seasons in the minor leagues, reaching the Triple-A level. He played against four current MLB Hall-of-Famers in Vladimir Guerrero, Larry Walker, John Smoltz, and Barry Larkin.

“I played against Larkin in a Reds’ intra-squad scrimmage in spring training,” Eddie says with a laugh. “We played shortstop for our respective teams. And, no, I don’t think Barry Larkin was worried about me taking his job.”

That didn’t mean the Reds star and others within the organization didn’t, or wouldn’t, learn something about the BV County native. His knowledge and thorough approach led to a coaching offer in the professional ranks.

“Billy Doran and Bob Boone (former major leaguers) asked me to stay in pro baseball and one day manage in the minor leagues,” Eddie says, detailing a conversation from the end of his playing career.

“When I received that offer, I immediately thought about BVU and what Brian Van Haaften had done in turning around the men’s basketball program. I knew that’s what I wanted to do.”

Eddie started as an assistant coach with “VH” in men’s basketball and served for four years in that capacity. He was also an assistant baseball coach for Larry Anderson in the BVU baseball program for one season. In 2001, the baseball team became his, a dream job reached at age 28.

BVU’s first win under Eddie came against Mount Scenario, of Wisconsin. Final score: 11-0.

“The key to getting off to a good start here involved the support we received,” he says. “We had the addition of a full-time assistant coach and the great renovation effort at the field we share with Storm Lake High School. I felt like those additions, plus having the Lamberti Recreation Center for our use, helped make our players better each day in practice, which built more excitement within the team.”

Eddie could make three pledges to every recruit: “I could guarantee each student-athlete they would get better,” he says. “I could guarantee them they’d be taken care of. And, I could guarantee them they’d be surrounded every day by great people here.”

He didn’t simply make those guarantees to baseball players. He’s what you might call an equal-opportunity recruiter; a coach just as likely to visit with a prospective BVU golfer, basketball player, football player, or a sprinter. Anything, really.

“I want everyone to go to BVU,” says Eddie, a 2000 graduate who earned a master’s degree at BVU in 2007.

After a 7-11 league finish in Eddie’s first season as head coach, good for 10th place in the conference, the Beavers earned a 24-14 overall mark, including 15-6 in the league, in 2002. Breakthrough seasons occurred in 2010 and 2011, with the latter seeing a BVU team advance to the NCAA Division III College World Series.

Along the way, Eddie’s clubs have earned a pair of conference regular-season titles and three loop-tournament crowns. He’s been named league coach of the year three times and NCAA Division III Central Region Coach of the year on three occasions. He’s at 443 victories and counting, coming off a 2019 NCAA Tourney appearance, the result of an historic late-season run to the league tournament title, a surge made possible by 41-plus straight scoreless innings by the Beavers pitching staff and its defense.

The 2020 club, keyed by a pair of preseason All-Americans in seniors Bryce Rheault and Gage Smart, was picked second in the American Rivers Conference preseason coaches’ poll.

What matters more than any collection of statistics? Improving, succeeding, and developing winning relationships among alumni, fellow coaches, current players, and more. As pumped as Eddie and his fellow coaches Steve Sonka and Joe Paletta are when it comes to wins and series triumphs, the fire burns as bright for successes players enjoy beyond the shadow of the Victory Arch. 

“Michael Dirkx, he’s going to be a surgeon,” Eddie says of a 2012 BVU alum and former academic All-American. “He could have worked in any hospital in the country as he’s in the top 10 percent of his medical class.”

Then, there’s coach Michael Barta, winner of multiple state baseball titles at Johnston High School; and Concordia University’s Ryan Dupic, the Great Plains Athletic Coach of the Year in 2019; and Nick Beard, a BVU All-American in 2002 (Eddie’s first) who operates Central Sales Lighting in Omaha; and Scott Going, an attorney in Omaha; and Cory Kennedy, Iowa Games administrator, and on and on and on.

“All those relationships and the success our players have enjoyed with their families, that means everything to me,” says Eddie, who, for years has made his home in Storm Lake with wife Stacey and their sons, Mark and Jake, boys who’ve grown up fielding pop-ups and grounders from their dad.

There are other relationships emerging as the dean of BVU head coaches enters a third decade of service atop his sport. Scanning the 2020 roster, one sees a familiar surname and senses how connections often circle the bases in this grand old game.

“Zack Beekmann,” Eddie says, poised to answer a BVU question that’s sure to follow. “Yes, he’s the grandson of Coach Beekmann.”