Steve is a 1985 graduate of Kiski Area High School where he was a state qualifier his senior year in cross country. He also earned All-WPIAL honors in cross country that same year.
He followed his former high school team mate (me) to Robert Morris College. He was the first All Conference runner (the first ever conference meet took in the fall of 1986) finishing 3rd in the ECAC Metro Conference. The next year, Steve won the Conference meet as Robert Morris won their second consecutive team championship. He is still the only RMC/RMU runner (male or female) to win an individual conference championship. The first conference track meet (indoor only at this point) was held in 1988 and Steve was All-Conference in the 1500 meters with a time of 4:00.2. He repeated the feat again his senior season in 1989.
Steve was inducted into the Robert Morris Athletic Hall of Fame in 1994.
Following graduation, Steve ran well, winning several road races in the Pittsburgh area and earned a spot on Asics Pittsburgh. He has 5K road personal best of 14:58 and a 10K best of 31:16.
He always wanted to run a marathon, so on four weeks of training (after a few years of not running) he ran the 1998 Pittsburgh Marathon in 3:21.
The summer after Steve graduated high school, we started training together. Right away, I knew that I liked him. Not just as a training partner, but as someone that I could hang out with. The first time I went to Steve’s parent’s house, I couldn’t believe the hill he had to run up to finish every run. When Steve came to Robert Morris, he was my roommate. We quickly started making up tougher and tougher workouts, (our coach, Bruce Frey gave us a lot of latitude with our track workouts). One day we did a 3 mile warm up and 32 x 400 with a 400 jog in between, and a 3 mile cool down. 22 miles, all on the unbanked 200 meter indoor track in the Sewell Center. We saw everyone that did a workout that day.
A year after I graduated, we got an apartment together and pushed each other almost daily. We lived together for four years, that was by far the best running of my life. I don’t think I have ever told him how much I appreciated his friendship and being a great team mate both at Robert Morris and for Asics Pittsburgh.
Thanks “1-der”!
N of 1 Running 