June 24, 2024
By Evan Lepler

On Monday afternoon, about 42 hours after the Detroit Mechanix snapped their historic 81-game losing streak with a 25-14 win over the Pittsburgh Thunderbirds, I got on the phone with Brent Steepe after his franchise recorded its first win in over seven years. The Mechanix’s embattled, resilient, and mysterious owner and head coach has made it his mission to persevere through years of futility in order to earn the exhilarating satisfaction that came with Saturday’s cathartic result. 

Conversations with Brent are often different than chats with other coaches, but there’s no doubt that his words, tone, and spirit are always oozing with passion. He has defiantly continued to grind against seemingly insurmountable odds, relentlessly steering his team despite a near constant barrage of external skepticism and mockery.

Consequently, I felt it was important for the frisbee universe to see exactly what he had to say. 

Below is a transcript, edited slightly for clarity and concision, of our nearly 40-minute conversation. 

Evan Lepler: Congratulations on breaking the streak! How are you feeling on this Monday that’s different than any other Monday you’ve had in a long time?

Brent Steepe: How am I feeling? That’s a great question. I am so happy for the program and the team and my guys, and what this means to so many people. We’ve had this conversation a million times, I’m the one who hates to lose, and I’m beaming for [my players]. And I’m ready to get to the next [game]. 

I appreciate the moments; I’m not one to linger in them. I know that there’s a lot more that can be done even this season for the Mechanix and a lot more that will contribute to a more prolific ultimate resume than what we’ve occupied presently. That’s kind of where my focus is. 

Don’t mistake it, there’s definitely joy. There’s a joy in work that’s well done. There’s a joy that’s in helping people see something through to a successful conclusion, but my personal agenda, far from over.

EL: What stands out most to you about Saturday night, just starting with the game itself and how y’all played your best game of the year and maybe your best game ever?

BS: I would definitely say not maybe ever, I think [it was our best game] ever. We played as a complete team with complete athletes. We all realized, I think right from the beginning, ya know Terry [Gaither] shot some videos in the morning that he didn’t show anybody until after that game about how [Saturday] was the day. I reached out to [the CBS News Correspondent who did a feature on the Mechanix earlier this month] Steve Hartman and told him that tonight was the night. We all knew. We were all connected before we even made it to the locker room.

And there are certain rituals that different teams have, the pregame fits and that sort of thing. As a coach, I never really participated in that ever just because I was always setting things up and what I didn’t realize was, for people who have different learning styles and love languages, I was disengaging myself from some of my athletes who [for them], that was a big part of what we were doing. So we have fit video where myself and my son are dressed in gigantic shark suits, and we’re literally hopping on fins coming into the gate as our fit. I’ve never done anything like this [before], but the connectivity that was felt just because we’re paying attention to each other, checking in with each other. 

Our game was won when the week started, not when the game started or when the game ended. It was won throughout the week because we were one throughout the week. Just to feel that, I’ve had that in so many other sports journeys, and I’ve had that with my high school in Colorado. I had never had that in this way with the Mechanix. It just never felt the way that it felt this time. And we knew it. We could see it. The writing was on the wall. The evolution was there. We talk about growth as more of a stock market, ups and downs with the trend being your friend and always growing in the right direction. We had very precise goals and very simple concepts. Stick to the plan. I as gonna call the sets and all of us were gonna believe. And even if we didn’t believe that we could, we were going to play that belief game, and believe regardless and make it happen, and that was it.

EL: How do you have such sincere, genuine belief, you and your whole team, when you’re riding an 81-game losing streak? I imagine there have been moments in the past 81 games where you had belief when you woke up in the morning and the same result happened, so what was truly different about the mindset going into Saturday compared to the mindset you’ve had the past seven years? 

BS: As a leader, some times you have to manufacture a mindset. All the times, you have to find your why, and in some cases it’s one reason in a sea of 1,000 reasons to stop or to quit or to not believe The difference about this week is there wasn’t one singular reason. There were so many reasons.

We had a three day venue change, which is why we ended up in Hudsonville.

Pittsburgh was a promise that Sass [aka Kevin Coulter, one of the three Mechanix players who tragically passed away in a 2020 car accident while traveling to practice] and I made to each other, that that was the game that got away from us, and that was the game we were going to win together. We’ve never beaten Pittsburgh before. It was the only team in our division that we had never beaten. There were just so many things that just kept stacking up, and instead of looking at those at negatives, you begin to see the clear path as to why that’s exactly why this is gonna work.

A lot of times when I do things with people in business or in life, or heaven forbid, once in a while, just for kicks, I’m the guy who’s crazy enough. That’s how I’m known. If anybody’s going to do it, it’s gonna be [me]. That was this week for me. Every morning, I knew. Every check in with every athlete, they check in with me on Monday, Wednesday, Friday before the game, and Saturday before they get in. Physical, mental, emotional, number one through seven. If there’s anything less than a six, I’m calling them up and finding out what’s going on and how we can make it better. That’s the type of experience, that’s the type of group and family that we’ve created from people that were strangers three months ago.

EL: I need to ask, how much of your belief and confidence was either initiated or helped by the fact that you knew that Pittsburgh was shorthanded and not at its best and that this was a real opportunity for you?

BS: Well, I actually had a long conversation with [Thunderbirds GM] Andrew Gardner. I was upset that we weren’t getting the roster that we would normally see. And Andrew offered to me, he said, I’ll go on record and say that that this is a healthy Pittsburgh roster, these guys have been practicing. He said, if you want me to go on record and say I’m confident in this Pittsburgh squad, I’m more than happy to. 

That was enough for me. I didn’t need for him to put that in print anywhere. I knew, however, it wasn’t going to be a situation where we could win just by a single goal or a questionable ref call or something like that. When we were gonna win, we were gonna win big. That was one of the things that we needed to do so nobody could take it away from us. 

I talked it over with the Commissioner. I said, do you think in all of this that people are gonna try to take that away from us somehow? And he said, absolutely not. He said, If that’s the roster that Pittsburgh sends, if that’s the best they have to offer, you’ve been in that situation. You’ve sent rosters that probably weren’t your best foot forward either. These are the choices that they make, and a win’s a win. 

They beat us by nine coming into the season and we beat them by 11 coming out of the season. I do believe a different roster could make a difference, absolutely. At the same time, the way that my guys were playing, they played out of their mind.They literally played out of their mind. Because of that, we’ll never really know, but I know our guys would be up for playing Pittsburgh another time, and I know they’ll be looking forward to it. 

EL: You’re up by three at the half, you’re up by four at the end of the third quarter, you obviously start off the fourth quarter well, what was it like for you on the sideline in the fourth quarter? Did you maintain your complete and total focus on the game as if it was 0-0 or did you let yourself go emotionally and realize that yes, this was going to happen?

BS: Just like my expectation of the players, and you’ll see it even on the closing points, Justin [Wollin], who holds the disc last, is waiting for it to be declared a victory so he can celebrate because every single sideline call continued in its consistency. Every single direction, tight defense all the way through. If you listen back on the tape, you’ll hear what’s left of my voice, screaming to not back down on anything. We kept continuing to be who we’ve grown to be all the way through. It shows the discipline and growth of the program and the athletes, and myself. I’m a very emotional person. I hide that a lot because I have to with everything that I do, yet watching them maintain their composure and wanting to be continue to be disciplined inspires me to be disciplined. We have a beautiful self motivating culture because we’re busy role modeling the culture for other people.

You know how much flak I’ve taken better than anybody. You’ve read it, you’ve seen it. Hell, to be 100 percent direct and honest, you’ve had your doubts too. 

EL: I’ve contributed to it. There’s no doubt.

BS. Yep, and that’s fine. All I know is this. I thank you for doubting, because it’s fed me for so long. Not just your doubt, but many people’s doubts. The motivations of people are different. How I operate is you tell me that I can’t and I’m going to show you that I will. 

It doesn’t mean I need someone to just dog on me 24/7/365, but it does mean that I need somebody to challenge me and say you can’t do this, and then I say, game on. And I want that to be a part of the culture of anybody who looks back at the story or this ride, however long it goes. I want people to look back and understand what true purpose and intention and resilience and determination looks like. However that motivation comes, it may not be the way that we want, but when it comes, don’t let it go, lock it down, give it direction, because when you get on the other side of it, it’s worth it. Because for every person who’s told me that I that I can’t or I shouldn’t or I won’t, I’m at peace with everything they’ve ever said. 

Until you accomplish something like that, there’s no way to just silence the noise. And now it’s quiet. It’s beautiful. It’s so quiet.

EL: But you also have [another] game on Saturday [against the Minnesota Wind Chill]. 

BS: We do, and so we’ve accepted our new role. We’re going to continue to grow, and some of that growth may come at the expense of other teams in the form of a spoiler. And that’s where we are. All we are going to continue to do is grow as team, as a program, and as a family.

Like the shark I dressed up in for pregame, when a shark’s given a purpose, that purpose is usually hunger. There eyes go closed, there mouth goes open, and they eat up everything in their path. And that is exactly what I’ve positioned my guys to do. We have purpose, the vision’s already clear, and we are just going to continue to chew our way through the rest of the season.

A coach is a sacred responsibility when done correctly because so many people look to you in so many ways for so many things, and you have to learn just as much from them as they learn from you so that relationship can be symbiotic and meaningful for everybody. And I think a lot of that gets pushed past and it’s all about wins and losses and tough locker room speeches and everything else when real coaching is about taking the call at 2:00 AM that no one else will take. Or hearing the doubt in somebody’s voice when you know they’re ready to break out and giving them a few choice words that allow them to see themselves in a different light and inspire that confidence and get things started again. 

EL: Quick follow-up: Why the shark costume pregame?

BS: All of the lines that we have use animal names. The shark is characteristic of being a fearsome attacker with singular purpose. We have a shark offense and a shark defense for when we need to get the job done. On this day, everyone needed to be a shark. 

EL: What do you remember most about the silent postgame huddle remembering [Michael Cannon, Kevin Coulter, and Drew Piet], the three Mechanix that you honor every time you take the field? 

BS: The fact that it was Pittsburgh, the fact that we hadn’t been doing those circles, we stopped those circles because we had so much turnover that very few people actually knew the players that we were remembering. And trying to get somebody to remember a story when a handful of us had lived it, it was starting to create a different kind of feel and vibe. So what we did instead, you come into the program, here’s the story, these are the gentlemen we lost, they’re never forgotten. When we break the streak, we’re gonna break it down for the boys. 

And we did. We didn’t just say their names and numbers, like we’ve done in the past. This was much more meaningful about togetherness and brotherhood and the promise of tomorrow, and the energy that we put forth, which made it much more important to everybody and much more really that this is truly a family. And we might be disjointed and dysfunctional, but what family isn’t?

EL: I’m sure you could talk for a long time about every player that played and contributed in the game, but let’s start with Terry and what he’s meant to you and what he’s meant to the team as a leader and as a player at 37 years old to have the best game of his career on Saturday. 

BS: That’s every big brother’s coming of age story, isn’t it? Where you look at the little brother and know that one day I know you’re going to transcend everything that you thought possible that you are capable of. 

When I met Terry—do you know how I met Terry?

EL: Yes, I know you met at him when he was with the AlleyCats and had a nagging injury and you were asked as a strength coach to take a look at him. 

BS: Correct, and he decided that he wanted to come and check out Detroit, and we spent a little more time and he decided he wanted to come play for me and he’s never looked back.  That loyalty comes with a heart and an energy and a drive and, my goodness, a smile. Terry is just liquid energy, man. He is an amazing human being, an amazing captain, an amazing leader, and someone who other captains and leaders have overlooked many times in the past. Yet in the right environment, he has more than come into his own. He has more than surpassed any expectation I’ve had for him and any expectation I think that he had for himself. And he continues to grow, and it’s powerful to watch. 

He’s talented, he’s genuine and honest in a way that encourages everyone to be accountable, which is huge, because some people are just so honest that it’s polarizing, but that’s not Terry. Terry is all about care tactics, not confrontations. And that’s it.

Our hearts this year on the Mechanix are huge because everybody wants everybody to do better, to do more, to be more, to live more, to love more. It is crazy. The culture is crazy. I couldn’t have set an expectation like what we have. 

EL: Great stuff on Terry. Who else in the game on Saturday and for what they’ve meant to the team this year stand out most to you?

BS: That’s always a hard one when you make me try and pick people. In this particular game, there was a lot more growth. Colin [Beauregard] has been an amazing individual that has chosen to grow and stay with the Mechanix when he was, by his own admission, at tryouts he was like where in the world did everybody go and why am I still here? It was great. He dared to believe and continue believing in what we had started. He and I only had a year under our belt, not even, together. An amazing contributor, a very passionate individual, and always pushing us for more, always pushing us to be greater in a more visceral way. Where Terry has heart, Colin is visceral and he will push back in a way that challenges us all to be better.

Then you have Carson [Chamberlain]. Carson’s kind of the quiet delivery man who will come through. He won’t say very much, but you can tell by his actions, by what he does every single week, how much he loves the organization, how much he loves all the guys, and is just a phenomenal athlete on the field. 

I could give you something about every single person on this roster and not run out of things to say, not have to embellish anything, and they’re here for it, for the short haul and the long haul. Maybe another program cast them out. Maybe another program told them they’re not good enough or maybe they just didn’t know anybody and wanted to see if they could do something in the UFA. And somehow they ended up on our doorstep and they found what they were looking for and they stuck it out. We’re not doing anything else other than continuing to the walk the journey that’s been outlined for us, and it started with Saturday.

EL: Last thing for now. You play Minnesota this Saturday, you have three more games after that. I can’t imagine if you finish 1-11 with a four-game losing streak at the end that it’s gonna be all positive, happy, cheerful vibes heading into the offseason because of one win. You can tell me I’m wrong about that, but I don’t think finishing 1-11, even though it’s better than 0-12, is where you want to be. So what do you want to see from your team the rest of the year and what do you believe is possible?

BS: First of all, nobody thought we’d be having this conversation. So let’s put all expectations aside. What I want from my team is growth. I want them to understand that when they play their best game, they not only have a right to be in the league, but they can hang and/or beat other people in this league, in our division, and I want them to be aware and acknowledge that they belong in the Mechanix family in the UFA. 

Our role from here on out is simple: we’re spoilers. Our division is a very tight divisional race. The game we just played could be the determining factor of whether or not Pittsburgh can make the playoffs, depending on records, depending on how everything shakes lose. If you think we’re not gonna spoil some other people’s [seasons], you don’t know me very well. I told you, once we started, we’re just gonna continue to ramp up. 

There are big goals, and there are big plans, and the offseason’s already started to fall together with the schedule, and we’re just gonna keep going because that’s what I promised would make everything ok. We’re just gonna keep going. 

This is Part I of a special three-part Tuesday Toss, recapping Detroit’s victory and all the rest of the Week 9 slate across the UFA. Parts II and III will be published later today.