A leader is defined as a person who leads or commands a group. Not everybody is cut out to be one, and some players would rather follow instead. Irving Steele is not a follower — he started leading the first time he stepped onto a football field.
“I’ve been playing since I was seven — I love to lead,” Steele said. “I like to try and be the best. I’m not the biggest, I’m not the fastest, but if I can be the best and get guys to follow me doing the right thing, that’s what I do.”
Steele hails from Fort Lauderdale, Fla., but came to Idaho this past spring after spending two seasons at Ellsworth Community College in Iowa Falls, Iowa.
In his first year at Ellsworth, Steele was team captain and earned first-team All-Conference honors in the Midwest Football Conference. He repeated those feats as a sophomore and finished the season with 110 tackles, which ranked eighth among all junior college defenders.
The transition from junior college to Division I is no easy task. Steele said the speed has been the biggest difference.
“It’s a lot faster but the thing is football doesn’t change,” Steele said. “As long as you’re working hard, competing and keeping up with the competition, football is football.”
Steele hasn’t been in Moscow long, but his impact can already be seen. Idaho coach, Paul Petrino, said Steele has already emerged as one of the best leaders on defense.
At 6-foot-1 and 222 pounds, Steele isn’t the biggest linebacker, but he quickly proved his worth, as he led the team with 38 tackles in the three spring scrimmages.
“You can’t lead if you’re not playing good and he’s been playing good,” Petrino said. “He plays with great effort, flies around and we’re just really happy to have him.”
The new linebacker is a welcome addition to a defense that surrendered an average of 46.8 points per game last season. Steele said the defense has made huge strides since spring and has grown closer as a unit, which has led to everybody making better plays.
“We’re definitely brothers out there,” Steele said of his teammates. “In the spring we had a couple of players acting like they didn’t want to be here, but it’s different now and I really think we’re going to be a good team now.”
With his transition on the field going smoothly, the biggest challenge left is getting comfortable with his new home. Idaho and Florida don’t share a lot of similarities, but the biggest difference for him — mountains. Steele said he had never seen mountains before moving to Moscow and said that he’s ready to go on a hike soon.
“Honestly, football got me here,” Steele said of his journey to Moscow. “I would never have thought I would be on this side of the country. Football got me here and I’m loving it. I’m meeting new people and it’s really humbling, it’s changing me and making me a man.”
Korbin McDonald can be reached at [email protected]