As former Bears quarterback Steve Stenstrom prepared for his first start with the 49ers two weeks ago, the significance of the day was much greater than anything pertaining to his profession.
It was Nov. 10, and the 49ers were putting in much of their game plan to face the New Orleans Saints. It was the biggest study day of the week for Stenstrom.
And it was also his younger brother’s birthday. Jeff Stenstrom would have been 24.
“I don’t think Steve ever stops thinking about him,” said Pete Stenstrom, their father. “It was right when he was getting ready to start for San Francisco and it was a tough day for him. He was acting as the starting quarterback and going through the emotion of thinking about his brother. I don’t think it ever leaves him. We don’t expect it to, nor do we want it to.
“He talks about Jeff a lot and I think it’s even more special through the holidays and football season.”
Steve and Jeff were three years apart but inseparable in every other way. Not only were they the only two children of Pete and Linda Stenstrom, they also were best friends.
Steve, the record-setting quarterback from Stanford, was days away from being selected by the Kansas City Chiefs in the fourth round of the 1995 NFL draft. Three days before he was chosen, he flew to Ithaca, N.Y., where his brother had contracted spinal meningitis the spring of his freshman year at Cornell.
Four days later Jeff was dead. Steve did not see himself get drafted; it really did not matter. Nothing else mattered at that time in his life.
“I guess other people do this, but I always thought, `What would happen if something happened to somebody close to me? How would I react?’ ” Steve said.
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“You don’t know until it happens. Jeff was in a coma the whole time. We thought he would come out of it and he never did. There’s no question that was the toughest time I’ve had to go through as a person. At the same time I probably learned more about myself and my life through that experience.”
Steve always has been serious, studious and conscientious. He had a quarterback’s mentality, while Jeff’s personality reflected the football position he played: middle linebacker.
“He had more of a crazy side to him,” Steve said. “He was the more daring of the two of us. I was always a little safer, stay between the lines, so to speak. He was always one to step outside the boundaries.”
While he was at Stanford, Steve wished he could have watched more of his brother’s games at El Toro High School in Lake Forest, Calif. He often checked up on his brother’s progress with El Toro coach Mike Milner.
“They were very close–probably much closer than most brothers,” Milner said. “Steve really took an interest in Jeff’s career. I talked to him quite a bit about Jeff when he was at Stanford. He always wanted to know how Jeff was doing.”
Jeff went to Cornell, where he began on the freshman team and worked his way up to the varsity for the final four games. Today the Jeff Stenstrom Award is given annually to Cornell’s most improved freshman football player.
Just two months after Jeff’s death, a charity golf tournament was held in his honor in his hometown in Southern California. In five years, the tournament has raised $150,000. It provides two scholarships to scholar-athletes annually at El Toro. The foundation has also contributed $50,000 to build a playground at the children’s pediatric pavilion at Mission Viejo Hospital.
On Monday Steve will make his third consecutive start for the 49ers, who look to snap a six-game losing streak against the Green Bay Packers. When he received the first start of his professional career last season with the Bears, his thoughts instinctively shifted to his brother.
“The hard part is thinking about all the things he would be doing, having graduated from college last year and getting a job,” Stenstrom said. “Those are the times that it really hits you. You kind of don’t let yourself go there because then it gets more upsetting. He and I were best of friends. When I started in Chicago last year, when I got a chance to play, I just know how excited he would have been.”
Steve and his wife, Lori, have a daughter and the couple is expecting another child soon. He knows he has a lot going for him and football is just one aspect of his life. It is his job, but it does not define him.
Jeff’s death “changed my whole life,” Steve said. “I became a Christian my freshman year at Stanford, but it wasn’t until I came to the issue of life and death that I really realized that our relationships and our family are really the only important things in our lives.”