Jim O'Donnell: From Mount Prospect to 52 years with the Bucks, John Steinmiller rolls on

A LITTLE MORE THAN A DECADE AGO, Theo Epstein wrote a memorable essay for The Boston Globe suggesting executives should change jobs every 10 years to stay fresh.

John Steinmiller must not have been copied on the memo.

That's because when Billy Donovan's Bulls begin their playoffs cameo at Milwaukee Sunday afternoon, the Mount Prospect native will be in the midst of his 52nd season with the Bucks organization.

That's 52 - as in 1970 to 2022.

Richard Nixon, the breakup of the Beatles and turn on, tune in, drop out to red-blue pop politics, the recent Grammy haul of Jon Batiste and mind-numbing personal electronica for all.

Not quite a run - an absolutely otherworldly run.

"John has seen it all," said Brian McIntyre, the longtime Sr. VP/Communications for the NBA.

"His career with the Bucks really mirrors that of the league itself. When he started in Milwaukee, front offices were eight or nine people, some smaller than that. Sports marketing was in its infancy.

"While he started in PR, the small staff size allowed John, and many of us lucky enough to have a league or team job in those days, to learn other areas as well. As he grew, so did the Bucks. Or vice versa. Either way, both benefited."

Both have benefitted to the extent that a franchise with an approximate worth of $2 million in 1970 is now estimated by Forbes to hold a value of $1.9 billion.

Along his "Bango the Buck" way, Steinmiller - long the team's vice president of business operations - saw fresh-faced Kareem Abdul-Jabbar lead championship No. 1 in 1971 and was still on the sidelines last spring when Giannis Antetokounmpo and crew crafted franchise title No. 2.

Perhaps most importantly, the St. Viator High School grad (Class of '66) has never, ever forgotten how to be nice.

• • •

"My family's house was right in downtown Mount Prospect, very close to St. Raymond's," Steinmiller said. "I think the first great adventure of my life was when I was age 6 or so and some friends and I dared to cross the tracks alone and see what the Mount Prospect train station was all about."

He had four brothers and three sisters in a very Roman Catholic household. His interest in organized athletics greatly ratcheted up by the time he was enrolled at St. Viator.

"I knew I was not going to be the next Ron Santo or Billy Williams," Steinmiller said. "So I became a manager for the football and baseball teams. And then our incredible spring of 1965 hit."

The fledgling St. Viator - opened in 1961 - was about to graduate its first four-year class. Coach Len Sparacino and the Lions seemed to have a good but hardly memorable varsity baseball team.

Then two sophomore pitchers named Bob Stevens and Jerry Donahue suddenly caught fire in the state tournament.

The Lions blasted their way to the Illinois High School Association championship game in East Peoria. Only a brilliant performance by Al Smith of Peoria Manual - later a star playmaker in the American Basketball Association - kept St. Viator from the crown.

The Lions lost the championship game, 4-2.

"But that sequence brought the overpowering magic of sports dead center in my mind," Steinmiller recalled. "And then all of that only got taken higher when I started seeing what Al McGuire was doing with the basketball program at Marquette."

• • •

Steinmiller went to Marquette to major in marketing. He served two summer internships at major league Chicago ad agencies.

And then his grand magic moment came midway through his senior year on the near West Side of Milwaukee.

"Some friends and I were sitting in the old Student Union around lunchtime. Another pal came in and said, 'Hey there's a posting on the 'Jobs Board' for some kind of gofer thing with the Bucks.'

"We all kind of chuckled and I said, 'Not for me.' But I could always use some extra money so I went and looked. The job paid $5 an hour and said something like, 'Front office assistant, approximately 12 hours per week.'"

Steinmiller yanked the notice off the wall. He went downtown to the Bucks office. He was hired.

No one could have any idea the organizational phenomenon that was being hatched that nondescript day.

"My very first assignment was to change the daily lettering on the marquee at the old Milwaukee Arena. It was real mechanical, entry-level stuff."

But it was also a mystical first step.

• • •

For Steinmiller's first full season as a "helper" - 1970-71 - Abdul Jabbar was in his second season in Milwaukee and the Bucks were in their third in the NBA.

With a supporting cast including Oscar Robertson and "Mr. Fourth Quarter" - Bobby Dandridge, Milwaukee blew to a 66-16 regular-season record and 12-2 in the playoffs. They swept Wes Unseld, Kevin Loughery and the Baltimore Bullets in The Finals.

"Fastest rise of an expansion team to a championship ever," Steinmiller said. "With Kareem and all, we knew we were going to win every night."

But the dynasty never morphed and the challenges of being one of the smallest markets in an ever-growing NBA were only beginning.

And Steinmiller has been there for it all.

• • •

By age 23, he was the team's PR chief. His responsibilities began to meld with other business channels when new owner Jim Fitzgerald and associates bought the team in 1975.

Abdul-Jabbar played out his six-year rookie contract and quietly asked to be traded after the 1974-75 season. Management constructively acquiesced and dealt him to his targeted Lakers in a blockbuster deal.

"Kareem was so professional and respectful through all of that," Steinmiller said. "He wanted to be in a city that was larger and offered the sort of opportunities that he felt would enhance his growth as the person he wanted to be. He stayed so candid and confidential with the team's decision-makers so they could max out his trade value."

Ironically, the Bucks made the playoffs the year after Abdul-Jabbar left and the Lakers didn't.

Still, the team needed some kind of emotional epicenter. One year later it got one when Don Nelson took over as head coach.

"We continued to have some great players like Brian Winters and Marques Johnson and Bob Lanier," Steinmiller said. "But 'Nellie' made it all work.

"Later with people like Sidney Moncrief and Paul Pressey, we were an Eastern Conference contender every year, even to Michael Jordan's early years with the Bulls. But every spring we had to get by both Boston and Philadelphia to make The Finals. Both teams were so loaded then. And we never beat both in the same spring."

Off court, more dire matters were happening. The market size wasn't helping, Fitzgerald - after a disastrous try at cable TV with Bud Selig and the Brewers - wanted to sell and the NBA kicked up the pressure for the Bucks to get out of the 11,000-seat MECCA.

Enter the angels - Jane Bradley and Herb Kohl.

• • •

Bradley was the fabulously wealthy heiress to a Wisconsin-spawned industrial fortune. At the time, she was married to former Blackhawks play-by-play man Lloyd Pettit.

In 1985, she announced that they would fund the impressive new arena that became The Bradley Center.

Kohl - of the department store Kohl's and later a U.S. Senator (1989-2013) - announced he would purchase the Bucks to keep them in Milwaukee.

"It was amazing how Jane and Lloyd and 'The Senator' stepped up," Steinmiller said. "There is such a specialness to Milwaukee and its many legacies as a sports town. All three were clearly acknowledging that and giving back."

Under Sen. Kohl, Steinmiller's star rose to stratospheric proportion.

Kohl's Bucks had three distinct parts: the financial, which was managed primarily by experts from his core corporation; the basketball, which was headed by Nelson in the dual role of GM/head coach; and the day-to-day business operations.

Part No. 3 became the purview of Steinmiller, who was promoted to VP/business ops by the quietly patriarchal Kohl.

In a 2009 conversation, "The Senator" said: "So many things crossed John's desk. And he did so much. I don't know if I ever had a man who could work harder and stayed on top of so many things. He (made) my ownership of the Bucks work."

That ownership worked everywhere but in the tries for a second NBA title. George Karl had a couple of editions that came close to The Finals. But in the end, extremely talented players like Glenn Robinson, Ray Allen and Michael Redd simply couldn't get it done.

In 2014, age 79, Kohl sold the Bucks to a group headed by current owners Wes Edens, Marc Lasry and Jamie Dinan for a reported $405 million

Steinmiller was in his 44th season with the organization.

• • •

He lives in a wonderful home on Lake Michigan in a tony suburb four miles away from the $1.2 billion Fiserv Forum.

Steinmiller and wife Corinne - the former Corinne Nierman - were married on St. Patrick's Day, 1979.

At the time, she was assistant to Ted Haracz, the Bears director of public relations. Haracz and Jim Finks appointed her to be director of The Honey Bears. (Cathy Core was chief choreographer.)

They have two children. Son John H. Steinmiller is Senior Director of Media Relations for the Blackhawks. Daughter Mary Kate spent 16 years in fashion in New York City before accepting a job as Brand Manager for Nieman Marcus in the Los Angeles market.

John H. and his Kate have the lone grandchild, the beloved Nola.

Through it all, Steinmiller has never forgotten his old St. Viator pals. That roster includes people like Paul Pomplun and Tom Fox, the late Mike Miller, Tom and Eddie Cunningham, the late Mike Dubay.

When any of those chums ever needed Bucks tickets, "Steinie" somehow came through.

Miller once said: "John went after touching stars that the rest of us never even dreamed about. And he did it. Based on absolute, unfailing niceness, I never met anyone who deserved good things more."

The man himself will only grudgingly acknowledge his autumn. He will freely admit to an extraordinary degree of gratitude.

"My goodness, look at all I've been blessed with," Steinmiller said. "My wife, my kids, our granddaughter, my friends, the incredible association with so many people through the Bucks and the NBA and the Milwaukee community.

He steadfastly will not compare the championships of Abdul-Jabbar and Antetokounmpo.

Of both, he will say: "Both are great basketball talents. But more importantly, both are great human beings. They are so universal in their thinking. Both want harmony, whether it's about winning basketball games or achieving a greater sort of planet Earth."

McIntyre, now the grand retired sage of NBA imaging, had the final words:

"I can't think of many team people who know and love their market as well as John. His name is synonymous with the Milwaukee Bucks.

"A good people person who success has not changed.

"What an absolute pleasure to have been associated with."

• Jim O'Donnell's Sports and Media column appears three times weekly, including Thursday and Sunday. Reach him at jimodonnelldh@yahoo.com.