California’s Tim Steele was once drafted by the Kansas City Royals. Instead, he chose to pursue a career as a physical education teacher and baseball coach. Photo Credit: Legacy.com
Often, individuals with superior athletic ability go on to become excellent athletic coaches. This is certainly true of James Timothy Steele—known to all as Tim—a baseball player who taught physical education teacher and coached baseball for many years.
Tim was born in Compton, California, on Jan. 20, 1950, and raised in the nearby city of Downey. As a youngster, he played baseball, standing out as a left-handed first baseman.
After his high school graduation, Tim was drafted by the Kansas City Royals, but chose instead to pursue his education by enrolling at Cerritos Junior College. There he led the school’s team to two championships, and was named the All-Conference Most Valuable Player. After two years at Cerritos, Tim was offered a full-ride athletic scholarship to attend the University of California (USC). While playing for the USC Trojans, he scored a 347 batting average, which put him in tenth place in Trojan history. Twice he was named an All-Conference honoree, and twice he was named a member of the All-College World Series Team, in 1971 and 1972.
Tim also represented the United States in the Pan American Games, earning a silver medal. This accomplishment earned him a meeting with then-President Richard Nixon. Tim went on to play four seasons in the minor leagues for the Los Angeles Dodgers.
In 1979, Tim joined the staff at Rim of the World High School in Lake Arrowhead, California. There he worked as a physical education teacher and coached baseball and football. Later, he joined the coaching staff at the University of Redlands in Redlands, and he also completed a stint as a baseball coach at San Bernardino Valley College. By the time Tim retired as an educator and coach in 2011, his career working with young people had spanned 30 years.
Sadly, Tim passed away on Dec. 17, 2022, following a lengthy battle with Parkinson’s disease. To read more about Tim Steele, see this obituary published by Legacy.com.
