Meet the Southwestern Indiana football coach in his 50th season on the sidelines
HUNTINGBURG, Ind. — It was a routine stop on the way home to see his parents.
Steve Winkler was the freshman football coach at Todd County, a high school in Kentucky, in 1977. He was born in Huntingburg but grew up in Bloomington. When he made the trip home, Winkler would swing by his grandmother’s house.
She told him there were teaching openings at Southridge High School. So, he inquired.
“I never had that strong urge to really leave,” Winkler says.
That was 46 years ago. He's spent nearly half of a century since at one school. There's a reason he is synonymous with all things Southridge football, and why coach Scott Buening jokingly refers to “Wink” as a unicorn.
This fall marks the 50th season Winkler, 70, has spent coaching the game he's loved since middle school. There have been highs and lows — more of the former — with the Raiders since 1978. But one constant has remained.
Winkler, the program’s defensive coordinator, has been on the sideline every week in the fall.
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“You cannot think Southridge Raider football, and frankly Southridge High School, without thinking of Steve Winkler,” said Buening. “He’s been at Southridge longer than I’ve been alive. A unique individual and so different than anyone I’ve ever met in my life.”
It’s been a winding road from his start to now. Coaching and, by extension, teaching have always been the goal. Winkler first got the itch in junior high. He based his immediate future around this career.
Winkler graduated from Indiana University in January 1975. He started as the Binford Junior High seventh grade coach in Bloomington from 1974-75 before leading the Edgewood Junior High seventh grade team in 1976. Plus, the one year at Todd County until that fateful visit to Huntingburg.
Fifty years. An unfathomable number in this age at the high school level. Coaches leave the profession for one reason or another. Not "Wink." He was inducted into the Indiana Football Hall of Fame in 2022.
“I had a penciled-in goal a few years ago to get 50 years,” said Winkler, who also has a master's degree from IU. “All the way through high school and college, I wanted to be a school teacher and football coach. The school teaching part was secondary. It was kind of rough getting started but I ended up here.”
The passion for the game can be traced back to his playing days. He was a starting linebacker at Bloomington High School. There was only one school in the city until 1974, during a period only known as "The Streak."
Bloomington won 60 straight games starting in November 1967. There was no state tournament for most of this run. Teams would play 10 games and be ranked at the end similarly to how college football operated. At least that was the case until the first IHSAA postseason in 1973.
Indianapolis Cathedral defeated Bloomington, 32-27, in the program’s first playoff game. Winkler was in college at the time. He felt physically ill for two weeks following that result.
“My school got beat,” Winkler said. “I was so young and immature that we actually believed that we were superior human beings from being in that program. We couldn’t be beat by anybody.”
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He joined the Southridge program in 1978 as a junior varsity defensive coordinator. He moved into the same role on varsity in 1981 and has been there almost every year since. Winkler also was the head coach from 1987-90 during which he compiled a 14-23 record.
The highs are too numerous to count, but a few stick in Winkler's mind: The win over Hagerstown in 1982 earned the program’s first trip to a state championship game. The battles with Bob Clayton and Heritage Hills. The first win against Mater Dei in 2002.
One season stands above the others. Although Southridge has played in the state championship four times, it won its first title in 2017 with a 15-14 victory over Woodlan. The defense forced three turnovers, including an interception that led to the winning score.
The Raiders have won 11 sectional and seven regional titles with Winkler on staff.
“We started small and kept fighting to overcome these obstacles,” he says. “We’re just a small, rural school without any special niche other than our culture and hard work. We keep fighting and finally get our opportunities. We really cherish those.”
Winkler turns 71 next month but doesn’t act like it. He still paces the sideline while barking orders to his defense. Southridge (3-2) has posted two shutouts in the first five weeks of the season.
Buening doesn’t want to think of the possibility of Southridge football without his coordinator. Winkler is already semi-retired as the school’s strength coach, spending only half a day in the building. His resume at Southridge also includes runs with the basketball and golf programs for 20-plus years.
“You’re not going to see guys coaching this many years anymore,” said Buening. “We’ve been to four state championships. The consistent thread is Wink. I could never imagine coming to practice or anything about our program without thinking of him and appreciating him for everything he’s done.”
The day may come soon. Winkler is officially retiring from teaching after this year. No grand plans, but his wife does want to travel. The difficult decision will involve football. Can he walk away from the thing he always wanted to do? If he stays, it’s likely in a smaller capacity.
One thing is certain. Winkler is Southridge football.
“I’ll think more about how I’m going to handle football once football season is over,” he says. “I might leave the door open.”
Steve Winkler career coaching accomplishments
336-203 record as assistant and head coach at Southridge
Indiana Football Hall of Fame inductee (2022)
1 state championship (2017)
4 state finals appearances (1982, 2002, 2006, 2017)
7 regional championships
11 sectional championships
10 Pocket Athletic Conference championships
This article originally appeared on Evansville Courier & Press: IHSAA football: Steve Winkler 50 years coaching Southridge
