Leigh Steinberg to host sports agent academy in Newport Beach

Leigh Steinberg turns 70 next March, but the Newport Beach sports agent does not appear to be slowing down.

“Seventy is the new 30,” Steinberg said recently from his office on West Coast Highway. “I feel like Benjamin Button. I’ve got this Fitbit, and you can’t sit at your desk too long before it gives you subtle reminders. We’ve got plans for me to write another book.”

Steinberg has built his business back up since his well-documented battles with alcoholism several years ago. He’s proud of personal advances made since then. He recently shared a Facebook post with his followers that starts with “3,000 days on the sunny side of the street,” the amount of time that he has been sober.

On the professional side, Steinberg said he currently represents 25 football players, including Denver Broncos quarterback Paxton Lynch and Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes. He also plans to branch back out to representing professional baseball and basketball players. Yet, he also clearly wants to influence and be a mentor for the next wave of agents.

“Newspaper clippings, fame, all of that fades over time,” Steinberg said. “What you’re left with is, are you a good father, a good son, a good brother? Did you leave something of value in the world? That keeps me rolling and motivated.”

Steinberg is getting ready to host an all-day agent academy for aspiring sports agents at his office on Saturday. He has been doing them for the last three years, an idea started by Steinberg as well as Steinberg Sports Chief Operating Officer Chris Cabott, who also will be presenting at the academy.

A look around Steinberg’s office shows the value of the agent academy. His director of operations Jay Joshi, who recently became a certified professional basketball agent, attended the academy three years ago. Steinberg’s intern Safvet Besen, a 2016 Corona del Mar High graduate, attended last year.

“I’ve spoken on over 80 campuses, and as I would go around, the desire of young people to be involved in sports was huge,” Steinberg said. “They could be working for a team, a league, a conference, an athletic department. They could be working in sports journalism or sports television, marketing, working for a players’ association or public relations. In business and law school, they teach you the principles of those vocations, but not really practical skills.”

Practicality is at the heart of Steinberg’s academy. Attendees will be taught listening skills, as well as how to recruit. Steinberg said one of the exercises is to recruit a college athlete and his parents, adding that Jayon Brown, a former UCLA linebacker who now plays for the Tennessee Titans, will be playing the part of the recruit.

“We have a negotiating exercise, where half of them play general managers and half of them play player agents,” Steinberg said. “They have a unique set of facts and a laundry list of what they’re trying to achieve, and then they go at it. We also teach about marketing, branding and the impact of social media. We do a crisis control exercise, where the attendees have to craft a press release or stand up in front of a press conference, to defend whoever the most recent troubled athlete or team is.”

Registration for the agent academy is available at www.steinbergsports.com/agent-academy and costs are $250 for students and $450 for professionals. The academy will run from 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. on Saturday.

Steinberg said people as young as 12 and as old as 70 have signed up for his agent academies in the past.

Not that Steinberg, who said he’s close to starting a podcast, considers 70 too old. He said a filmmaker is currently following him around for a documentary called, “The Tree of Leigh.” A possible movie is in the works based on his book, “The Agent: My 40-Year Career Making Deals and Changing the Game.”

Staying busy is a good thing for Steinberg.

“I made a decision to be public about the struggles I went through, in the hope that it might help somebody else who is struggling,” he said. “My dad had two core values. One was to treasure relationships, especially family, and the second was to try to make a difference in the world and help people who can’t help themselves. That’s the motivation behind all of this.”

matthew.szabo@latimes.com

Twitter: @mjszabo