La Cañada community center honors longtime tennis instructor ‘Coach Joe’

Joe Steckermeier had no way of knowing in 1986 that a tiny card pinned to a job board at Glendale Community College would set him off on a career path that would still be going strong into the 21st century.

But that’s exactly what happened when the then 27-year-old followed up on the lead for a substitute children’s tennis instructor at the Youth House, better known today as the Community Center of La Cañada Flintridge.

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Steckermeier had been playing tennis since age 5, and getting paid to pursue what was already a talent and a passion seemed like a pretty sweet gig, so he applied.

“I was just out of college looking for a job, and I’d always liked working with kids,” he recalled.

When he learned what the center really needed was a soccer coach, he left his job at the Paradise Canyon Elementary School daycare program, read up on the rules of what at the time was an unfamiliar sport, grabbed a whistle and headed out to the fields.

Later in the season the need for a tennis instructor arose yet again, and Steckermeier got the job. Last week, community center staff members celebrated the 30-year anniversary of “Coach Joe,” whose talents have extended well beyond his sport of choice into nearly every aspect of life there.

“His footprints should be in the concrete here — he really is what a community center is supposed to be about,” said Executive Director Maureen Bond. “He’s so wonderful and so gentle, and he’s really engaged with the kids. We’re so fortunate to have him.”

To mark the occasion on Wednesday of last week, Bond and colleagues gifted Coach Joe with a few kids rackets and a net full of brand-new tennis balls that he immediately took to the courts across Cornishon Avenue to his 3:30 p.m. class of 4- to 6-year-old students.

Tennis coach Joe Steckermeier, who has been teaching tennis to children and youth for 30 years at the Community Center of La Cañada Flintridge, works with some of his students at the tennis courts in La Cañada Flintridge, on Wednesday, May 25, 2016.

(Raul Roa / Staff Photographer)

“This is what tennis balls look like when they’re brand new,” he later told the kids when they expressed puzzlement at the brightly colored objects.

In his time at the center, Steckermeier has taught a range of youth sports, including soccer and T-ball. His art degree from UC Santa Barbara, came in handy when he was teaching children’s art and adult oil painting, when he led several ceramics classes and taught a class in watercolors and when he ran his own mural-painting business.

He’s also taught cooking and Mommy and Me and has led summer programs both at the center and through the Assistance League of Flintridge on a number of topics, helping kids build bridges out of toothpicks and conceive contraptions designed to protect falling eggs.

“I’m a man of many hats,” he said. “It started small, then I guess when people know you’re good at things, it builds and builds and builds.”

The combination of curiosity, flexibility and a 2007 teaching credential from Cal State L.A. also served Steckermeier well in his eight years working as a substitute at various schools throughout Glendale Unified School District. There, too, he’s taught practically every class under the sun in grades K through 12, including calculus, Korean and Italian.

But nowhere is Steckermeier’s mark more apparent than at the Community Center of La Cañada Flintridge. That’s where he painted a mural of Roger Barkley — whose name once graced the center — on an interior wall, where he’s mixed glazes and fixed the plumbing, worked on electrical systems and advised staff members on the location of the circuit breaker or how to turn off the sprinklers.

“If I have any questions, I will call Joe to get an answer,” said Program Director Amanda Balcazar. “His job is so much more than a paycheck. He is the living history of the community center. I really am humbled by his commitment to us.”

While he’s thought about pursuing a permanent teaching position, the Glendale resident says he’s content to take life one day at a time, continuing the gigs while being a husband to florist wife Renee, father to 15-year-old Glendale High student Karl, an avid stamp collector and Death Valley adventurer.

Whatever comes, Steckermeier hopes to always keep his connection to the Community Center, the place that’s not only given him work, but a means of helping others.

“The center is there for the community. People come here and do something, they learn and it grows. It’s something that adds to their lives,” he said. “It’s a very special place.”

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Sara Cardine, sara.cardine@latimes.com

Twitter: @SaraCardine