Hank Steinbrecher, Who Helped Elevate Soccer in the U.S., Dies at 77

Hank Steinbrecher, a soccer evangelist from Queens whose passion as a top United States official in the sport helped usher it into the American mainstream and who, in a previous career in marketing for Gatorade, helped popularize the ritual in which victorious players douse their coaches with coolers of sports drinks, died on Tuesday at his home in Tucson, Ariz. He was 77.

His death, from degenerative heart disease, was confirmed by the United States Soccer Federation, of which Mr. Steinbrecher was secretary general from 1990 to 2000.

Sunil Gulati, who was president of the federation from 2006 to 2018, said in an interview that Mr. Steinbrecher’s biggest legacy was having American soccer “be more respected at the national and international level.”

In the fall of 1990, the federation, the sport’s national governing body, had little money and was run by volunteers. It was in dire need of professional administrative expertise.

The United States men’s national team had just played in its first World Cup in 40 years, in Italy; the U.S. had recently been chosen to host the men’s World Cup in 1994; and the nascent women’s national team was about to emerge as the pre-eminent international power.

Later that year, Alan I. Rothenberg, a Los Angeles lawyer who had been the soccer commissioner for the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, became president of the federation, and he hired Steinbrecher to be secretary general, his top lieutenant, impressed by his credentials: Mr. Steinbrecher had been a collegiate player, coach and manager of the soccer venue at Harvard University during those Games (Olympic soccer is played in stadiums across the host country). And, crucial to bringing a business and commercial sensibility to the federation, he had been director of sports marketing for Gatorade.

Mr. Steinbrecher had joined the company in 1985, around the time Jim Burt, a New York Giants nose tackle, dumped a cooler of Gatorade over the head of Coach Bill Parcells following a victory. Burt’s antic was meant as payback for what Burt considered harsh treatment by Parcells at practice. But Gatorade dousing became an act of celebration for the Giants, especially throughout the 1986 season, as the linebacker Harry Carson kept soaking Parcells after victories, which ended with the Giants’ first Super Bowl title, over the Denver Broncos.

Bill Schmidt, then the vice president of worldwide marketing for Gatorade, said in an interview that with Mr. Steinbrecher’s input, he had sent letters to Parcells and Carson during the playoffs that season, thanking them for sustaining the ritual that gave publicity to Gatorade. Enclosed for each was a $10,000 gift certificate to Brooks Brothers and a tongue-in-cheek suggestion that they spruce up their wardrobes.

“So it became synonymous with victory,” Mr. Steinbrecher said in 2021 to the journalist Michael Lewis, who operates the website FrontRowSoccer.com. “And you can’t ask for better marketing than that.”

When Mr. Steinbrecher joined the national soccer federation in 1990, it needed all the marketing help it could get. At the time, Mr. Rothenberg recalled in an interview, the group’s headquarters were squirreled away in a trailer at the United States Olympic training center in Colorado Springs. Mr. Steinbrecher was charged with moving the office into two historic mansions in Chicago to help upgrade the federation’s image.

He soon set about the country to proselytize for the sport, trying to galvanize its passionate but disorganized grass roots network. He spoke to local and state soccer associations with such amiable and fervent enthusiasm that Mr. Rothenberg gave him the nickname Reverend Hank.

During Mr. Steinbrecher’s tenure as secretary general, the soccer federation evolved from an essentially mom-and-pop operation into one that helped elevate a sport once considered by many Americans a game for immigrants. It laid the foundation for professional leagues for men and women in the United States and helped secure a spot for the U.S. on soccer’s international stages.

In 1994, the United States hosted the men’s World Cup, held in nine cities; it remains the largest attended world soccer championship, with 3,587,538 spectators and an average of 68,991 per match. In 1991, the United States team won the inaugural Women’s World Cup, played in China. And in 1996, the American women won the gold medal before huge crowds at the Summer Olympics in Atlanta.

Then, in 1999, the United States hosted the largest sporting event ever held for women, filling N.F.L. and college football stadiums for the Women’s World Cup. The tense final match, between the U.S. and China, drew 90,185 fans to the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif., while an audience of 40 million tuned into the game on American television.

When Brandi Chastain scored the winning penalty kick for the Americans — whipping off her jersey in exultation and creating one of the most indelible images in the history of women’s sports — Mr. Steinbrecher was photographed appearing to leap into the air, arms raised, fists clenched and mouth agape in celebration.

But beneath the celebrations tension simmered between Mr. Steinbrecher and American players, many of whom did not believe that he treated the women’s team equitably despite its success. A bitter contract dispute had led the American women to strike before the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, and they would strike again before the 2000 Games in Sydney, Australia. The federation had appeared so unprepared for the women’s success in 1999 that the team’s players organized their own victory tour.

“I think people lacked vision in that era for what women’s soccer could be,” Marla Messing, the chief organizer of the 1999 Women’s World Cup, said in an interview. To be fair to Mr. Steinbrecher, she said, “he was in the majority, not an outlier.”

He was stung by the criticism; he had considered the development of women’s soccer among his proudest achievements. “I worked tirelessly for the women’s program,” he told Soccer America magazine on leaving the federation in 2000. “I remember going to the board of directors when it wasn’t very popular and asking them to support $1.8 million for the women when we didn’t have it.”

Henry William Steinbrecher was born on July 11, 1947, in Queens and grew up in the hamlet of Levittown on Long Island. His father, William Francis Steinbrecher, worked as a janitor. His mother, Helen Ida (Hammer) Steinbrecher, worked in a jewelry store and played in a softball league. Both died in the early 1970s.

Mr. Steinbrecher is survived by his wife of 53 years, Ruth Anne Steinbrecher; his sons, Chad and Corey; a stepdaughter, Shawna Moss; a sister, Mary Sirakowski; and five grandchildren.

Soccer imbued Mr. Steinbrecher with wanderlust. He began playing at age 6 and was known to take the Long Island Rail Road, the subway and buses to play with club teams in Brooklyn and Queens. He starred at Division Avenue High School in Levittown and won a small-school national championship in 1970 as a defender with Davis & Elkins College, in West Virginia. He earned a bachelor’s degree there in English in 1971 and a master’s in education in 1972 at West Virginia University, then coached at Warren Wilson College and Appalachian State, both in North Carolina, and Boston University.

Soccer for him was sacrosanct. When the coach of Costa Rica’s men’s national team, in an unhinged tirade, threatened to travel to Washington in 1997 with a missile to kill President Bill Clinton if the coach’s strategy for a World Cup qualifying match against the United States was revealed by the news media, Mr. Steinbrecher called the White House to report the matter.

His most memorable soccer moment, for his family at least, occurred while playing with his sons at the family home outside Chicago in the 1980s. One Thanksgiving, Mr. Steinbrecher took a shot on goal in the yard, but it went high. The ball crashed through a dining room window and landed on the table just as his wife was setting out the turkey.

All was not lost. Referring to National Lampoon’s family vacation movies of the era, Chad Steinbrecher said of the turkey, “I think we salvaged it in true Griswold family style.”