NEW PORT RICHEY — When Steve Winterling was hired to start the baseball program at Pasco-Hernando State College in March of 1991, he only saw the upside of the job.
“There was nothing there,” Winterling said. “It wasn’t like I could come in and destroy anything.”
As Winterling leaves PHSC 34 years later, the baseball program and the school’s entire athletic program are light years ahead of where they were when he first set foot on campus. PHSC now has a nationally recognized baseball program and fields teams in seven other sports. The school’s facilities are top-notch. Much of the credit for all that goes to Winterling.
Without much fanfare, Winterling, 66, recently decided to retire. Winterling spent 27 years as PHSC’s baseball coach. He also began serving as the school’s Athletic Director in 2013. In 2018, he gave up the baseball job to focus full-time on his role as Athletic Director.
“I came in quietly and I’m leaving quietly,” Winterling said.
Well, maybe not as quietly as Winterling thinks. He leaves behind a legacy that includes the rapid rise of a start-up baseball program to sustained success and the growth of the entire athletic department. Although Winterling isn’t the type to brag about his accomplishments, they’ve been noticed by many.
“Steve Winterling was an exemplary Athletics Director for Pasco-Hernando State College,” PHSC President Jesse Pisors said. “His decades of service building a very successful baseball program here and, then on a larger scale, doing the same thing with the whole department constitutes a level of commitment, passion and leadership skill that is increasingly uncommon. PHSC was lucky to have him as long as we did. He has certainly set a high bar for state college athletics leadership.”
Through it all, Winterling made it look easy on the outside. But, on the inside, it was anything but easy.
When Winterling, who previously had been an assistant to legendary Florida State baseball coach Mike Martin, took the PHSC job the school was making its initial foray into intercollegiate athletics. Previously, PHSC had what amounted to a glorified intramural athletic program. In the old days, PHSC (then known as Pasco-Hernando Community College) fielded baseball, softball and men’s and women’s basketball teams at its New Port Richey, Dade City and Brooksville campuses. The teams played each other and played a few games against outside colleges, particularly northern schools, on their spring training trips to Florida. The baseball and softball facilities were primitive (to put it kindly) and the basketball teams sometimes practiced on outdoor courts and borrowed high school gymnasiums for games.
“It definitely was a challenge,” Winterling said. “It was very difficult to recruit in the early years.”
But Winterling somehow made it all work and he did it quickly. In 1994, the Bobcats finished second in the Florida Community College Athletic Association’s state tournament. PHSC became a regular guest at those tournaments and won the Suncoast Conference Tournament six times from 1997 through 2010. After moving to Division II in 2010, PHSC has regularly qualified for the National Junior College Athletic Association Division II District Tournament. In 2014, PHSC made its first trip to the NJCAA Division II World Series and finished fourth and Winterling was named the Regional Coach of the Year by the NJCAA and American Baseball Coaches Association.
Winterling built his teams with a mixture of local talent along with players from outside the area. He formed strong relationships with local high school coaches, including Hernando High’s Ernie Chatman and Tim Sims, Ridgewood’s Larry Beets and Land O’ Lakes’ Calvin Baisley. The pipeline from Hernando High began when Winterling and Chatman bonded in the early years and former Leopards like Landon Hessler, Brent Stentz, Tom Valdez and Donnie Whitehead landed at PHSC.
Sims replaced Chatman as the Hernando coach in the mid-1990s, but the pipeline to PHSC remains intact to this day. Former Hernando High players Michael Savarese and Riley Fisher form the nucleus of the current PHSC pitching staff.
When Winterling decided to give up the baseball job and focus solely on the Athletic Director role in 2018, he left with a 688-581-4 record at PHSC. More than 30 of his players had been drafted by Major League teams. Former PHSC player Lyndon Coleman, who had been an assistant to Winterling, took over the baseball job and Winterling transitioned into a role where he strengthened the school’s entire athletic program. He laid the groundwork for a women’s flag football program that is in its inaugural season. He also has been the NJCAA’s state chairperson for cross country. Winterling was inducted into the Baseball Walk of Fame in 2022 and received the NJCAA Loyalty Award in 2023.
An avid runner, Winterling is in excellent health and maintains a high energy level. But Winterling said the timing was right for his retirement. PHSC’s athletic department is on strong ground and Winterling has plenty of outside interests. He and his wife, Christine, took a trip to Chicago for Valentine’s Day weekend.
“For the last 40 years or so, I was always tied up with baseball on Valentine’s Day,” Winterling said. “It was nice to finally be able to relax and enjoy it.”
But relaxation isn’t high on the agenda for Winterling’s retirement. In the early weeks of the new chapter of his life, Winterling has been cooking, cleaning and working on some projects around the house. He continues to run daily and he and Christine plan on spending lots of time with their four grandchildren. He’ll continue to closely follow all the sports teams at PHSC.
“Steve leaves a lasting imprint on Pasco-Hernando State College,” Coleman said. “The biggest and best things about Steve are his integrity and consistency. He’s always done the right thing. I wouldn’t be in the situation I am today without Steve. He’s been like a second father to me. But it’s not just me. It’s the hundreds of others whose lives he touched and what he’s done for the entire college.”
