In January 1992, Steele sat at the Bradenton, Fla., home of Tommie Frazier, playing spades with prep prospect who would become one of the NCAA’s most revered option quarterbacks in history.

Frazier’s mother, in particular, loved spades. Steele, a Nebraska assistant, was winning handedly when the time arrived for an assistant coach among Frazier’s other suitors — Notre Dame, Syracuse and, ironically, Clemson — showed up for his scheduled appointment.

“His mom said, ‘I’m not letting you get out of where without whipping you,” Steele said. “She said, ‘You make sure as soon as they leave, you come back.’

“I actually sat down the street so I could see the house. They were in there about an hour and a half, then they left. I pulled back up in the driveway, and we played spades about three more hours. You felt like you had a pretty good chance.’”
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