Education
Born in Bellingham, Washington, Steinbrunner was an all-state athlete in football and basketball at Mount Baker High School, and graduated in 1949.
officer gridiron football player
Born in Bellingham, Washington, Steinbrunner was an all-state athlete in football and basketball at Mount Baker High School, and graduated in 1949.
He played both sports at Washington State College in Pullman, and was the captain of both teams. Steinbrunner was selected in the sixth round of the 1953 NFL draft by the Cleveland Browns. Steinbrunner played in the 1953 NFL Championship Game at Briggs Stadium in Detroit, but the Browns lost 17–16 to the Lions.
Steinbrunner left his professional football career in 1954 after only eight regular season games to fulfill his military requirement.
With a lingering knee injury from his collegiate days and the Browns winning consecutive NFL titles in 1954 and 1955, he later opted to stay in the service. He joined the United States. Air Force, first in the air police and later as a navigator, and in between was an assistant football coach for four seasons at the United States. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs.
Steinbrunner was sent to Vietnam in 1966, and after an injury was offered a safer assignment, which he refused. Major Steinbrunner"s plane, a C-123 Provider, was shot down on July 20, 1967, during a defoliation mission spraying Agent Orange on the jungle forest canopy, killing all five crewmen aboard.
Long unrecognized as the first NFL player to be killed in action in the Vietnam War, Steinbrunner was honored by the Browns on November 14, 2004.
Buffalo Bills" guard Bob Kalsu, a first lieutenant in the United States. Army with the 101st Airborne Division, was killed in action in July 1970.
He was also a member of Reserve Officers Training Corps in college.