Why being a part of Gamecocks football staff is ‘a dream come true’ for Justin Stepp
Growing up, Justin Stepp used to have to draw straws with his sister and twin brother to see who would get to go to South Carolina football games on Saturdays.
Stepp won’t have that problem these days. His next appearance at Williams-Brice will be a part of the Gamecocks coaching staff. Shane Beamer hired Stepp, a former standout at Pelion High in Lexington County, to be on his first coaching staff.
Stepp fought back tears in his introductory press conference about what it meant to be back in South Carolina and coaching the team he watched while growing up. He remembers wearing a Robert Brooks’ No. 87 jersey, and he was sitting in the right corner of the end zone for “The Fade” when backup quarterback Erik Kimrey hit Jermale Kelly on a pass to defeat Mississippi State, 23-19, in 2000. Stepp and Kimrey are now part of Beamer’s first staff at South Carolina.
Stepp regularly signed up for football tickets that were given to high school players. He did his best to get recruited at South Carolina, but that never happened.
Now he’s on the other end of things at a place where wanted to be all along.
“This is it. There is no other job in the country I would have left for than to be right here in Columbia,” Stepp said in January. “... To be here is a dream come true for me and my family.”
Driven to succeed
Sports was a way of life for Justin and his twin brother, Josh, who is now the tight ends coach at Georgia State.
Tim Stepp, their father and a former assistant coach at Pelion, said his two sons had a passion for competition, and it was hard to get them inside the house most nights.
On Thursdays the day before high school games, dinner at the Stepp home featured steaks on the grill and breaking down the next night’s matchup. Everyone was involved in the process, including their sister, Jessica, who played softball and basketball in high school. Tim Stepp said his wife also would chime in and give advice to her husband and sons.
“It was a family affair, and that was all we did,” Tim Stepp said. “Everyone was vested, and it was a lot of fun.”
Tim made a master key for his two sons so they could go up to the school and work on their game. The two also spent many hours watching film with their dad and trying to get better.
When other friends were out having fun, the Stepps were often on the Pelion High School football field working out.
“We grew up in the sticks. We didn’t have social media like you have now. So fun for me and Justin was going up to the stadium and dad unlocking the gate and going and throwing routes in the summertime,” Josh Stepp said. “That was fun for us.”
Justin had big goals and dreams, and he wasn’t going to let anyone try and squash them. A middle school assignment for him: Write what you want to be when you grow up.
Justin wrote about how he wanted to play college football and be featured on ESPN SportsCenter’s Top 10 plays. According to his father, the assignment was met with skepticism by Justin’s teacher.
“She said, ‘Justin that is a great story but you need to make your goals realistic because son don’t fantasize. Nobody from Pelion has ever done anything like that,’” Tim Stepp recalled.
A few years later, Stepp made good on the promises in the letter. He signed to play with Furman after a standout career at Pelion. Then in the 2007 season opener against Jacksonville, Stepp made SportsCenter with a dynamic 9-yard catch on the final play of the game to give the Paladins a 37-35 win.
Stepp finished the game with five catches for 53 yards. He was a two-time Southern Conference selection and left Furman as the school’s fourth all-time leading receiver.
“He never forgot that (paper) and busted his butt to prove her wrong,” Tim Stepp said. “I have used that story when I have spoken at Fellowship of Christian Athletes meetings. It drove him to be a little overboard with things.”
Ben Freeman was the head football coach at Pelion when the Stepps played. The two helped the Panthers to an unbeaten regular season in 2000. Justin played receiver and Josh was the quarterback, and the duo still hold several school records.
Justin Stepp had the knack of making big plays so much that Freeman gave him the nickname “Hollywood” for his ability to thrive and perform under pressure. Freeman has “Hollywood” in his phone’s contact list instead of Justin’s name.
Freeman recalls some of Stepp’s bigger performances, including picking off three passes in a game against Swansea.
Justin Stepp didn’t initially make the Shrine Bowl his senior year but was added after an injury replacement. Freeman recalled Justin making a big catch from his brother in the all-star game to help the South Carolina squad get going.
“He didn’t want to lose at anything, in practice, a game. You just don’t find that that often,” Freeman said. “He had a tenacity about him. If there was anything he lacked in talent, he made up for it in want-to. He thought he could do anything, and most of the time he did.”
Recruiting, relationships
That same tenacity Stepp had during his playing days is now with him as a college coach. He was relentless in hounding former USC coach Steve Spurrier and Clemson’s Dabo Swinney in trying to get his first job. Swinney hired Stepp as a graduate assistant, and he was there from 2009-11.
Since then, he has had stops at Appalachian State, Southern Methodist and Arkansas before landing at USC.
“I pretty much stalked (Swinney) and coach Spurrier trying to get a job,” Justin said. “I’d show up wherever they were speaking. If (Swinney) was speaking, I’d be the last guy to leave. He remembers that and I’m forever in debt for him giving me a job.”
Stepp has built a reputation as an outstanding recruiter. Rivals named him one of the Top 25 recruiters in the country in 2019 after adding four four-star recruits to the Razorbacks’ class. The Razorbacks were the only team to sign four four-star wide receivers in the 2019 class. In Stepp’s four recruiting classes at Arkansas, he brought in seven four-stars recruits.
Tim Stepp knew his son, Justin, was a relentless recruiter and got to see that firsthand a few years ago. Justin had made a stop in the Midlands during the season while he was coaching at Arkansas. But in the middle of the meal at Outback Steakhouse, Stepp was working the phones and talking to potential recruits.
“He had a phone in each ear,” Tim Stepp said. “He had a nice filet and it got cold. He said, ‘Dad, I’m sorry, but if I’m not talking to him then somebody else is.’ I looked at him and said, ‘You want me to eat that because it is getting cold?’
“That is who he is — someone who is going to work hard.”
One of the former players Stepp forged a long-lasting friendship with is Courtland Sutton, who he coached at Southern Methodist. Sutton just finished his third year in the NFL with the Denver Broncos.
Stepp’s relationship with Sutton is so strong that he and his wife, Brooke, named a son after him. Courtland Sutton traveled to Arkansas in 2019 to be there for his namesake’s birthday.
“Yes, it was a true honor the first day he told me that they were naming their first son, Courtland,” Sutton said in a 2019 interview. “Just a blessing. I had instant chills. I really didn’t know how to process it.
“He told me that I was someone to look up to, someone that is a good example. He wanted to mold his son that way. Oh, what a blessing, a really big blessing.”
Justin says he puts everything into his players from the time he is recruiting them and until well after their playing days are done. Stepp said he wants to be one the first ones to get the wedding invitation when one of his players ties the knot.
While some coaches will tell recruits what they want to hear, Josh Stepp said his brother is genuine and authentic in his approach.
“In recruiting, a lot of it is just lip service, but he really means it. Once he starts recruiting you, he is going to take care of you during the process, to when you play for him and even after. His best attribute is to establish and build that relationship. He is a phenomenal recruiter,” Josh Stepp said of his brother. “His players will do anything in the world for that guy because they will know he cares for them not only as a player but more importantly as a person.”
This story was originally published February 10, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
