Steve Cramblitt’s coaching career hit its peak when he was molding high school baseball players to new heights. But it won’t be the wins and trophies that people will remember him by. Instead, it’ll be his unrelenting kindness and selflessness, and ability to teach young men invaluable life skills.
Cramblitt, who won nine Utah high school baseball championships in the 1990s and 2000s, died on Friday, June 30, after succumbing to pulmonary fibrosis. He was 74.
“Every one of us that either coached against him, coached with him or played for him, is a better person because of him because he would never compromise anything, ever,” said former Pleasant Grove and Cottonwood baseball coach Jon Hoover, a close friend of Cramblitt’s for 30 years.
“He did it right.”
Cramblitt coached at Taylorsville High and won seven state titles (1992, 1993, 1994, 1996, 1998, 2000, 2002). He won two more with Juan Diego (2005, 2009). He also coached baseball at Skyline and Granite, and was the assistant pitching coach at Riverton.
Cramblitt is sixth all-time in wins (436) and tied with two other coaches for second all-time in state titles. He retired from coaching in 2010. He was most recently the athletic director at Rising Star Sports Ranch in Mesquite, Nev.
Cramblitt was inducted into the Utah Sports Foundation Hall of Honor on March 31, 2015.
(Courtesy of Jon Hoover) The late Steve Cramblitt, left, who won state championships in baseball at Taylorsville and Juan Diego high schools, in a photo with Jon Hoover, former baseball coach at Pleasant Grove and Cottonwood.
“Baseball is a great avenue to teach teenagers how to be good citizens, respect people in the community and be disciplined,” Cramblitt was quoted as saying at the time by the Taylorsville City Journal. “I pushed the young men hard because I knew that is what it takes to be successful.”
One of the young men Cramblitt pushed is John Buck, a former All-Star MLB player who had a 10-year career. As a sophomore at Taylorsville High, he was the only varsity player who did not letter, and it was because he didn’t complete a reading assignment given by Cramblitt.
But Buck realized later that not receiving a varsity letter from Cramblitt wasn’t about his performance on the field, but more about teaching accountability and self-discipline. It was one of the life lessons the coach imparted that now sticks with not only Buck, but many other players and coaches who knew Cramblitt.
“I think a lot of us are feeling empty now,” Buck said. “I think a lot of us are left without that mentor that he was for a lot of us.”
Barry Hecker was one of Cramblitt’s best friends for the past 50 years. They went to Frostburg State University when it was a teacher’s college and were roommates. They dated the same girl one after the other. They flunked and then later passed a physics class together. They both joined the Sigma Tau Gamma fraternity.
When Hecker was coaching the Westminster basketball team, he invited Cramblitt to come on as an assistant after he returned from the Vietnam War. They coached together until Cramblitt decided to transition fully to baseball.
When Hecker shattered his elbow playing pickup basketball, Cramblitt helped him get dressed. When Hecker got depressed after he stopped coaching, Cramblitt went to his house regularly to check up on him.
“When you think about it, how many friends are you going to have in your life that you know that, no matter what happens, they’re going to be there for you?” Hecker said. “He was one of them.”
Cramblitt was also known for getting into his share of shenanigans with friends. Hoover said he and Cramblitt got kicked out of a Park City baseball tournament once because they were lobbying other coaches to participate in events for the Rising Star Sports Ranch. So they just hung out in the city for a few days before flying back to Nevada.
Hecker’s favorite story is when he and Cramblitt were unwinding with a beer early in their JV basketball coaching days — Hecker at West, Cramblitt at Granite — a drunken driver crashed into Cramblitt’s custom orange Pinto.
Hecker frantically alerted him. To Hecker’s recollection, he took a sip of his beer, walked outside, looked at his now totaled car, walked back inside, sat down and continued drinking his beer — all without saying a word.
“He was steady,” Hecker said.
Cramblitt grew up in Baltimore, where he found the love of baseball through the Orioles. As a player, Buck said he’d call Cramblitt every time he was in Baltimore in order to get a “scouting report” from his old coach, and also to check on him.
Hoover lamented that with the Orioles at 51-35 and second in the American League East, Cramblitt died without being able to see how this season would pan out for his beloved team.