How Stephen Lee’s honesty reminds us what offensive coaches really do
The Best Coaches Are Thieves in Plain Sight
Ask around long enough and a pattern emerges. The coaches who grow the most are the ones who admit how much they’ve taken from others. Stephen Lee Offensive Coordinator is one of them. His transparency makes the point. The game evolves through shared ideas, borrowed concepts, and lessons carried from one field to another.
Nothing About Football Lives in Isolation
Lee has 30 years in the game. He pulled from Texas high school football, small-college ball, Air Raid roots, and the RPO evolution he now calls PRO. Every stop gave him a part. Every mentor shaped his lens. When you listen to him lay out the influences, it becomes obvious why his system works. It’s layered. It carries the fingerprints of the coaches who came before him. That’s part of what defines Stephen Lee Offensive Coordinator and the offense he built.
Stealing Is Not the Point. Curating Is.
Every coach can draw plays. Not every coach can teach them, blend them, and adjust them until they fit the players in front of them. Lee’s offense works because he knows what to keep and what to throw out. He tags everything. He builds everything around finding the one-on-one and winning it. That discipline turns stolen parts into a coherent identity—something that shows up in how Stephen Lee Offensive Coordinator approaches teaching and game planning.
Adaptation Is the Real Innovation
You cannot play for championships without building something that travels. Lee learned that the hard way in a playoff snow game at Grand Valley. That moment changed him. The next version of his offense had answers for any condition. Balance mattered. Physicality mattered. Teaching mattered. All of it came from realizing that a clever idea is useless if it cannot hold up when the weather shifts or the stage gets bigger.
Every Coach Has a Recipe
You do not need to invent a system to have one. You need to collect the right pieces and turn them into something that fits your players. Lee’s honesty reminds us that coaching is a craft. It develops through pressure, accountability, and the willingness to learn from better coaches. Great coordinators are not guarding secrets. They are refining recipes—exactly what defines the evolution of Stephen Lee Offensive Coordinator over three decades.
The Takeaway
If you coach long enough, your playbook becomes a record of the people who shaped you. The longer you stay in the game, the better you get at curating. And eventually, your offense becomes what Lee described—a collection of stolen ideas that work together because you made them your own.
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About Stephen Lee
Stephen Lee stands as one of Division III’s most accomplished offensive coordinators. He returned to UMHB in December 2024, rejoining a program he helped elevate during a remarkable run from 2016 to 2021. In that stretch, the Cru went 50–1, captured two national championships, claimed five ASC titles, and topped the nation in scoring at 53.4 points per game in 2018. His favorite verse, Philippians 4:6–7, reflects the calm, steady presence he brings to his teams.
Lee’s path through the profession includes Division I stops at Abilene Christian and Tarleton State, important developmental work at Cisco College, and a record-setting stretch at West Texas A&M, where his offense set an NCAA Division II passing record in 2013.
He also spent time in the ASC at Howard Payne, launched his college coaching career at Western New Mexico, and helped fuel Brenham High School’s success, where the program went 66–13 during his tenure.
A former quarterback and fullback at Angelo State, Lee later earned his master’s degree at Western New Mexico. He and his wife, Molly, have four children: Jarrett, Jordan, Jacy, and Katie.
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Transcript
John Snell (00:01)
We open this week on the offensive side of the ball where Mary Harden Baylor continued its dominance with a 65 to 9 win over Howard Payne.
Obviously a program that has had great success over the years. Steven Lee, the offensive coordinator is with us and we’re going to talk a little bit about his topic here in a minute. But Steve, we obviously want to congratulate you and welcome you to the show and ⁓ happy to recognize you and your offense and what you guys have been able to accomplish at Mary Harden Baylor. We give you a chance to, again, give some props to your offense.
And then I’ll prompt you into sharing a little bit about your offensive story and your concept of recipe for offense.
S. LEE (00:53)
You know, first of all, I’d like to just thank our administration and coaches and people here at Mary Harden Baylor. It’s a blessing to be here. ⁓ It’s amazing how God leads you, John, and where he puts you. This is an unbelievable place and I’m so fortunate to be here. Again, I’d like to thank these men, the hours, the wives, the families that allow us to do this. I think it’s so special.
And again, maybe just thank the men who have allowed me to grow and learn from him and be on the show. It is an honor and thank you so much for the honor.
John Snell (01:29)
Well, again, we appreciate you being with us. As we talked earlier, we asked you to share a thought with our listeners. And again, you talked a little bit about your recipe for offense and how you’ve kind of taken things from the different places and different coaches that you’ve worked with. ⁓ How about you share a little bit of that with our listeners, Steve?
S. LEE (01:51)
Okay, you know, I’m about 30 years in on this coaching thing, John. I really have a Frankenstein type offense and I’ve been so fortunate to have landed in places that have molded me, men that have molded me and been such an important part of my life. But I went from high football back in the Texas high school days at small high school with some really good coaches.
been at division three with a man named Vance Gibson and Phil Fuller who were unbelievable men. A man named Don Cartho at WT molded me and his son, ⁓ Kobe. And then I ended up at Mary Hardin Baylor with a man named Pete Fredenberg who was an unbelievable influence on my life. And so they all pushed me and molded me. I told you earlier, the accountability sometimes of growth is not pleasant, but it takes you.
and makes you the best version of yourself sometimes. And I had to realize as a young coach sometimes it’s not always personal. And it’s taken me to a point of ⁓ being the best version of myself. And that was difficult at times. But I’m so thankful for the men in my life. You know, we were at West Texas A&M at a time when when Lubbock and Mike Leach were influential in airbag football. And so I was fortunate to learn that. Didn’t know anything about it.
Then I learned it and then came to Mary Hardin-Baylor and I was asked to study RPO. I call it PRO. We’re pass run, but ⁓ you know, I was pushed to study that. Art Braus, Baylor, some of those things they were doing. And so we’re all good thieves. if you’re in offense, if you’re those things, or we’re all thieves, maybe I should say. And so I’ve taken what I’ve had.
some good coaches in my room that I’m so fortunate to have either in the past or now and just adapted this offensive style that we have. And literally, it has taken what the defense gives and it certainly had some production.
John Snell (03:58)
Steven, would you say that, ⁓ you know, we talk about balance, we talk about being 50-50. ⁓ In terms of your philosophy, your belief, and what has been successful for you, are you a believer in balance or is it, I’d rather, I’m gonna throw the ball first. Give us a sense for your thoughts on that.
S. LEE (04:19)
Well, I’m an ex-college quarterback. had a son who was a college quarterback. I love throwing the football. What I have learned and was actually taught and then learned is to play bracket championship football. You do need some balance and you have to be able to run the football. I literally don’t mean it taking what the defense gives. know, we’ve, if this makes sense, John, we’ve jumped back and forth year to year saying, okay, if this makes sense, do you take the tag off?
You know, there’s nothing, it’s often funny, we joke about it, but when you’re on the headsets and you call a play that is an RPO, PRO, and you hear the old line coach sometimes in the back say, ⁓ you know that the old line coach saw the run, could have gashed, but you pulled it and you threw the ball. ⁓ But we joke about that often, but we literally are built on ⁓ tagging it with the option of, in theory, there’s a perfect play in there.
We have to be good teachers in finding the runner or the pass. And we’re built that way. So it’s always on. I guess you could say, yeah, the balance is there. But we don’t go back and chart the balance of, how many times did we run it or throw it? We go back and we do chart the success of the play and maybe why we were successful or we weren’t successful.
John Snell (05:37)
You brought up a great point about in Division III, essentially to play for a championship, you’re placed in a bracket where you may have to travel north, you may have to travel to places that you typically aren’t playing. So essentially you’ve got to be able to play offensive football in every part of the country because you never know where you’re going to end up if you’re in the tournament. again, I think that’s a great point, Steven. So when you…
when you’re unfortunately sometimes stuck having to travel north in the playoffs, you’ve got to be able to run the ball because you might be running into a snowstorm, right? So talk a little bit about your thoughts on that.
S. LEE (06:19)
No doubt.
I have been through that. I think I’m out of shape. We were up at one time, I’ll point up north, playing Grand Valley. ⁓ I had no idea that, I think they call it a lakefront snow or something came in second half and man, we’d done a great job throwing the ball first half and we ended up losing that game. And it helped me develop that identity of, you have to have a balance and a way to run the football. And then molding it into this thought of
When we make halftime adjustments and when we look at things, it’s did we get it to the one-on-one? Whether it’s five on five up front or six on six or seven on seven up front, did we get it to the one-on-one? And if we did, why did the one-on-one fail? And so we develop everything about defeating one-on-ones and molding our scheme into getting it to one-on-ones. With that, though, John, you got to recruit right.
You better have the guys in place that can win one on one.
John Snell (07:23)
Well, you guys have done a phenomenal job of getting guys that can win one on ones. You’ve done a phenomenal job as a program. And I knew that you had been there and left and came back and it’s a tribute to the place and the people that you get to work with. Steven, I have great, we have great respect for Pete Fredenberg and obviously Larry’s doing a heck of a job taking, taking, taking over for a legend. ⁓ But you, you, you guys do an incredible job as a program.
And offensively, I’ve always been impressed with what you’ve done there. So again, congrats on the success that you’ve had. Congrats on the win this past weekend. Congrats on ⁓ Keith and Logan recognizing you guys as an offense. And we appreciate you being on.
S. LEE (08:11)
I appreciate you guys. Thank you very much. It’s an honor. Thank you for your time.