Freddie Steinmark
| Texas Longhorns | |
|---|---|
| Position | Safety |
| Career history | |
| College |
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| High school | Wheat Ridge High School |
| Personal information | |
| Date of birth | January 27, 1949 |
| Place of birth | Denver, Colorado |
| Date of death | June 6, 1971 (aged 22) |
| Place of death | Houston, Texas |
| Height | 5 ft 9 in (1.75 m) |
| Weight | 165 lb (75 kg) |
| Career highlights and awards | |
|
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Freddie Steinmark (January 27, 1949 – June 6, 1971) was an American college football player. He played at the position of safety for the University of Texas Longhorns.
Steinmark was a member of the 1969 Texas Longhorns football team, who won a national championship.
Two days after his performance on a painful left leg against the 1969 Arkansas Razorbacks football team in the "Game of the Century", played on December 6, 1969 and won by Texas, 15–14, x-rays revealed a bone tumor just above his left knee. A biopsy confirmed the tumor was malignant osteogenic sarcoma, and he was treated at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. On December 12, 1969 his leg was amputated at the hip.
Twenty days later, he stood on the sideline with his team as Texas defeated Notre Dame in the 1970 Cotton Bowl Classic on New Year's Day. Steinmark's fight against cancer inspired the United States Congress to write the National Cancer Act of 1971 and President Richard Nixon to sign it into law, thus beginning the "War on Cancer".
In 1971, with the help of Dallas Times Herald sports editor, Blackie Sherrod, Steinmark wrote and published his autobiography I Play to Win. The book was published posthumously, almost 3 months after Steinmark's death. Steinmark is the subject of the 2015 movie My All American, and a coinciding biography Freddie Steinmark: Faith, Family, Football, published by the University of Texas Press (September 1, 2015). Steinmark died on June 6, 1971 at the University of Texas M. D. Anderson Hospital and Tumor Institute at Houston, surrounded by friends and family.
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