A coach who happens to count things for a living.
Steve Cleland has spent over 30 years coaching youth sports and his entire career inside other people's financials. He is a Certified Public Accountant, a Certified Fraud Examiner, a partner in the Tax practice at Aprio, and the author of The Village Chief.
The two jobs turned out to be one job
On a field, you are handed a group of people with different abilities, different motivations and different parents, and you have a season to make them into something. In a set of financials, you are handed a picture of a business that nobody has said out loud yet.
Both come down to the same two moves: work out what is really going on, then get everybody pointed the same way.
He wrote The Village Chief because most people who end up coaching a youth team did not train for it, and there was no reason for every one of them to learn it the slow way.
Making an impact
Over 30 years of coaching adds up to hundreds of players, and behind every one of them a set of parents and a bench of assistant coaches. Most of what Steve is proud of never showed up in a win-loss record.
In 2022 his El Segundo Eagles played for something much greater than themselves. Through their run at the USA Softball Western National Championship, the 12U All-stars dedicated the whole journey to Steve's sister, Belynda.
It was not a one-off for a team photograph. They carried it into the games.
