Jimmy Steele (American football)

Jimmy Steele

Steele from 1931 Seminole yearbook
Florida Gators No. 36
Position	Tackle, guard
Career history
College	Florida (1928–1930)
High school	Hillsborough
Personal information
Date of birth	(1909-12-11)December 11, 1909
Place of birth	Tampa, Florida
Date of death	September 15, 1980(1980-09-15) (aged 70)
Place of death	Hillsborough County, Florida
Weight	194 lb (88 kg)
Career highlights and awards
Second-team All-American (1928) All-Southern (1928, 1929, 1930)

James Henry Steele, Jr. (December 11, 1909 – September 15, 1980), nicknamed Jimmy Steele, was an American college football player and coach for the Florida Gators football team of the University of Florida.

A native of Tampa, Florida, he attended Hillsborough High School in Tampa, and played for coach Nash Higgins' Hillsborough Terriers high school football team.

After high school, Steele enrolled in the University of Florida in 1927, where he played for coach Charlie Bachman's Florida Gators football team from 1928 to 1930. He played at the tackle and guard positions for the great Gators of 1928, which finished with a win-loss record of 8–1, losing only their last game by a single point to the Tennessee Volunteers, 13–12. After the 1928 season, Steele was selected by the Newspaper Enterprise Association (NEA) as a second-team All-American. The guard position was very competitive in the south in 1928. One writer notes "Had not Vanderbilt possessed its Brown, Alabama its Hagler and Georgia Tech its Drennon, Florida Steele would have been on the 1928 All-Southern." In December 1929, the Miami Daily News and Metropolis called him "the best linesman in the south" and noted that, throughout the 1928 and 1929 seasons, he had, "game in and game out, been head and shoulders above any linesmen on the field." That same month, the Gators football team selected Leroy "Red" Bethea as captain of the 1930 team and Steele as the alternate captain. Following his 1930 senior season, United Press named him to its All-Southern first team.