Dr. Jon Steinbrecher played both football and tennis during his time at Valparaiso. 

An All-Conference honoree on the gridiron as a sophomore, Steinbrecher was tennis conference singles champion as a junior and earned team MVP honors in each of his final two years. Steinbrecher was named the HCC Tony Hinkle Award Winner, Valparaiso’s first honoree as the conference’s top scholar-athlete, and the Valparaiso University Student-Athlete of the Year following his final season of competition in 1983. 

Since his 1983 graduation from Valparaiso, Steinbrecher has climbed the ranks among Division I athletic conference administrators, serving as commissioner of the Mid-Continent Conference for nine years (1994-2003) and the Ohio Valley Conference for six years (2003-2009).  When hired by the Mid-Con, he was the youngest Division I commissioner in the country, and in 1999, he became the first non-FBS commissioner to be elected as president of the Collegiate Commissioners Assocation. 

Steinbrecher is currently in his fifth year as commissioner of the Mid-American Conference, one of just 10 FBS conferences, and is the only person to have served as commissioner in all three NCAA Division I subdivisions.