Imagine Garfield 20 years ago with the same classrooms, the same trash on the floor, and the same Bulldog spirit that we all love today. Now picture room 217, filled with students jamming to the latest song by Prince. Today, this is the room where Mr. Jonathan Stever can be found lecturing freshmen on photosynthesis, or sophomores on the mysteries of marine science. However, back then he was one of those students sitting at the same desks we sit at and soaking up all there is to know about marine life. After being a star Bulldog himself, both academically and in sports, Stever continues to thrive on the Garfield spirit as a coach and teacher.

Stever entered Garfield in 1982 as the youngest of three siblings. He had been playing soccer since he was seven for a Capitol Hill Soccer Club team and wanted to pursue his soccer interest at Garfield. He played for the Bulldogs at Memorial Stadium under head coach Jim Creighton. “He had a great attitude and was a good soccer player,” Creighton said about Stever. “He was always able to have a good transition from the fullbacks to feed the forwards. He was an essential member of the team.” He played for Garfield all four years as a swinger on JV his freshman year and fulltime Varsity for the final three years, all the while continuing to play for his club team. He played every position on the field and was named an All Metro Midfielder both junior and senior years. In these years he was also on the Varsity Swim Team.

For every year from seven until last year when he underwent knee surgery, Stever has played soccer. After high school, Stever went to Colorado College. In his freshman year at Colorado College, Stever tried out for the team and made the team one cut below varsity. He was invited to work out with the team and work his way up, but instead decided to play for a competitive intramural team. Upon returning to Seattle as an adult, Stever played for the Greater Seattle Soccer League (GSSL), an all men’s Division I team.

It is one thing to say that you play your hardest all the time, but it is another thing to go out and walk the walk. But this is exactly what Stever does in every soccer game. “I always went 110 percent,” Stever said. “I really hustled to the ball.” When he was playing in high school he got a number of concussions for refusing to let down, including getting clothes-lined and hitting his head onto a frozen Miller Community Center field. It was with this intensity that he helped his GSSL team beat a premier team 2 – 1 in one of his career highlights for soccer. “We were gritty!” he said. “Perseverance and effort came through.”

When Stever was a student-athlete at Garfield, there were a lot more teachers who doubled as coaches than there are now. “It’s kind of shame,” Stever said. “The neat thing about teaching and coaching is that it creates different relationships between the teachers and the kids.” Stever used to be the girls’ soccer coach and is now the boys’ and girls’ springboard dive coach. He thinks that the most important aspect about coaching is to teach the basic philosophy of sports: supporting teammates, having a positive attitude, and the importance of effort. “These things are much more important than teaching a particular skill. If you can teach those things, you are way above the curve.”

There is a lot more to sports, especially in high school, than just winning or losing. “Sports are a really important thing in high school. They teach a lot of things you can’t be taught in a classroom and keep people out of trouble. You learn to work with other people, it makes you understand about being committed, and you meet people from different walks of life,” Stever said. “It really made high school that much more fun for me.”