Mac Steen and his wife, Kathy, during a MeStrong walk to support cancer research. (Photo: Courtesy of MeStrong.net)
Carter's Corner: Remembering Gators Hall of Famer Mac Steen
Tuesday, October 6, 2026 | Football, Scott Carter
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By: Scott Carter, Senior Writer
GAINESVILLE, Fla. — On the sunny afternoon of Dec. 27, 1969, offensive lineman Mac Steen walked to midfield at the Gator Bowl for the coin toss. Next to him was Gators co-captain Tom Abdelnour.
They stood across the Gator Bowl logo from Tennessee's Steve Kiner, Ken Delong and Bill Young in one of the most anticipated games in UF football history. Up in the NBC broadcast booth, announcers Curt Gowdy and Al DeRogatis set the stage for the dramatic showdown.
Florida won the coin toss and the game, 14-13, upsetting the Southeastern Conference-champion Volunteers in Gators head coach Ray Graves' final game on the sideline.
Not only was it Graves' swan song, capping a week of speculation and innuendo and back-door negotiations, but Tennessee coach Doug Dickey would be named his replacement a few days later.
Meanwhile, 21-year-old Steen, a member of the All-SEC first-team offense that season along with Ole Miss quarterback Archie Manning and teammates Carlos Alvarez and Tommy Durrance, was called upon for some of his heaviest lifting before the game.
As rumors swirled before kickoff that UF President Stephen C. O'Connell had already struck a deal with Dickey to replace Graves — he became UF's athletic director after the memorable 9-1-1 season defined by the team's group of "Super Sophs" — Steen and other team leaders lobbied for the Gators to hire longtime defensive assistant Gene Ellenson.
The day before Florida's win, team leaders met in defensive back Steve Tannen's Jacksonville hotel room to discuss ways to influence O'Connell's decision. They selected Steen to meet with O'Connell.
"I told him how the players felt,'' Steen, who grew up in Melbourne, told Florida Today. "How much we admired Coach Ellenson. What a great man he is. How great he'd be for the University of Florida. He listened intently, then said: 'Mac, when and if the time comes for us to hire another coach at Florida, I will take all these things into consideration and choose the best man for the program at Florida.' "
Gators Tommy Shannon, Steve Spurrier, Mac Steen and Paul Ewaldsen, left to right, during a Silver Sixties reunion. (Photo: Courtesy of Coach Spurrier's Facebook page)
Of course, O'Connell hired Dickey, and a few months later the San Diego Chargers drafted Steen in the 10th round of the 17-round 1970 NFL Draft. While Ellenson retired from coaching and joined Graves on Florida's athletic administration team, Steen made a similar decision.
He attended a summer camp with the Chargers, but rather than join an offense that featured quarterback John Hadl, future Hall of Fame receiver Lance Alworth and running back Mike Garrett, who won the Heisman Trophy in 1965 while at Southern Cal, Steen decided he was done playing football and enrolled in Emory University's dental program.
Steen opened an orthodontic practice in DeLand in 1980 and remained heavily involved with his former Gators teammates, spending summer weekends at annual reunions for the Silver Sixties Gators and playing a key role in organizing five-year reunions of the 1969 Gators. They met last season at the F Club at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium.
Steen had two scholarship offers coming out of Melbourne High: Florida and Georgia Tech. He developed into one of the team's best and most popular players, highlighted by his All-SEC honors as a senior.
"We offensive linemen have been playing all our lives without publicity, so it's something new to me,'' he said at the time. "I wish everyone on our front five could have made it. They deserve it."
A 2004 UF Athletic Hall of Fame inductee, Malcolm Everett Steen died on Friday at age 78. Steen was born June 30, 1948, in West Point, N.Y.
Steen's passing prompted an outpouring of support from his dental patients over the years in Volusia County.
One after another, on a West Volusia Beacon Facebook post, people described Steen as an amazing man, a wonderful gentleman, a pillar of the community and a friend to all. Steen died at his home with his wife, Kathy, and their two children, Rusty and Katie, at his side.
He had sent messages to close friends the previous week about his excitement over Florida's win against Ole Miss. According to the West Volusia Beacon, Steen had been diagnosed with a serious illness in August, a month after summiting Mount Wellington in Tasmania. He had a bicycle tour of Italy planned when he became ill.
Kathy Steen told the newspaper that her husband's proudest accomplishment was changing young people's lives through his orthodontic practice.
"He built smiles, he would say,'' Kathy said.
A celebration of Steen's life is planned at 10:30 a.m. Saturday, Oct. 10, at Northwest Square, 238 N. Clara Ave. in DeLand.
