How a CYO basketball coach in West Chester ‘won’ the NFL’s Coach of the Year award

It was a school night and the NFL Honors show was dragging on last Thursday when the Stefanskis told their four children that it was time to get ready for bed.

“One more award,” Steve Stefanski said he told his kids. “If it’s Coach of the Year, you get to watch it. If it’s not, tough luck. You’ll catch it in the morning.”

The kids were in luck. The next award was the Coach of the Year, which Uncle Kevin — better known as Kevin Stefanski, head coach of the Cleveland Browns — was a finalist for.

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“My wife was filming,” Steve Stefanski said. “But then she stopped filming. She kind of panicked a little when she heard ‘Steven.’ ”

The presenter — actor Justin Hartley — misread the card and announced “Steven Stefanski” as the Associated Press Coach of the Year. Hartley was quickly corrected and announced Kevin Stefanski’s name. But it was too late. Steve Stefanski, an assistant CYO basketball coach at Saints Peter and Paul Church in West Chester, was the NFL’s Coach of the Year.

“My one son and I were just jumping up and down,” Stefanski said. “I just kept saying, ‘I won. I won.’ Because frankly, I was the winner there.”

It didn’t take long for Stefanski’s phone to ring. It was his cousin, who was not at the ceremony in Las Vegas. Kevin Stefanski won the award for the second time, but he had to share the honor this time.

“I told him, ‘I did it.’ He had to know first that I was the real winner,” Steve Stefanski said. “I told him, ‘Hard work pays off,’ which he appreciated.”

Kevin and Steve Stefanski were born six months apart, spent every summer down the Shore, and are the godfathers of each other’s children. Steve Stefanski grew up in Exton and went to Bishop Shanahan High. Kevin Stefanski, 41, grew up in Wayne and played football at St. Joseph’s Prep and Penn.

“I have three brothers, and Steve is probably the fifth brother in the family,” Kevin Stefanski said. “His friends are my friends and vice versa. He was a fixture at our house growing up, and it would drive my mom crazy because Steve played hockey. His hockey bag made its way into our garage, and it smelled so horrible. He was relegated to the garage at times.”

Twenty years later, Kevin Stefanski is one of the NFL’s premier coaches. For Steve Stefanski, his cousin will always be the guy he found a different job with every summer in Ocean City, N.J., and shoots only three-pointers in basketball.

“He’s still my cousin,” he said. “I don’t look at him like he’s this coach. It’s really cool. He’s the guy I was putting awnings up with and running morning sports at Ocean City Rec and things like that.”

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Steve Stefanski’s goal with his CYO team is that every child has enough fun that the player wants to play another season. Different pressures, he said, between him and his cousin. Three years ago, the team was 0-10, but the CYO squad has a winning record this season. Things are moving in the right direction, Stefanski said. It’s Coach of the Year-type stuff.

“Exactly,” Stefanski said.

The gang of 10-year-olds — which includes son Colin — can run “stack” and that other inbounds play that Stefanski believes is in every CYO playbook.

“The inbound pass where it goes to the guy at the top of the key and then the guy who inbounds it runs to the corner for a jumper,” said Steve Stefanski. “Everyone runs it and it still works. Every single team runs the same play, but every time, the kid manages to get a shot off.”

Kevin Stefanski’s father, Ed, was a basketball star at Monsignor Bonner and Penn and spent four years as the 76ers general manager. The son started his NFL journey in the summer of 2005 — “The second T.O. summer,” Kevin Stefanski said — as an intern with the Eagles during training camp at Lehigh University.

“Coach Reid is the head coach, Brad Childress is there, John Harbaugh, Sean McDermott, Pat Shurmur, Steve Spagnuolo, just all these people who factored mightily onto the NFL scene and then in my life,” Stefanski said.

“I remember having lunch with Jim Johnson. Pinch me. I remember going to the dorms to turn the lights out and there’s Brian Dawkins in there watching tape. That’s the type of stuff that’s incredible to see firsthand.”

A year later, Childress, the former Eagles assistant under Andy Reid, brought Kevin Stefanski to Minnesota as an “assistant to the head coach.”

Steve Stefanski knew then that this was more than an entry-level job, as he told his wife, Kathy, that his cousin would eventually become an NFL head coach. Fifteen years later, the Browns proved him right.

“There was never a doubt in my mind that he was going to make it as a head coach,” said Stefanski, who lives in West Chester and works in commercial real estate for Cresa. “Now, did I think he was going to win these awards? That’s the cherry on top. I wasn’t really thinking about that, but he’s always been so poised and so good. It’s weird to say it, but it doesn’t surprise me.”

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The Browns lost tackle Jack Conklin to a season-ending injury in Week 1 and running back Nick Chubb a week later. Quarterback Deshaun Watson played just six games before he was shut down with a shoulder injury. The Browns signed 39-year-old Joe Flacco and clinched a postseason berth by winning seven of their final 10 games.

Kevin Stefanski, just like his cousin with those CYO kids, had the Browns moving in the right direction.

The four Stefanski kids — S.J., Colin, Annie, and Kevin — root for the Browns every Sunday, the family takes a trip every year to visit their uncle, and the kids think up trades that Uncle Kevin can bring to the front office.

Steve Stefanski’s buddies joke that he might be known as “Coach Steve” the next time he’s in Cleveland.

“I’m always making sure I’m shipping a ton of gear back east,” Kevin Stefanski said. “I would imagine that people probably notice a Browns hat every once in a while and say this is ‘Iggles Country.’ Not ‘Eagles Country’ but ‘Iggles Country.’ But it’s the AFC. They can have an AFC team.”

Not everyone thought Uncle Kevin was going to win last week. Annie Stefanski thought the award was pegged for Kyle Shanahan, because the 49ers were in the Super Bowl.

“The majority of our family and friends think we did this on purpose,” Steve Stefanski said. “Which I laugh at because Kevin wasn’t even there to finish the punch line. It’s kind of a weird joke to do remotely. But because we’re so close, everyone texted, ‘I wouldn’t put it past you two to do it on purpose.’ ”

Steve Stefanski’s phone has been buzzing ever since with friends, family members, and clients cracking jokes. Someone Photoshopped his face on his cousin’s body. Kevin Stefanski had fun with it, too, as he told a Cleveland radio station that the CYO coach was a candidate to be Cleveland’s next offensive coordinator. For the second time in four years, Kevin Stefanski was the NFL’s top coach. He just had to share it this year with the cousin who always knew he’d make it there.

“I understand the odds and the percentages of him being an NFL coach when you really think about it are so slim,” Steve Stefanski said. “These jobs are so hard to get. But I just kind of always thought he’d be able to do it. He works really hard. Obviously, he’s smart. He’s good in high-stress situations and he’s always had that. That part that he displays — the confidence — that’s always been him. It’s not an act. It’s just the way he’s wired.”