Xavier Nation Magazine Feature: Boundless Energy
07.18.16 | Men's Basketball, Athletic Department
Xavier grad Steve Wolf juggles sports, family, and business, and comes out on top
You'd expect CBS Sports analyst and former Xavier ('83) basketball star Steve Wolf to talk about transition points, shooting percentages, or how to beat a full-court press.
Not about Coke bottles, craft beer and wine shrink sleeve labels, volleyball serves, or printing presses.
Away from the basketball court, that's what consumes Wolf, 56, the father of four and vice president of family-owned Innovative Labeling Solutions, a Fairfield Township digital printing company. Wolf, one of six brothers who starred on Cincinnati basketball and tennis courts in the 1970s and '80s, is the father of Sabrina Wolf, a member of Mt. Notre Dame High School's three-time Ohio volleyball state champions.
When basketball season ends—after going coast-to coast to do 22 BIG EAST, Atlantic 10, Mountain West, American Athletic, and Mid-American conference games—Steve and his wife Jeanne are busy taking their three daughters to Junior Olympics club volleyball games or practices, and son Chase, a St. Xavier High School back-up quarterback, to football camps. Steve spends countless hours shagging volleyball serves for his daughters or tossing a football with Chase.
Wolf, who won numerous Cincinnati tennis tournaments as a teen (wearing high-top basketball shoes), credits his success to sports and Xavier, which he never planned on attending. After graduating from St. X in 1978, he enrolled at North Carolina State.
"I had no desire to go to Xavier," he says. "Tay Baker's team lost to Northern Kentucky! They were playing schools like Hanover and Kenyon College."
So Wolf packed his bags for the Wolfpack College Inn, living near NC State football captain Bill Cowher and other athletes. A year later, he transferred to Xavier. His father Charley was displeased with his son's college lifestyle, and Steve was impressed with Bob Staak, Xavier's new young coach. Staak talked about getting XU into a league; leaving ancient Schmidt Fieldhouse to play at Riverfront Coliseum (now U.S. Bank Arena) or Cincinnati Gardens; and taking XU to the NCAA Tournament for the first time in two decades. Wolf bought in. Had he stayed at NC State and red-shirted for a back injury, Wolf would have been a fifth-year senior on Jim Valvano's 1983 national championship team.
"People ask me: Doesn't that bum you out? And I say: No. At X, I was on the teams that won the first conference game [Midwestern City Conference, now Horizon League], the first league title [1981], the first conference tournament [1983], and went to the NCAAs in the modern era [1983]. I felt like I was part of something bigger," says Wolf, co-captain his senior year on a team with Anthony Hicks, Dexter Bailey, and Victor Fleming.
As a kid in Ft. Mitchell, he played tennis with brothers Marty, Greg, Jeff, Dan, and David to stay in shape for basketball at the urging of their father, Charley, who coached the NBA Cincinnati Royals (1960–1963) and Detroit Pistons (1963–1964).
"I wouldn't have gone to college if I didn't play sports. I'm not that kind. Sports and Xavier, along with my parents, are the reasons I have anything," Wolf says in the basement family room of his Deerfield Township home. It's decorated with autographed basketballs, photos of his dad with Royals stars, an Oscar Robertson jersey, and the 1983 conference tourney net.
Wolf was a newlywed working for Sheakley HR Solutions in 1996 when WLW-AM asked him to audition for Xavier's radio team after Andy MacWilliams lost his voice. He did pre-game, half-time, and post-game shows until getting a shot as analyst for WKRC-TV's Miami Redhawks telecasts with Brad Johansen. That led to doing Xavier games with Johansen on Fox Sports Ohio and CBS games the last nine seasons.
"Wolfie works hard to do a great job. He knows what he's talking about," says Johansen, who gave up CBS play-by-play when he switched from Channel 12 sports to news in 2014.
Broadcasting is in Wolf's genes. His mother Loraine was network and local TV star "Sis Camp" in the early 1950s, pantomiming to records on Paul Dixon's WCPO-TV show broadcast live on the ABC and DuMont networks. Wolf's dad did NBA games on radio from Cincinnati Gardens for visiting NBA teams in the 1960s, when play-by-play guys didn't travel.
Three months after they married, Steve and Jeanne made another life-changing decision. They started a label-printing business in 1996 with her brother, Jay Dollories. Steve stayed with Sheakley while Jeanne did marketing at ILS, which has grown to 90 employees. Four years ago, Steve joined ILS full-time because of Jay's international travel to acquire digital innovations. ILS has the first HP Indigo 2000 press in the U.S., which prints packaging for everything from soup to nuts: beer, wine, pop, water, snacks, soap, lotions, and laundry labels for bottles, cans, or re-sealable pouches.
"At first, this was just a passive investment for me," Wolf says. "I was concerned we may need more money. I'm a hillbilly, so I always have another job." His outgoing personality, which makes good TV, also makes him a good salesman, and a match for Dollories's mechanical engineer experience at GE.
"With Steve, I don't think anybody is a stranger" says WLW-AM's Dave Armbruster, Xavier's radio broadcast producer. "He can work a room. Two minutes into talking with anyone, he's their best friend. He has the personality. He's bigger than life."
On the road for CBS, Wolf calls on some of his 500 craft beer and winery clients. Digital printing, which doesn't require $1,500 press plates per job, makes it affordable for small beverage businesses to produce seasonal product labels. If you ask Wolf what he does, he says, "Go to Kroger. Everything on their shelves has a shrink sleeve or flexible packaging. Digital changed everything."
ILS's biggest claim to fame is printing 350 different names on the "Share a Coke" campaign bottle labels. In a blank spot on the Coke label, "we print 'John' or 'Reindeer' or whatever. We were the first company to do that in the United States," he says.
Johansen calls Wolf "a man of boundless energy. Steve has like nine jobs. He's always doing something, and that includes spending time with his family and working to develop their talents."
Owning the company allows Wolf to travel for TV, and gives Steve and Jeanne flexibility to watch volleyball, football, and basketball played by their children: Sabrina, 18, will play volleyball at the University of Cincinnati this fall; Chase, 16, a St. X sophomore; Stevie, 14, an eighth-grader at St. Margaret of York in Loveland; and Shayna, 11, a St. Margaret of York fifth-grader.
"That we can get to our kids' stuff is a big enticement for the long days we put in," Wolf says. "Business is business, but it comes after family."
Sabrina was a defensive specialist on the Mt. Notre Dame volleyball team which won Division I titles 2013–2015. Add older cousins Kelsey and Margo Wolf (Greg's daughters), and Wolf girls have seven MND state volleyball championships since 2011. That's seven more than their famous fathers or uncles won in high school.
"My brother Marty won six Met [Cincinnati Metropolitan Tennis] championships, and Jeff won seven. But none of us Wolf boys have state titles. None," Wolf says. "We boys had this run at St. X and now we're having this run with our girls at MND, which is pretty impressive."
There could be more. In the fall Stevie goes to MND, where cousin Samantha (Dan's daughter) played junior varsity volleyball as a sophomore last year. Often you'll see Steve and Jeanne in the top row of the bleachers watching. Soon he'll be adding women's volleyball games at UC, Jeanne's alma mater, to his calendar.
"My daughters know more about volleyball than I do," he says. "My son plays football. So I get to watch and relax. This worked out great for me."
Wolf credits Jeanne—who didn't know his basketball background when they met—with his broadcasting career and much of their kids' athletic successes. When Steve is on the road during basketball season, Jeanne is the single parent shuttling kids to practices and games. She has resumed that role after recovering from surgery to reduce a 23-centimeter lung tumor in 2014, when she was diagnosed with large B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
"She's doing fine now. She's in the best shape of her life," Steve says. "She's got to be the toughest one in the family.
"As I think about what I have been able to do in business, TV, or radio, none of it would be possible without her support. The WLW offer came right after we got married. We had just started a company and didn't have any children. And Jeanne said, 'I think you'd be great at it!' I needed to have her backing. That was very important. It still is."
Not about Coke bottles, craft beer and wine shrink sleeve labels, volleyball serves, or printing presses.
Away from the basketball court, that's what consumes Wolf, 56, the father of four and vice president of family-owned Innovative Labeling Solutions, a Fairfield Township digital printing company. Wolf, one of six brothers who starred on Cincinnati basketball and tennis courts in the 1970s and '80s, is the father of Sabrina Wolf, a member of Mt. Notre Dame High School's three-time Ohio volleyball state champions.
When basketball season ends—after going coast-to coast to do 22 BIG EAST, Atlantic 10, Mountain West, American Athletic, and Mid-American conference games—Steve and his wife Jeanne are busy taking their three daughters to Junior Olympics club volleyball games or practices, and son Chase, a St. Xavier High School back-up quarterback, to football camps. Steve spends countless hours shagging volleyball serves for his daughters or tossing a football with Chase.
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FROM NC STATE TO XU |
Wolf, who won numerous Cincinnati tennis tournaments as a teen (wearing high-top basketball shoes), credits his success to sports and Xavier, which he never planned on attending. After graduating from St. X in 1978, he enrolled at North Carolina State.
"I had no desire to go to Xavier," he says. "Tay Baker's team lost to Northern Kentucky! They were playing schools like Hanover and Kenyon College."
So Wolf packed his bags for the Wolfpack College Inn, living near NC State football captain Bill Cowher and other athletes. A year later, he transferred to Xavier. His father Charley was displeased with his son's college lifestyle, and Steve was impressed with Bob Staak, Xavier's new young coach. Staak talked about getting XU into a league; leaving ancient Schmidt Fieldhouse to play at Riverfront Coliseum (now U.S. Bank Arena) or Cincinnati Gardens; and taking XU to the NCAA Tournament for the first time in two decades. Wolf bought in. Had he stayed at NC State and red-shirted for a back injury, Wolf would have been a fifth-year senior on Jim Valvano's 1983 national championship team.
"People ask me: Doesn't that bum you out? And I say: No. At X, I was on the teams that won the first conference game [Midwestern City Conference, now Horizon League], the first league title [1981], the first conference tournament [1983], and went to the NCAAs in the modern era [1983]. I felt like I was part of something bigger," says Wolf, co-captain his senior year on a team with Anthony Hicks, Dexter Bailey, and Victor Fleming.
As a kid in Ft. Mitchell, he played tennis with brothers Marty, Greg, Jeff, Dan, and David to stay in shape for basketball at the urging of their father, Charley, who coached the NBA Cincinnati Royals (1960–1963) and Detroit Pistons (1963–1964).
"I wouldn't have gone to college if I didn't play sports. I'm not that kind. Sports and Xavier, along with my parents, are the reasons I have anything," Wolf says in the basement family room of his Deerfield Township home. It's decorated with autographed basketballs, photos of his dad with Royals stars, an Oscar Robertson jersey, and the 1983 conference tourney net.
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SHARE A COKE |
Wolf was a newlywed working for Sheakley HR Solutions in 1996 when WLW-AM asked him to audition for Xavier's radio team after Andy MacWilliams lost his voice. He did pre-game, half-time, and post-game shows until getting a shot as analyst for WKRC-TV's Miami Redhawks telecasts with Brad Johansen. That led to doing Xavier games with Johansen on Fox Sports Ohio and CBS games the last nine seasons.
"Wolfie works hard to do a great job. He knows what he's talking about," says Johansen, who gave up CBS play-by-play when he switched from Channel 12 sports to news in 2014.
Broadcasting is in Wolf's genes. His mother Loraine was network and local TV star "Sis Camp" in the early 1950s, pantomiming to records on Paul Dixon's WCPO-TV show broadcast live on the ABC and DuMont networks. Wolf's dad did NBA games on radio from Cincinnati Gardens for visiting NBA teams in the 1960s, when play-by-play guys didn't travel.
Three months after they married, Steve and Jeanne made another life-changing decision. They started a label-printing business in 1996 with her brother, Jay Dollories. Steve stayed with Sheakley while Jeanne did marketing at ILS, which has grown to 90 employees. Four years ago, Steve joined ILS full-time because of Jay's international travel to acquire digital innovations. ILS has the first HP Indigo 2000 press in the U.S., which prints packaging for everything from soup to nuts: beer, wine, pop, water, snacks, soap, lotions, and laundry labels for bottles, cans, or re-sealable pouches.
"At first, this was just a passive investment for me," Wolf says. "I was concerned we may need more money. I'm a hillbilly, so I always have another job." His outgoing personality, which makes good TV, also makes him a good salesman, and a match for Dollories's mechanical engineer experience at GE.
"With Steve, I don't think anybody is a stranger" says WLW-AM's Dave Armbruster, Xavier's radio broadcast producer. "He can work a room. Two minutes into talking with anyone, he's their best friend. He has the personality. He's bigger than life."
On the road for CBS, Wolf calls on some of his 500 craft beer and winery clients. Digital printing, which doesn't require $1,500 press plates per job, makes it affordable for small beverage businesses to produce seasonal product labels. If you ask Wolf what he does, he says, "Go to Kroger. Everything on their shelves has a shrink sleeve or flexible packaging. Digital changed everything."
ILS's biggest claim to fame is printing 350 different names on the "Share a Coke" campaign bottle labels. In a blank spot on the Coke label, "we print 'John' or 'Reindeer' or whatever. We were the first company to do that in the United States," he says.
Johansen calls Wolf "a man of boundless energy. Steve has like nine jobs. He's always doing something, and that includes spending time with his family and working to develop their talents."
Owning the company allows Wolf to travel for TV, and gives Steve and Jeanne flexibility to watch volleyball, football, and basketball played by their children: Sabrina, 18, will play volleyball at the University of Cincinnati this fall; Chase, 16, a St. X sophomore; Stevie, 14, an eighth-grader at St. Margaret of York in Loveland; and Shayna, 11, a St. Margaret of York fifth-grader.
"That we can get to our kids' stuff is a big enticement for the long days we put in," Wolf says. "Business is business, but it comes after family."
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WOLF GIRLS ON A ROLL |
Sabrina was a defensive specialist on the Mt. Notre Dame volleyball team which won Division I titles 2013–2015. Add older cousins Kelsey and Margo Wolf (Greg's daughters), and Wolf girls have seven MND state volleyball championships since 2011. That's seven more than their famous fathers or uncles won in high school.
"My brother Marty won six Met [Cincinnati Metropolitan Tennis] championships, and Jeff won seven. But none of us Wolf boys have state titles. None," Wolf says. "We boys had this run at St. X and now we're having this run with our girls at MND, which is pretty impressive."
There could be more. In the fall Stevie goes to MND, where cousin Samantha (Dan's daughter) played junior varsity volleyball as a sophomore last year. Often you'll see Steve and Jeanne in the top row of the bleachers watching. Soon he'll be adding women's volleyball games at UC, Jeanne's alma mater, to his calendar.
"My daughters know more about volleyball than I do," he says. "My son plays football. So I get to watch and relax. This worked out great for me."
Wolf credits Jeanne—who didn't know his basketball background when they met—with his broadcasting career and much of their kids' athletic successes. When Steve is on the road during basketball season, Jeanne is the single parent shuttling kids to practices and games. She has resumed that role after recovering from surgery to reduce a 23-centimeter lung tumor in 2014, when she was diagnosed with large B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
"She's doing fine now. She's in the best shape of her life," Steve says. "She's got to be the toughest one in the family.
"As I think about what I have been able to do in business, TV, or radio, none of it would be possible without her support. The WLW offer came right after we got married. We had just started a company and didn't have any children. And Jeanne said, 'I think you'd be great at it!' I needed to have her backing. That was very important. It still is."
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XU CAREER |
XU CAREER: Steve Wolf played guard three seasons for Xavier coach Bob Staak. He averaged 8.7 points per game in 1980–1981, 10.2 ppg in 1981–1982, and 6.3 ppg as 1982–1983 co-captain when XU (22–8) lost to Alcorn State in the 1983 NCAA Tournament opening round in Dayton. // BY THE NUMBER: Wolf wore No. 25 at Xavier to remind himself to make the most of his talents. In sixth grade, he heard the "Parable of the Talents" in Matthew 25 in church about "using your talents the best you could. I was so impressed that I looked it up. I didn't want to bury my talents. Two days later, they were handing out uniforms, and I said, 'I want No. 25.' I wore No. 25 from grade school to high school to college." // BIG TV BREAK: Wolf made ESPN's SportsCenter in 2012 when CBS Sports TV partner James Bates's stool collapsed during their pregame open for the Xavier–Dayton game at the Cintas Center. Google "James Bates and Steve Wolf" to see the blooper on YouTube.
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