El Segundo alumnus returns as teacher, coach
While the football team was stretching before practice, Steve Eno was warming to the idea of starting a new career. Eno, a former athletic and academic standout at El Segundo High, was a software programming consultant by day and an assistant football coach when the day was done.
“It was one of those times after we arrived and I asked how work was going while we were stretching the kids,” said Head Football Coach Steve Shevlin.
“Oh, I’m just sitting behind the desk,” Eno responded.
“You’ve got to give football and teaching a chance,” Shevlin said. “It’s a great career. People will tell you don’t do it, but it’s the best decision I ever made. You’d be wonderful.”
After that practice, Eno talked with Principal Jim Garza and found out that the high school was beginning an engineering program. Eno got his teaching credentials, and two years later, Eno is running the school’s popular engineering program.
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Eno was born in raised in El Segundo. He attended John Hopkins University in Maryland where played wide receiver and catcher and received an electrical engineering degree, and also met his wife, Michele.
After graduating, Michele, a doctor, landed a job at Cedars Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles. After moving back to El Segundo, Eno contacted his former coach, Shevlin, and was soon helping coach on the football and baseball fields he used to play on.
“He’s a rock star. We need someone like that to get the new engineering program off the ground successfully,” said Garza.
Eno’s day in the engineering lab begins at 6:15 a.m., about a half hour before his first class, Gateway To Technology, begins. He goes over his planner and course work. After the bell rang one morning this month, he informed students they would be designing and building a three-foot tall windmill.
“Design the most efficient blades to catch the wind,” Eno said. “And document your work – where you get your information from.”
Questions came while students were using their computer skills to put together a virtual windmill.
“Can you make money with wind or solar?” someone asked.
“I don’t know many of us who have solar cells or wind turbines,” Eno responded. “But if you contribute to the energy grid, you get a check.”
Between classes, Eno, who has a 15-month-old son, said, “I’m very happy to be here.”
And it shows in the students, who also appear happy to be in his classroom. Many students in Eno’s second period class, Principles of Engineering, call him by his last name while they build various robotics projects. It may sound a bit casual, but there’s a respect in Eno’s relationship with his students, as if Eno is a trusted older brother.
“The good thing about this teaching position is I get to play a lot,” Eno said. “Kids are doing stuff on Autodesk, like 3D modeling and programming with robotics. So I’m still doing programming. It’s not as complex as I used to – but I’m teaching it, which is fun, and showing kids how to use it, so that’s fun as well.
“The programming for robotics is beyond what even I did. It’s fun working with these students because they have a great programming background. I still get to program. I don’t miss it too much.”
Eno said his transition to teaching was made easier by the fact that he was previously teaching other professionals software technology as a consultant. But mostly, he credits fellow teachers, especially his mentor, Kathy Clemmer.
When Eno was a student, his algebra and calculus teacher made an impression. And when he returned as a teacher, he reached out to Clemmer. He observed her classroom several times and watched closely how she engaged her students.
“I believe very passionately that you can do math and science anywhere,” Clemmer said. “It’s not about passively sitting in a classroom taking notes and doing homework problems. That’s very passive learning and truly doing math and science. If you were to walk into an active learning classroom, students are doing the mathematics. They are writing on the windows. They are writing on the walls. They are writing everywhere. He learned that from me. That is the really key piece.”
Math problems are scrawled on the windows in Eno’s classroom. That’s part of Clemmer’s influence on his classroom, but Eno has also had an influence on her.
“I am a theoretical mathematician. That’s my background. I do not like physics,” Clemmer said. “I can do physics. But it’s not something I enjoy. Out of all of the years I have been here, including when Steven was a student in my class, I always told my students I don’t like physics. It’s not necessarily a good thing to do.”
Of all the different colleagues Clemmer has had through the years who have taught physics, she never really felt that she needed to validate the fact that there are people who enjoy physics. Now things are different— and that’s because of Eno.
“Steven has totally changed my thinking,” Clemmer said. “I am very, very careful. I actually tell my students that I promised Mr. Eno I would not say anything negative about physics. And I don’t. I go to him and say, how does this physics piece work? So that I can then bring it back to my calculus class. It’s the first time really in the history of El Segundo between physics and calculus that the two of us are working together.”
Shevlin has made it clear to Eno that he can be the head coach of baseball or football in the future, if he wants.
“He is the whole package,” Shevlin said. “He is charismatic. A lot of times you see teachers who are really, really smart but don’t communicate well. Their level is so high they can’t get it across to the kids. And because of his coaching, he has an advantage. He knows how to reach all levels of kids.”
For now, Eno is very happy exactly where he is.