George Thomas Steitz, son of Magdalene and Charles Steitz, was born in Brooklyn, New York, on November 3, 1924. He passed away on November 14, 2025.

George had three siblings, a sister named, Madeline, a brother named Charles and an older brother named Edward. Madeleine was married to Louis Shiller, and they have a daughter named Barbara who was married to a gentleman by the name of Dave Hornbeck. Charlie was married to Dot, and they have a daughter named Debbie. Edward was married to Jude, and they have three children, Steven, Nancy, and Robert.

George married the love of his life, Julie, on December 19, 1953. They were married for almost 60 years. Julie died at the age of 84. George and Julie have three children, Thomas, Douglas and Sherrill George and is survived by four grandchildren, Brian, Elizabeth, Korie A., and Kyle.

George served in the US Army for 30 months overseas and hit the beaches of Normandy when he was just 19 years old.  He participated in all five major campaigns of World War II. George received five battle stars for participating in all five major campaigns of World War II. During the war, George single-handedly captured a German fighter pilot who landed in Giessen, Germany.  George chased the pilot across a 100 yard field with his pistol.  The German slid down a 200 foot gully trying to escape. George yelled in German, "Hands up!" The pilot stopped and climbed out of the gully. Meanwhile, George’s other friends came running out to help George capture the pilot when the German surrendered. He gave George his German Air Force Luger pistol. The soldiers who came to help George pointed out to him after the capture, "George, your pistol was jammed. If you ever needed to fire, it would not have fired."  If the pilot would’ve shot George, his life would’ve been over. George finished out the war in Marseille France, ready to go home. At that time, he had an injury and could not see out of one eye. George was faced with a dilemma. If he told his sergeant, he knew they would put him in a hospital in France so to prevent missing going home with all his army buddies, he hid it and kept it a secret.  

Once George was on the Liberty ship sailing home, he waited two days so he knew there would be no way to turn around. Then George went into the medical bay and reported his injury. What George didn’t know at the time, he was about to receive 104 penicillin shots on the 19 day ride home to Boston.  When he arrived, they put him in a hospital. After three days, they decided to send him to Fort Dix, New Jersey for another 22 days of recovery.  

When George was released, his first job was in construction, knocking down brick walls for a dollar an hour. During his time as a construction worker, his brother, Dr. Edward Steitz, who was a graduate of Cornell University said George, "You have to go to college and get ahead of everybody else." George applied to Ithaca College and was accepted. He worked extra hard and graduated in three years to beat out the rush of all the other service men getting out of college and looking for jobs. George’s first job was at Macedon High School in New York, where he was a school nurse, bus driver, Health teacher and a coach. He coached all three sports in his first year at Macedon and the baseball team won the championship and the team went 22-3. 

Five years after working at Macedon, the superintendent of Penfield schools called George and offered him the job of Director of Athletics as well as coaching all three sports at Penfield in the years to come. Penfield became well known in New York State and was nationally recognized for its soccer program. Coach Steitz was the first coach in US history to win 400 games. His record in soccer was 411 wins, 69 ties and 69 losses. He was put in six Halls of Fame for his soccer records. George also won 456 games of baseball putting him in the section 5 Baseball Hall of Fame. His softball teams won a total of 202 games. His overall record in sports was 1,325 wins which placed George in the Guinness Book of World Records.

During George’s semi-retirement, the Penfield High girl's softball team was looking for a new coach as in the last three years the team had won only seven games. Coach Steitz took the job changed things around and pushed the girls to limits that they didn’t know they had. In his first three years as Penfield's girl's softball coach, the team went 22-2 for a total of 66 wins, 6 losses and 3 state championships.  Penfield under Coach Steitz won over 200 softball games.  

In his 50 years of coaching, he never had a losing team in any sport!

George was featured on December 11, 2021, by Don Alhart on Channel 13 News.  Don had played soccer for George. George was also featured on ABC Nightly News with David Muir and that program was watched by over 80 million viewers about the date George landed in France at only 19 years of age.  Following that show, George received over 1800 letters and cards from all over the US.

George’s passion throughout all his life was fishing. If he wasn’t coaching, he was fishing. Those who knew him well, will say, "Keep an eye out as the spirit of coach is out on the Finger Lakes or Ontario somewhere searching for his next catch."

George's service and celebration of life will be postponed until spring time with a date to be announced.