STEVE McCONKEY | 4 WINDS USA
Steve McConkey is the President of 4 WINDS USA, a worldwide sports ministry, mostly in track and field (4WindsUSA.com). Starting in 1981, he has worked through eleven Olympic cycles. From 1982 to 1992, Steve was a USA National Track and Field Club Coach. After 1992, he has worked with all world-class track and field athletes and is a defender of Christian athletes. Steve graduated with honors from Western Kentucky University (Master of Public Health), Minnesota State University (BS-Community Health), and Webster High School (WI). Ministry headquarters have been in Eugene (Oregon), Dallas-Fort Worth (Texas), Minneapolis-St. Paul (Minnesota), and Madison (Wisconsin). In recent years, Steve has had over 325 worldwide radio, article, and TV interviews. Besides ministry work, he still advises athletes on training.
A FEW FAST SUMMARIES:
Steve ran 65,865 miles from 1971 through 2016. 45 years. 4.01 miles per day.
In 1996, Steve and Liz McConkey were 75 yards from the Olympic bomb in Atlanta. They saw Richard Jewell pushing people back. He was falsely accused of planting the bomb, but was later cleared. They saw a guy go in with an Army bag before the bomb went off and the FBI interviewed them.
While running near Danbury, Wisconsin in the summer of 1997, Steve was chased into a lake by one of two bears that sprang up. He ran through the woods and went out 20 feet from the shoreline into the lake. The bear was clicking its jaw loudly and rotating its head like a robot as Steve threw muck at the bear’s face and shouted. Twenty feet from the shoreline, he walked 200 feet as the bear kept him in the water. A pontoon picked him up.
Before the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, McConkey and Senator Lindsey Graham fought the Chinese government after news circulated that they were not going to allow Bibles in the Olympic Village. Afterwards, China cleared up the confusion.
Before and during the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, 4 WINDS USA put athlete testimonies into the Chinese underground church of 110 million people. The athletes won three golds, two silvers. After their events, they shared the gospel worldwide. A Chinese pastor contacted Steve in the United States to get the testimonies that he collected.
In 2003, Steve started fighting against the International Olympic Committee’s transgender policies. He was the only one who stood against this publicly.
From there, the transgender movement spread to state high schools, the NCAA, NFL, NBA, MLB, and NHL. Steve has fought this agenda every step of the way.
After years of standing up, World Athletics (track and field) and World Aquatics (swimming), plus other sports, banned transgenders from participating at the international level. Twenty-six states have passed anti-transgender athlete bills.
Steve tried to sue the International Olympic Committee before the 2016 Olympics in Rio. He was concerned that intersex athletes (not transgender) would sweep the women’s 800 meters. That is exactly what happened as they had high untested testosterone levels.
In March 2022, Steve went to Washington D.C. to talk to elected officials. He asked them to go beyond stopping transgender athletes and to include the dangers of transgender hormones-surgeries on adolescents while addressing transgender athletes.
Later that month, Steve visited forty-five elected officials at the Wisconsin Capitol in Madison. He gave them the same message. Afterwards, many started doing what Steve suggested nationally and at state levels.
On October 4, 2023, Steve spoke at three hearings at the Wisconsin Capitol. Two bills were against transgender athletes on high school and college teams. The third bill was against the transgender surgeries and hormone treatments for those under eighteen. The bills passed the Assembly and Senate, but Governor Evers vetoed them.
During the 2024 Olympics in Paris, Steve opposed the International Olympic Committee for telling the media to not use certain words to address athletes, including the words “husband and wife.” Through the years, the International Olympic Committee and the United Nations work together promoting the UN’s radical agenda.
Steve has done ministry work at most of the USA Track and Field Championships, plus Olympic Trials, since 1981. The 2024 Olympics was their eleventh Olympic cycle. During the 2024 Olympic Trials, Steve had a successful outreach to the Olympic track and field team. They went on to win thirty-four medals, tying the 1984 Olympics total for the USA. Steve’s first Olympics was in Los Angeles in 1984, where the Olympics will be in 2028. During the 2024 Olympics, many athletes shared the gospel.
During the week of September 10, 2024, Steve was the Western Kentucky University Alumnus of the Week. He was a graduate assistant coach of their cross-country and track teams in 1980-81. They won the Ohio Valley Conference Cross Country Championships with a perfect 15 points and were sixth at the NCAA Division 1 Cross Country Championships. WKU has 16,500 students each year.
Steve and Liz McConkey’s son is among the top gun dealers in the USA with indoor shooting ranges. They have a daughter who is a psychotherapist and another son who is a computer expert.
CORE BELIEFS
We believe that there is one God, eternally existent in three persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
We believe the Bible to be the inspired, the only infallible, authoritative Word of God.
We believe in the deity of our Lord Jesus Christ, in His virgin birth, in His sinless life, in His vicarious and atoning death through His shed blood, in His burial and bodily resurrection, in His ascension to the right hand of the Father, and in His personal return in power and glory.
We believe that for the salvation of lost and sinful man, regeneration by the Holy Spirit is absolutely essential.
We believe in the present ministry of the Holy Spirit by whose indwelling the Christian is enabled to live a godly life.
We believe in the resurrection of both the saved and the lost; of they that are saved unto the resurrection of life and of they that are lost unto the resurrection of damnation.
We believe in the spiritual unity of believers in our Lord Jesus Christ.