STEVE MCCONKEY

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1. We believe the Bible to be the inspired, infallible, and authoritative Word of God.

2. We believe that there is one God, eternally existing in three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

3. We believe in the deity of our Lord Jesus Christ. His virgin birth, sinless life, vicarious and atoning death through his shed blood, bodily resurrection, ascension to the right hand of the Father, and his personal return in power and glory.

4. We believe that for the salvation of lost and sinful humanity, regeneration by the Holy Spirit is absolutely essential.

5. We believe in the present ministry of the Holy Spirit, by whose indwelling the Christian is enabled to live a godly life.

6. We believe in the resurrection of both the saved and the lost, those who are saved unto the resurrection of life, and those who are lost unto the resurrection of damnation.

7. We believe in the spiritual unity of all believers in our Lord Jesus Christ.

--On October 19, 1955, Steve was born in Des Moines, Iowa. He attended Dunlap Elementary School and went on two field trips to the Drake Relays where he was introduced to world-class track and field. In 1968, Steve’s family moved to the Danbury, Wisconsin area (Dairyland).

--On September 22, 1959 in Des Moines, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev visited various agricultural sites. He was on a two week tour of the United States. On his way to a packing house, his motorcade drove down a street near Steve’s home. Steve and his brother ran down the road to see what was going on. The motorcade was surrounded by the police and many armed guards were on the street corners with machine guns. They saw Khrushchev go by very close.

--While in Des Moines, Steve lived near the Iowa Capitol and the State Historical Museum. With friends, he spent a lot of time going through those buildings, including walking the 298 steps up to the Iowa Capitol Dome many times from the second floor. The Dome was 275 feet above the ground floor. During the Vietnam War, there were many protests at the Capitol.

--Being the first battleground state in politics, Iowa had parades for many politicians in Des Moines. Steve went to some of those parades. The politicians rode through the downtown streets in limousine convertibles without proper protection. The Kennedy’s, Nixon, LBJ, Goldwater, etc.

--Steve ran 70,256 miles from 1971 through 2019, forty-eight years at 4.01 miles per day. He ran for Webster High School (WI) and the University of Wisconsin-Superior before transferring to Minnesota State University in Mankato. In 1977, MSU was third at the NCAA Division 2 Cross Country Championships. Steve got a BS-Community Health degree from MSU with honors.

--Around Steve’s 18th birthday on October 19, 1973, Steve registered for the Vietnam War draft. Registration with the Selective Service System was suspended on April 1, 1975.

--Steve became a Christian in March 1976 at the University of Wisconsin-Superior after reading a Bible left in the student union.

--Steve was a graduate assistant coach at Western Kentucky University for the cross-country and track and field teams in 1980-81. They won the Ohio Valley Conference Cross Country Championships with a perfect 15 points and were sixth at the 1980 NCAA Division 1 Cross Country Championships. He got his Master of Public Health degree with honors at WKU.

--From 1982 through 1992, Steve was a successful USA National Track and Field Club Coach for Athletes in Action (82-83), Lay Witnesses for Christ (83-88), and 4 Winds Christian Athletics (88-92). Team centers were in Eugene (OR), Dallas-Fort Worth (TX), and Minneapolis-St. Paul (MN). After 1992, 4 Winds Christian Athletics dropped the team to work with athletes on all teams.

--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. Steve and his family were going to go in the direction of where the bomb was, but Jewell pushed them back. More people would have died if Jewell had not warned them. 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 saw two bears come out of the woods 175 feet in front of him. One was huge and the other was smaller. They did not run away as normal. He ran through the woods to the shore of Big McGraw Lake near Danbury, Wisconsin and stopped. Steve heard the bear chasing through the woods. He went out 15 feet from the shoreline. The smaller bear came to the shoreline and got into the water. As Steve threw muck at the bear’s face and shouted, the bear was clicking its jaws loudly and rotating its head like a robot. Fifteen feet from the shoreline, he walked 200 feet as the bear walked away from the water and kept coming back. A pontoon picked Steve up.

--In 2003, Steve was the only person publicly standing against the International Olympic Committee's transgender policy. He called various IOC members and was in contact with the USA Olympic Committee. From there, the transgender sports movement spread to schools and other sports organizations throughout the world. The lone voice consistently for 19 years until 2022, Steve has fought this agenda every step of the way. Finally in 2022, more people started to speak up.

--Before the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, Steve 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. There was a worldwide article released by the Associated Press on the subject.

--Before and during the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, 4 WINDS USA put athlete testimonies into the Chinese underground church of 110 million people. Those athletes won many medals. After their events, they shared the gospel worldwide. Steve was contacted by a Chinese pastor to get the testimonies while mowing the lawn.

--In 2019, Steve asked Rasmussen to do a poll on transgender athletes. It was the first poll that was done on the subject in the United States. At that time, only 28% of Americans were for transgender athletes. 

--On September 10, 2024, Steve was the Western Kentucky University Alumnus of the Week. WKU has 16,500 students.

--Previously, Bob Kellogg was a news reporter for Focus on the Family. Starting in the spring of 2018, he worked as a freelance education reporter for American Family Radio. He received a B.A. from Midland University in journalism and a M.A. from the University of Nebraska in journalism. Bob interviewed Steve hundreds of times while at American Family Radio. The radio broadcasts went on 180 radio stations in 35 states. Most of the interviews were played during their news reports. Bob died during the winter of 2026, but he got to see that the International Olympic Committee reversed their transgender policies. 

--In March 2026, the International Olympic Committee banned transgender athletes and will require female athletes to take a once in a lifetime chromosome test that is done by a cheek swab. Currently, twenty-seven states have stopped transgender athletes. Also, the Supreme Court has ruled against them. 

--Since 1981, Steve has been to most USA Track and Field Championships, Olympic Trials, and some Olympics. 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 in Paris, the most since the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles. Steve’s first Olympics was in Los Angeles in 1984, where the Olympics will be held in 2028.  

--Over the years, Steve has had hundreds of worldwide radio, article, and TV interviews.

--4 WINDS USA has been in Madison, Wisconsin since 2006.