Steven Gregory Yano was born on July 27, 1952 in Chicago, Illinois to Paul and Ukie Yano. He had two younger sisters, Christine and Leslie. In 1955, they moved from Chicago to East LA, where he attended Robert Hill Lane and Griffith Junior High. Steve started working at an early age as a newspaper delivery boy and, growing up in the Japanese American community, Steve played baseball and basketball for the Montebello Jets.

Steve later attended Garfield High School and that's where he met Susan. In high school, Steve played on the basketball and tennis teams and worked part time as a box boy at a grocery store. During his senior year, Steve, a hopeless romantic, mustered up the courage to call Susan and before you knew it, they started "going around" together.

In 1970, Steve went to UC Santa Barbara while Susan attended Cal State LA. Every weekend, Steve would drive his motorcycle down to see her. Eventually, Steve decided to drop out of UC Santa Barbara and finish his degree in psychology at Cal State LA with Susan.

While at Cal State LA, they did things a little differently. They went to school during the summer quarter and took the winter quarter off to go skiing. They took classes in backpacking, tennis and volleyball and joined the ski club on campus.

Through college, Steve and Susan were in a gym every night either playing or practicing basketball or volleyball. Steve eventually formed an organization called the Intruders that had 2 basketball teams and a few volleyball teams. Everyone gravitated towards Steve and Susan, so they formed many lifelong friendships through playing basketball and volleyball in college.

Also during college, Steve purchased a van and, with his friend Gary Arita, started a gardening route with several major commercial businesses, but during midterms, they both stopped working to study and were fired shortly after. Looking for a new job, Steve went to Cal State LA's Career Center where he saw a flyer on the bulletin board seeking a reliable person with a van to sell music. Steve and Susan went for an interview with Bob McNellis and got a job selling tapes and albums at the Orange County swap meet. Eventually, Steve and Susan wanted to go off on their own and their boss agreed to continue selling product to them. They moved to the Long Beach swap meet where they had the best stall and their business boomed. Eventually the property that the swap meet sat on was sold and they moved their business to the Vermont Swap Meet in Gardena.

Before they graduated, Steve and Susan were able to buy a motor home and their first house together, where they hosted weekly disco nights every Monday. Steve graduated with a bachelor's degree in psychology and started a graduate program in school psychology, but after a shadowing program, Steve realized he could make more money working 3 days a week at the swap meet than he could make working 5 days a week as a school psychologist so he dropped out of the program with just a few units left to go and instead opened a wholesale distributorship selling cut out product with Bob McNellis. Eventually they ended their partnership and Steve and Susan went back to just selling records at the swap meet. They moved to the Roadium swap meet in Torrance, where Steve met Dr. Dre and immediately recognized how talented he was. Steve later introduced Eazy-E to Dr. Dre and they eventually went on to form N.W.A. Steve saw how successful N.W.A. was and decided to start his own production company and record label. The first artists signed to his record label, Skanless Records, were Hi-C and Tony A. He later signed Proper Dos, Black Forest, recorded other groups, and did work for Rhino Records and a few other record labels.

In October of 1979, Steve and Susan moved into their second house and current home. When they moved into their new house, there were two kids playing in the middle of the street. The girl came over and introduced herself and her brother. This is how Steve and Susan first met Andy and Debby. From there, Debby slowly introduced all of the other kids in the neighborhood to Steve and Susan. Before they knew it, all of the neighborhood kids ranging from ages 7 to 12 were stopping by to hang out with them and had named themselves the "Get Along Gang." Steve and Susan's house became a clubhouse for the Get Along Gang until the kids either moved or went away to college. Steve and Susan became their friends and mentors, took them on trips, taught them how to ski, fish and backpack and tried to teach them a few life lessons along the way.

One day in early 1986, Vernon Lee came by the house to have a serious talk with Steve and Susan. Vernon asked them if they ever wanted to have kids of their own. They hadn't really thought about it, but he reminded them that they weren't getting any younger. The next month, Susan was pregnant and they talked about finally getting married. On July 29, 1986, they jumped into their motor home with their dogs, picked up Steve's father, drove up to the Chapel of the Belles in Lake Tahoe and eloped. When they returned to Los Angeles, they hosted a reception where Steve's father, Paul, noted that Steve always marched to the beat of a different drummer. Then on December 24, 1986, Sheri was born and Steve became a father himself.

On April 10, 1992, Steve and Susan had their second daughter, Stephanie. Eventually, Steve and Susan closed the swap meet to concentrate on raising their girls. All along, Steve was involved with basketball and still going to Mammoth to ski, fish, hike and camp. With all of his friends now raising kids of their own, these vacations quickly turned in to family affairs.

When Sheri joined her Tigers team, Steve and Susan became involved with both Sheri's team and the Tigers' organization as a whole. Around 1996, Lyle Honda approached Steve and Susan to ask if they could help him start a club basketball organization. They agreed and Sheri started practicing and playing with the first SGV girls' team. Steve went to all of Sheri's practices and games and learned new coaching methods from Coach Honda. Steve first used these new coaching methods to assist in coaching Stephanie's team, Tigers In Motion aka Tigers Ten. Then, in 1997, Steve started a free clinic on Saturdays called Hollenbeck Hoops for players that wanted some extra practice.

In 1999, the Tigers organization needed a team in the age division below Sheri, so Steve formed Tigers Da Bomb. Steve coached Tigers Da Bomb for 8 years until they went off to college.

In 2000, Susan was diagnosed with Stage 3C ovarian cancer. Steve was forced to take on more responsibilities while Susan battled her illness. Steve's outlook on life changed, he closed his businesses and wanted to start spending more time with the girls and giving even more back to his community. Within the Tigers organization, he helped start Tigers Volleyball and created the Men's Masters Division of the annual Tigers Tournament.

In 2003, Sheri volunteered Steve to become a lower level coach at Troy High School in Fullerton. Even though this did not start as a paid position, Steve himself wanted to learn from the best, and coaching the lower levels gave Steve access to the practices of one of the best high school coaches around, Kevin Kiernan. Steve ended up coaching the lower levels at Troy for over 10 years. He loved coaching and coached many teams, some of the other teams Steve coached or helped coach were the '98 Tigerettes, Tigers Storm, an SGV team and a Nets team, just to name a few.

Steve was more than a coach to his players. He was a mentor, a role model, a friend and an advocate. Steve had his own coaching philosophy that he tried to instill in each and every one of his players. Every one of his players knows that playing good defense, practicing and working hard are essential elements of the game. But, Steve also emphasized the importance of getting a good education. For his own daughters, he drove 40 minutes each way to Troy High School every day for the best education he could find for his girls. For his players, he gave them time off to study for finals and emphasized education, even over basketball.

When Steve's youngest daughter, Stephanie, was accepted to UC San Diego and being recruited to play for other colleges, he encouraged her to choose the best school and trust that the basketball would work out. Stephanie chose to attend UC San Diego and walked on to the team in her first year. Steve couldn't have been prouder of Stephanie and went to almost all of her games.

After Stephanie's first year of college, Steve started an annual backing trip for his birthday. The trip slowly grew and this year for his 62 ^nd birthday, Steve climbed the highest peak in continental U.S., Mt. Whitney, with his daughters, future son-in-law and their friends. He told everyone that this was one of his greatest accomplishments in life.

Steve was fishing, skiing, hiking, coaching and playing basketball with his friends and family until the day he passed. Steve loved sharing the things he liked to do with others. He would have wanted everyone here to continue living and loving life as he did. Keep his spirit alive by fishing, skiing, hiking, coaching and playing basketball.

If there is a special place in your heart for Steve, please keep it there and he will be with you always.