Rev. Steve Lantz

Rev. Steve Lantz has spent 20 years in Overtown ministering with young men at Booker T. Washington Senior High School, where he is the founder and executive director of Team Respect. Overtown is a neighborhood that has been financially drained and mistreated for generations, and Booker T., which opened in 1927 as the first high school built for Black students in South Florida, stood as a symbol of strength and courage when the construction of I-95 and the Dolphin Expressway fragmented the community. Today the school educates just under 1,000 students, is A-rated, and proudly bears the motto "Not the Largest but the Best."

Through Team Respect, Steve and his team serve in three ways: chaplains who are spiritual influences for high school athletes, mentors who are vocational influences for students, and advocates for school administrators. The year follows three themes. Respect God meets in large groups in the fall; Respect Themselves works in small groups and one-on-one mentoring in the spring, equipping students to share what they have learned with younger students in their feeder schools; and Respect Others takes key student leaders on a short-term service project each summer.

This is Team Respect's twentieth year at Booker T., and the ministry is building the capacity to fund a full-time executive director while raising funds for its first annual Civil Rights Tour of the American South. In 2026 it will also expand its board and recruit several additional mentors. Steve is an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church in America, married to Lynda, with two children — and along the way he has played football, interned with David Letterman, acted in film and television, and had a TikTok go viral enough to be featured on Good Morning America.

From our records Executive Director of the South Florida based charity, Team Respect, Steve has worked closely with many high school football programs, including Florida high school Miami Norland and Booker T. Washington.