Mr. Steve Konde

Stephen Konde, who built a baseball powerhouse at Waldwick High School, died Thursday. The Waldwick resident was 63.

He had bile duct cancer, his wife, Rosemary, said.

Twenty of Mr. Konde's 21 seasons as Waldwick's varsity baseball coach were winning campaigns, and he racked up more than |370 victories. He was the Bergen County Coaches Association's baseball coach of the year in |1988 and 1994, and was inducted into two coaching halls of fame.

"Steve had a great attention to detail and a huge commitment to being professional," said Dave Anderson, Mr. Konde's longtime assistant., said.

Stephen Konde played varsity baseball at Hackensack High School.

"His coaches were important to him growing up and he wanted to pay cq that forward," Rosemary Konde said, explaining her husband's desire to go into coaching.

After his 1970 graduation from Springfield College in Massachusetts, Mr. Konde took a job as a physical education teacher in |the Paramus schools. He was an assistant baseball coach at Paramus High School and varsity coach for a year each at Ridgefield Park and River Dell Regional high schools before landing the Waldwick post.

"My husband was an only child, and the relationships he made through coaching gave him the brotherhood he never had," Rosemary Konde said.

Mr. Konde, also a longtime soccer official in Bergen County, retired from both his Waldwick coaching duties and his Paramus teaching career in 2004.

He is survived by his wife of 40 years; his daughters, Katie Eitner of Mahwah and Kristen Nelson of Ramsey; his mother, Eunice Konde of Ramsey, and four grandchildren.

https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/northjersey/name/steve-konde-obituary?id=52173267