Maryland Love Connection: Steve & Lexi Suter

The most seemingly inconsequential decisions can lead to life-changing events. Two snap decisions from Steve and Lexi Suter led to a 16-year-long marriage and a flourishing relationship, all built by the University of Maryland. 

Lexi is two years older than Steve. She was a senior on the cheer team when he was a redshirt sophomore on the football team. Decades later, the two are still rooted in College Park. Lexi has been around the cheer team as an athlete from 1998-2002 and as an assistant coach since 2003, and Steve calls Maryland football games on the radio.

“It feels like we never left,” Steve said. “It's really cool now, just feeling like you're back in with the program and with school and both being employees at the university in some capacity.”

Maryland wasn’t necessarily the plan for either of them, but small, snap decisions brought them to a place where they’d find each other and a place to call home. 

“I have to give my mom some credit,” Lexi said. “Maryland wasn't even on my radar as a school that I was interested in. I was visiting North Carolina Chapel Hill, and on the way home, my mom said, ‘Let's stop at University of Maryland. I think you should look at it.’ I really didn't want to. It was raining and I hadn't even looked into it. But we stopped, and I fell in love with it.”

Steve, meanwhile, was searching for a place to make a name for himself. 

“I didn't have a set goal to go to Maryland, but it was an option for me, or I wanted it to be an option for me,” Steve said. “I was trying to get recruited to play football. To be honest, I didn't care where, as long as it was D1. When Maryland offered me, it was like a switch went off. It was kind of a no-brainer. I shut the recruiting down. I just committed to Maryland. It was like, ‘They're all-in now I'm all-in.’”

The two crossed paths at various student-athlete events, dorm parties, and a slew of other interactions. There was something there, but a first move was needed.

One night, the football team had a fundraising event where they could "auction off” dates with some of the players. Steve wasn’t up for grabs, but still went up on the stage, busted a few dance moves, and caught the eyes of the cheer team. 

“When I came down off the stage, I had gathered a little bit of attention from the females,” Steve said. “A couple girls kept coming over trying to talk to me, and Lexi’s best friend, Jarnell, came over and just blocked them all. They couldn't talk to me. And so that's when I knew, ‘Yo, she must have told her friend that she's into me’. So that's when I knew she liked me, and the feelings were mutual. That’s where I probably started putting the press on.”

Lexi’s senior year was the season that Maryland men’s basketball team won the national championship. After starting to hang out the previous winter break, the two had to take their budding relationship to texting as Lexi took to the road for the historic basketball run. 

“We were texting a lot back and forth while she was away, so my game must have been strong,” Steve said with a grin. “She still liked me over text.”

Things started to pick up. 

“That summer, we lived together,” Lexi said. “Me, Steve, his best friend, Domonique Foxworth, and one of my teammates, we all lived in the same house together in the summer. Here we are now, 23 years later with two kids.”

They bring their two daughters, Kennedy and Kendall, to all sorts of events in College Park as the family supports the team that brought Steve and Lexi together. 

“I can't imagine my life without Maryland,” Lexi said. “It's just such a big part of who we are, and even our kids have grown to love it. It's just like second-nature to them as well. I always feel supported when I'm here. Even just going to the games, if I go to the games without my daughters, people will say ‘Where are the girls, and how are the girls?’ Just knowing that people care and that we’re able to make an impact on other people's lives has been really important and really makes me feel good.”

Even the times apart brought them closer together. But home is where the heart is, and they never strayed too far from Maryland for too long. 

“When I graduated, he was still playing at Maryland,” Lexi said. “I started working full-time and started my master's degree. He had the best season of his life after we started dating in Maryland, and I like to think I'm responsible for that.”

Steve’s 2002 season saw him earn All-American honorable mentions while both 2002 and 2003 featured First-Team All ACC honors. He went up to Hamilton, Canada, for the 2005 season to compete with the Hamiton Tiger-Cats.

“That was probably the hardest time, him being up in Hamilton, me here in Maryland, but we got through it,” Lexi said.

They’re a family now, building on 16 years of marriage and over a decade of parenting as the only team they love more than their Terps.

“It’s crazy to think about if I didn't fall in love with it just by being on the campus, how different my life might have been,” Lexi said. “I haven't been able to walk away from Maryland. It's ingrained in me. I just have such a love for the school and a love for the programs. We've seen a lot over the past 20 years, and no matter how good or bad of seasons we've gone through, I still feel so strongly and will support it.”

It’s a multi-generational love for the University of Maryland now, spanning from the generation that convinced Lexi to check out the campus down to the children growing up in a Terp-fanatic family.

“My parents didn't have an affiliation with Maryland, but they're bigger fans than we are,” Lexi said. “You earn the right when you pay tuition to root for school. They've done that to the fullest. They got season tickets to all the sports. They go to the coaches show every Thursday. They're all-in, so it's expanded to our extended family, too.”

The two still get to experience the thrill of Maryland Athletics within their everyday lives, flourishing in the same surroundings that they fell in love in.

“It’s a little bittersweet because when you're on campus, you still feel like you're in college to some degree,” Steve said. “You don't picture yourself as the old-timer walking by and talking to the students. I guess you don't realize the age gap that's there.” 

Decades have passed, but it feels like they haven’t grown or aged. Steve’s message? Don’t overlook choices, because you never know where they might lead you to.

“Really simple, small decisions can affect the rest of your life,” Steve said. “That decision to stop at Maryland on the way back when it wasn't in her future plans changed the trajectory of her life, similar to my story. Those small decisions have shaped our lives for the last 25 years.”