“Jerry Maguire” Agent Leigh Steinberg Still Leads with Jewish Values

Outside of the sports world, he’s known as the inspiration for the character “Jerry Maguire,” played by Tom Cruise in the 1996 Cameron Crowe film. But inside the sports world, Leigh Steinberg is still an influential figure. 

While in the film, the titular character’s epiphany left him with only one client (an NFL player played by Cuba Gooding, Jr.), the real-life Steinberg still represents top talent in the sports world, including Super Bowl MVP Patrick Mahomes of the Kansas City Chiefs, Jalen Reynolds of Maccabi Tel Aviv basketball, and Darrell Henderson, Jr. of the Los Angeles Rams. He has also represented a record eight number one NFL Draft picks, including 1989’s top pick, UCLA quarterback Troy Aikman. 

Steinberg’s advocacy goes beyond negotiating contracts for sports stars. Steinberg invests an equal amount of time and work on advocating for concussion victims, mentoring future sports agents, and combating antisemitism and hatred in the United States. 

“I was raised by a father who had two core values: one was to treasure relationships, especially family,” Steinberg told The Journal. “And the second was to try to make a meaningful difference in the world and help people who can’t help themselves. Those are classical Jewish values.”

Steinberg’s grandfather, Dr. Leo Glass, was a doctor in Los Angeles who in 1913 helped form City of Hope National Medical Center in Duarte. Since then, it has grown exponentially. Originally founded as The Jewish Consumptive Relief Association,  a sanatorium for tuberculosis, it was officially renamed “City of Hope” in 1949; by 2011, City of Hope performed its 10,000th bone marrow transplant.

Beginning in 1947, Dr. Glass went to Israel to assist in Israel’s war of Independence. He was killed while in a convoy that was hijacked between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. He is buried in Tzfat. 

His grandfather’s devotion and ultimate sacrifice marked Steinberg. “I was hardwired to try to make a difference in the world, and we’ve done it through athletes and their role-modeling programs,” he said. 

One of the things he has his agency do is have the athletes retrace their roots to the high school, collegiate and professional communities to make a difference. A few years ago, Steinberg started a volunteer program with the Anti-Defamation League called Steinberg Leadership.  “I was worried that skinheads and hate groups were emerging. I wasn’t alive during the Holocaust, but this was happening on our watch,” Steinberg said. The Steinberg Leadership program was “executed in the 30 biggest cities in the country, and it trained young professionals, doctors, lawyers, teachers — they got a year of training in how to spot skinheads and hate groups, how to do intelligence for police departments, and how to intervene in crisis situations and then how to go into school systems and promote ethnic tolerance. So I did it for a number of years and I think we trained about 8,000 volunteers.”

The Leadership program was discontinued for a time. But while sitting shiva for his mother (Dr. Glass’s daughter), who passed away this past summer, Steinberg decided it was time to resurrect it. The rise in antisemitic activity fired up Steinberg to take a stand.

“My basic feeling about it is, this is our time and our watch and we have to be active in rolling back the age- old prejudice that’s rearing its ugly head again,” Steinberg said. “So we can go to sleep every night, knowing there’s an advanced guard against hate.”

As nearly 70% of his clients are NFL players, concussions are a major concern for Steinberg, not only for his clients but for all contact sport athletes. Each year before the Super Bowl in the host city, he hosts an annual Brain Health Summit. 

“I had a crisis of conscience back in the late ‘80s, early ‘90s representing half the starting quarterbacks in the NFL — they kept getting hit in the head,” Steinberg said. “And right when we, the doctors, couldn’t tell us how many it was. We bring neurologists from across the country and innovators who have modalities that can help protect the brain or heal the brain.”

Earlier this year, Steinberg held the annual Brain Health Summit in Los Angeles, in advance of Super Bowl LVI at SoFi Stadium. 

He realizes the power of football. “Right now, pro football is not only the most popular sport. It’s the most popular television show — 71 of the 100 highest rated shows last year were NFL football games,” Steinberg said. “And so we’ve never had a sport before that was the most popular entertainment in the country.”

While the television revenue will keep the sport healthy, Steinberg said, the challenge is that few viewers understand that every time an offensive lineman hits a defensive lineman at the line of scrimmage, it produces a low-level subconcussive event. He hopes his Brain Health summits will lead to long-term solutions.

Beyond concussions, Steinberg’s annual Super Bowl weekend gatherings, including a party to honor humanitarians in sports, have become a staple in the NFL community. In the Phoenix area, where the next Super Bowl will be, he will partner with Champions for the Homeless.

And this November, when Steinberg hosts his annual Agent Academy in Las Vegas, there will be more than sessions on recruiting talent and inking endorsements. There are specific programs on training agents to assist their clients in running a charitable foundation. 

Steinberg’s earliest sports memories were watching minor league baseball at Gilmore Field (now the site of The Grove) with his father. He was at the first Dodger game played in Los Angeles at the Coliseum in 1958. He still looks at sports through the lens of his father’s core values of treasuring relationships and helping people who can’t help themselves.

“My father taught young people on biblical stories and those primary values, which are family, education and making a difference in the world.” – Leigh Steinberg

“My father taught young people on biblical stories and those primary values, which are family, education and making a difference in the world,” he said. “The responsibility to be your brother’s keeper and belief in the state of Israel were all fundamental values to me that have guided my life. When you represent an athlete, you cut up a little bit of your life to share. And I want to do that with young people who have good values, high character, want to make a difference in the world and be role models.”

The NFL season kicks off on Thursday September 8th, with the reigning Super Bowl champion Los Angeles Rams hosting the Buffalo Bills at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood. ■