By Rebecca Jones
Denver Rocky Mountain News Staff Writer

LITTLETON -- Steve Curnow was remembered Wednesday as a kind and gentle young man with a radiant smile, a generous heart and a fearsome soccer kick.

About 1,500 people filled Trinity Christian Center for the funeral of the 14-year-old freshman, who died last week in the shootings at Columbine High School.

It was the fourth funeral of a Columbine victim in five days at Trinity, and Pastor Billy Epperhart noted that "in 21 years of ministry, never have I seen the grief I've seen this week."

Among the mourners were members of Steve's soccer team, the Blue Devils of the Colorado Rush soccer club. They are coached by his dad, Bob Curnow. Soccer was the great love of Steve's life, and he yearned to play for his high school team. He wanted some day to play the game professionally.

"Every time we'd play, he'd have a huge smile on his face," said Justin Norman, a former teammate who was among a dozen friends who offered eulogies for Steve.

"My favorite place is the soccer field," Steve wrote in an autobiography shortly before his death, "because I am feared as a player and respected as a ref. I take all my anxiety on the ball and the whistle, and it is good exercise."

His favorite color: green, "because it is the color of the field."

His favorite classes: Spanish, technology and gym, "because I get to play sports."

Off the field, Steve's energy was often channeled into impish pranks and arguing with his sister, Nancy, a 20-year-old student at Metropolitan State College of Denver. Nancy told mourners she's going to miss fighting with Steve over whose turn it is to take out the garbage and whose turn it is to use the computer. She wonders, she said, who will tell stories to her own children about what she was like growing up. She'd been counting on her little brother for that.

Many tears welled up as Nancy's video memorial to her brother played: images of a newborn held in his big sister's arms, a tow-headed toddler sitting in his mother's lap, a boy racing around a soccer field, a young man sporting way cool shades.

Pastor Epperhart's voice broke as he read a note to Steve written by his mother, Susan, an administrative assistant at the Colorado Department of Transportation.

"Thank you for that special moment two weeks ago ... " Epperhart began, quoting from the note. It was nearly a minute before he could continue. "Thank you for that special moment two weeks ago when you said, 'Mom, I bet there aren't many guys who can discuss things with their moms like we do.' Thank you for feeling that way," Susan Curnow wrote.

"How many times can a heart break?" asked Claudia Abbott, an English teacher at Columbine High School. "They were innocent and untouched bright lights. We were privileged to have known them. This is God's gift to us," she said. Then, noting what a Star Wars fan Steve was, promised his friends and family that "the Force is with him."