Fred Llewellyn Steers was born in Chicago on 27 May 1887, the son of W. B. and Lily Steers; his father worked as a clerk in a department store. He was a graduate of Englewood High School (1906) and the University of Notre Dame (LL.B., 1911). After being admitted to the Illinois Bar he opened a law office in Chicago (1 May 1913); he would maintain his Chicago practice for many decades. On 8 July 1914 Steers married Maye Miller of Chicago. The couple established a residence in Beverly Hills on Chicago's South Side; Steers would remain in Beverly for most of his life, serving as president or officer of numerous local organizations (the Beverly Improvement Association; the Ridge Civic Council; the Beverly Hills University Club; and the South Area Safety Council of the Chicago Motor Club). He was also extremely active in Notre Dame alumni affairs, serving on the Board of Directors of the Alumni Association and as president of the Notre Dame University Club of Chicago (1917-1919).

At Notre Dame Steers earned three letters in track, running the mile and half-mile. This interest in athletics would manifest itself in a long career in sports administration, most notably within the heirarchy of the Amateur Athletic Union of the United States. From its founding in 1888 into the 1970s, the AAU was among the most important umbrella organizations in American amateur athletics. Its influence extended from the playground to the highest levels of amateur sports, where it interacted (or came into conflict) with organizations like the National Collegiate Athletic Association and the United States Olympic Committee. It claimed jurisdiction over numerous sports, major and minor, including track and field, swimming, basketball, boxing, and gymnastics. It established rules and regulations, instituted championship competitions, kept records; and always, strove to enforce codes of amateur standing. (One realm in which the AAU never achieved the autonomy it sought was college athletics, where it ran up against the NCAA and its member colleges). The national AAU was made up of regional associations of amateur clubs, organizations, and other groups. Steers made his name in the Central Association of the AAU, which comprised, in the mid-1920s, most of Illinois, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. From 1920 or 1921 to the 1960s Steers was a representative of the Central Association on the national AAU's Board of Governors. From 1923 to 1925 he was Central AAU president, and Secretary-Treasurer from 1929 to 1946. Steers' rise within the amateur sports hierarchy coincided with that of another Chicagoan and Central Association representative, Avery Brundage, future president of the AAU, the American Olympic Committee, and the International Olympic Committee. Steers also served as fourth, third, second, and first vice president of the national AAU, the latter term of office coming prior to and during World War II.

Among the AAU's more notable functions was the management of tryouts for the U.S. Olympic team. Steers was a member of the American Olympic delegations in 1928 (IX Olympiad, Amsterdam), 1932 (X Olympiad, Los Angeles) and 1936 (XI Olympiad, Berlin). In each instance he was chairman of the AAU's Women's Track and Field Committee, charged with organizing the Olympic trials in women's athletics and selecting the personnel who would make the trip to the Games. In these same Olympiads he also served as manager (or administrative head) of the women's track and field team. Track and field events for women were introduced to the Olympic program in 1928; Steers' team, chosen in final tryouts held at Newark on 4 July, included 19 athletes in 5 events. The 1932 team, performing at home and featuring the great Babe Didrikson, won gold medals in five of six events. The 16-athlete 1936 team was less successful, winning two of six events. From the 1930s to the 1960s Steers also served as a member of the American Olympic Committee and its successor, the United States Olympic Committee.

In 1935 Steers played a visible role in one of the most contentious issues in American Olympic history: the proposed boycott of the 1936 Winter and Summer Games in Germany. In October 1935 AAU president Jeremiah T. Mahoney organized the Committee on Fair Play in Sports, whose letterhead bore the motto "No American Participation in the Olympic Games under Nazi Auspices". Leading the advocates of participation was Avery Brundage, former AAU president and current president of the American Olympic Committee. The matter came to a head at the AAU convention at the Hotel Commodore in New York in December; delegates voted 58.25 to 55.75 in favor of participation. (The decision was technically the prerogative of the AOC, but an AAU vote to boycott would have made it all but impossible, politically and financially, to send teams to Germany). Steers spoke at length to the assembled delegates at the Commodore just before the vote, passionately supporting Brundage and claiming that only one of 140 U.S. athletes he had polled was in favor of a boycott.

Steers remained active in amateur athletics into the 1960s. He died in Chicago on 7 November 1967, at the age of 81.