By Emily Salisbury

Kim Stephens is currently in her third year as the Head Coach of the Lady Pioneers basketball team. Stephens was named the MEC Coach of the Year in 2017- 2018 Stephens was named the MEC Coach of the Year again for the 2018-2019 season. Luckily, The Phoenix was able to get an interview with Stephens to get to know her a little bit better.

When asked how she got into the sport basketball Stephens told us, “My whole family played; it was never really an option to do anything else. Basketball was always just there in my life.”

The Phoenix also found out from Stephens that she has been playing basketball since the second grade and continued playing throughout high school and college. In fact, Stephens played her at Glenville State College for the Lady Pioneer basketball team throughout her four years of college. After college Stephens went right into assistant coaching at Sacramento State.

Upon finding out that information Stephens was asked how long she had known that she wanted to coach basketball and she told The Phoenix, “I knew I wanted to coach basketball as soon as I realized that I wasn’t good enough to play professionally...so pretty early in life. I loved the game and knew I always wanted to be in it.”

Finally, we asked Stephens how it felt and if she expected to win MEC Coach of the Year two straight years in a row. Stephens was very humble in her reply, “No, it’s quite an honor to be voted on by the other coaches in our league.”

The Phoenix would like to thank Stephens for agreeing to this interview with us and we want to congratulate her on her on her outstanding accomplishments.