Meet Stephen Miss
Now in his 16th year at Belmont Abbey College, Stephen Miss has seen unprecedented growth within the Crusader Athletic Department. He has spearheaded the efforts for the last eight years, after assuming the role of Athletic Director on August 29, 2012. During that time, the department has added 11 sports, while capturing five overall Conference Carolinas Messick Sportsmanship Awards, including three straight from 2011 to 2014. The cycling and cheerleading programs featured national championships in 2016-17.
Miss arrived at The Abbey in 2004-05 as an assistant men’s basketball coach in 2004, then was elevated to the head coaching position for the 2012-13 season. In seven years, he guided the Abbey to a mark of 113-87 including a 20-win season during the 2008-09 campaign, the highest program’s first 20-win season since 2002-03. He led the Abbey to a Conference Carolinas title in 2013, the program’s first in ten years.
Under Miss’s tutelage, guard Richard Barbee (2008-11) ended his career as the program’s fourth all-time leading scorer with 2,018 points, the first Crusader to eclipse the 2,000 point mark in 22 years. During Miss’s tenure, five players scored over 1,000 points, three signed professional contracts and two were invited to NBA pre-draft workouts with the Charlotte Hornets.
Miss coached 11 academic all-conference selections, while 10 were named all-conference, with a 100 percent graduation rate among his players.
Prior to joining the Abbey, Miss served one season as an assistant coach at Towson. That year, the Tigers doubled the previous season’s win total and recorded the program’s first-ever Colonial Athletic Association (CAA) conference tournament victory. From 1998 until 2003, Miss was an assistant at Georgia, beginning as a graduate student assistant and eventually earning a promotion to administrative assistant for the Bulldogs. While on staff at Georgia, the Bulldogs won the Southeastern Conference (SEC) Eastern Division title in 2002, made post-season appearances in the 2001 and 2002 NCAA Tournaments as well as in the 1999 NIT, and were ranked among the top 25 teams in the country for the last 10 weeks of the 2002-03 campaign.
In addition to lottery pick Jarvis Hayes (Washington Wizards), first-rounder Jumaine Jones (Los Angeles Lakers), second-rounder Rashad Wright, and free agent Damien Wilkins (Seattle SuperSonics), Miss aided in the development of 12 players who went on to play professional basketball at Towson and Georgia.
Miss received his Bachelors Degree from the University of North Carolina in 1992 and holds two Masters Degrees, one in English (1996) from the University of Georgia and one in Irish Theatre (1997) from Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland. Miss has two children, Abigail Grace and Stephen Patrick Mitchell.
Athletics Administration TEAM
Unparalleled growth
Belmont Abbey College really pushes me not just to be a good athlete, but a good person too. It’s definitely a special place. Almost immediately, you begin to develop a relationship with those around you—from freshman year to senior year and even beyond.
KENDAL RATLIFF 2017
Business Management, Men’s Basketball
