Stephen Miss

Belmont Abbey College President Dr. William Thierfelder has announced the appointment of men’s basketball coach Stephen Miss to the position of Director of Athletics on August 29, 2012. Miss will continue to serve as the Crusaders men’s basketball coach.

“As the new Athletic Director, Stephen Miss will do an exceptional job of building on all the good work of those who have come before him,” Thierfelder said. “His model of excellence and virtue has been an integral part of the education, formation, and preparation of our student-athletes. In addition to his head coaching experience, his advanced degrees in the humanities will help ensure that our students are world-class performers both inside and outside of the classroom.”

Miss makes his foray into athletics administration as he enters his sixth year as the Crusaders men’s basketball coach, a position he started on July 26, 2007 after spending the previous three seasons as the top assistant coach.

“I am humbled beyond words to be named Athletic Director at Belmont Abbey College,” Miss said. “I am grateful to Dr. Thierfelder, Abbot Placid and the entire Abbey community for this tremendous privilege and for their confidence. I would like to express my gratitude as well to Quin Monahan for his service to our department the past two years. My charge is to continue to foster a culture of virtue through sport and to provide our student-athletes with the best experience possible while simultaneously assisting and mentoring them in becoming more complete individuals in mind, body and spirit.”

Miss will lead a department that has ascended to unprecedented growth in the College’s history, one that has added nine sports in the last eight years. He will also direct a program that saw five programs-the women's cross country team, the women's basketball team and the men's tennis and men’s lacrosse teams, the most of any in Conference Carolinas-recognized by Conference Carolinas with the Messick Award for displaying the best sportsmanship. The Crusaders claimed the overall sportsmanship award from the conference in 2012.

As Head Basketball Coach, Miss has guided the Abbey to an 80-61 mark, including a 20-win season during the 2008-09 campaign, the program's first 20-win season since 2002-03.

Under Miss's tutelage, guard Richard Barbee (2008-11) ended his career as the program's fourth all-time leading scorer, netting 2,018 points, the first Crusader to eclipse the 2,000 point mark in 22 years. During Miss’s tenure, five players have scored over 1,000 points, three have signed professional contracts and two were invited to NBA pre-draft workouts with the Charlotte Hornets.

Miss has coached 11 academic all-conference and ten were named all-conference in his five years, with a 100 percent graduation rate among his players.

Prior to joining the Abbey, Miss served one season as an assistant coach at Towson University during the 2003-04 season. That year, the Tigers doubled the previous seasons win total and recorded the program’s first ever Colonial Athletic Association (CAA) conference tournament victory.  From 1998 until 2003, Stephen was an assistant at the University of Georgia, beginning as a graduate student assistant and eventually becoming administrative assistant for the Bulldogs. While Stephen was 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 and his wife, Angela (Chair of the English Department and Director of the Rhetoric and Writing Program at Belmont Abbey College) were married in 2003 and reside in Belmont.  The couple has two children, Abigail Grace, born November of 2004, and a son, Stephen Patrick Mitchell, born January of 2007.