CHARLOTTE — After 36 years and 600 wins, a local basketball legend is hanging his clipboard.
Stephen Joyner Sr. led a remarkable career at Johnson C. Smith University marked by many firsts for the HBCU.
The Winston-Salem native began as the first head coach for the women’s basketball team in 1981, guiding the team to its first NCAA regional tournament appearance and first CIAA division championship.
In 1987, he took over as the men’s head coach, leading the team for three decades and establishing JCSU as a fearsome rival. He only had one losing season.
He led the team to its first-ever NCAA Elite Eight appearance in 2001, where they finished the season ranked #10 in the country.
On February 24, he claimed his 600th coaching win recognized by the NCAA. That made him the third-most-winning coach in CIAA men’s college basketball history and the most-winning men’s basketball coach in JCSU history.
Joyner was selected as CIAA Coach of the Year in 1992, 1997, and 2001, and as NCAA Division II South Atlantic Region Coach of the Year in 2001. He was inducted into the CIAA Hall of Fame in 2014.
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