Coastal Carolina head women’s basketball coach Jaida Williams announced Tuesday the hiring of Stephanie McCormick as the program’s newest assistant coach. McCormick comes to Coastal Carolina following a four-year stint as the head coach of the Western Carolina women’s basketball team.
“We are extremely fortunate to have Stephanie join our staff,” said Williams. “She has recruited and coached at the highest level of collegiate women’s basketball and I know that our student-athletes and staff will benefit tremendously from her experience.”
McCormick has served at five different institutions during her career. Her teams have made nine postseason appearances including four apiece in both the NCAA Tournament and WNIT, and one in the Women’s Basketball Invitational.
Named the 11th head coach for Western Carolina women’s basketball on April 17, 2015, McCormick compiled an overall record of 23-94 and a 7-49 record in Southern Conference play over her four years in Cullowhee.
McCormick coached the 2018-19 Southern Conference Freshman of the Year Jewel Smalls, who was also named to the SoCon All-Freshman Team as well as the All-SoCon third team. She also coached 2016-17 third-team all-conference selection Sherae Bonner and 2015-16 All-Freshman Team member Raziyah Farrington.
She returned to Cullowhee in 2015 as the head coach after spending two years as an assistant coach at Siena College in Loudonville, N.Y.
In her second year as an assistant at Siena, McCormick helped guide the Saints to a 22-13 overall record, advancing to the Women’s Basketball Invitational (WBI) championship game. Siena’s 22 wins over the season were a 13-win improvement from the previous year, which was tied for the second-best turnaround in all of Division I women’s basketball. Siena made its first national postseason tournament appearance in 12 years and became the first Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAAC) school to win three games in a single postseason and advance to the championship game of a tournament.
Prior to taking the position at Siena, McCormick spent nine years serving under Kellie Harper at both Western Carolina (2004-09) and NC State (2009-13). During that time, she helped guide those schools to three NCAA Tournament and four WNIT berths.
The Wolfpack made three postseason appearances during McCormick’s four seasons and advanced to the NCAA Tournament in 2010. That season, her recruiting efforts help land the 19th best-recruiting class in the nation according to Blue Star Basketball, 28th by ESPN HoopGurlz and 29th by Premier Scouting Service.
McCormick, who began her coaching career at Western Carolina from 1994-97 as an assistant to head coach Gary Peters, helped guide the Catamounts to four postseason berths in her five seasons working on Harper’s staff, including a pair of Southern Conference titles. She also oversaw the program’s academic success which captured three WBCA Academic Top-25 awards in five seasons including the 2007-08 squad which ranked fifth nationally.
Prior to her second stint at Western Carolina, McCormick made coaching stops at Georgia Tech (2003-04), Charlotte (2001-03) and UNC Wilmington (1997-01), serving as the associate head coach during her final three seasons with the Seahawks at the latter. She was the recruiting coordinator at both Georgia Tech and Charlotte, which boasted the No. 5 and No. 24 ranked recruiting classes in the country in 2004 and 2002, respectively, according to the All-Star Girls Report.
A native of High Point, N.C., McCormick is a 1994 graduate of Catawba College. She holds her Bachelor of Arts degree in Business Administration and is a member of both the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association and Black Coaches Association. The first player in school history to amass both 1,000 career points and rebounds, she holds Catawba’s school record for both career (1,244) and single-season rebounds (374). In 2013, she was inducted into the Catawba College Sports Hall of Fame in its 36th class.
https://goccusports.com/news/2019/6/25/stephanie-mccormick-named-womens-basketball-assistant.aspx
