Auburn University at Montgomery women’s basketball head coach Sean Page has announced his retirement from collegiate coaching and will begin a transition to a leadership role with a professional basketball organization in his native country of Australia. Page’s retirement will be effective June 1.
“I would like to thank Dr. Stockton, the Athletics Administration and the entire AUM campus community for the opportunity and their support over the last four years,” Page said. “I would also like to thank all the student-athletes and my assistant coaches for the hard work and commitment they displayed while at AUM. This is a bittersweet decision for me, as I was very excited about the upcoming season, but I am confident Coach Kenner will do a great job leading this team. After 21 years of college coaching, I look forward to the next phase of my professional career.”
In addition to his four seasons at the helm of the AUM women’s program, Page also spent 10 years as head coach of Newberry College in Newberry, S.C., and two seasons leading Brescia University in Owensboro, Ky. During his tenure as a college head coach, Page posted a career record of 242-208 (.538), made four national tournament appearances and coached more than 30 all-conference/all-regional players. He has posted four 20-win seasons, coached six All-Americans and four Academic All-Americans.
In his first year as a head coach, Page led Brescia to 20-14 record, the NAIA National Tournament and a win over the top-overall seed Lee University. The win marked the first time in the history of the NAIA Tournament a No. 8 seed defeated the top overall seed. The Bearcats advanced to the Sweet 16 that season and qualified for the NAIA National Tournament the next year. He was named the NAIA Division I Women’s Independent Coach of the Year in each of his seasons with the program.
At Newberry, he posted 179 wins and holds the school record for career victories. He led the Wolves to a pair of NCAA National Tournament appearances and won the South Atlantic Conference (SAC) Tournament during the 2014-15 season. He was selected the 2009-10 SAC Coach of the Year.
While at Newberry, Page coached 11 All-SAC First-Team members, seven All-SAC Second-Team members, three WBCA Honorable Mention All-America honorees and two First-Team CoSIDA Academic All-Americans. He also had seven players named to the All-NCAA Southeast Region team, five players named to the SAC All-Freshman team and four players named to the Daktronics First-Team All-Southeast Region.
Page was hired as the fifth head coach of the AUM women’s basketball program in August of 2018 and posted a 25-71 record during his tenure.
In his first season, AUM was not eligible for Gulf South Conference postseason awards or competition but had unofficial individual leaders in six statistical categories. His second team tallied a seven-win improvement from his first and had 10 student-athletes named to the GSC Winter All-Academic honor roll. The following season, the Warhawks had 12 student-athletes named to the honor roll. Last season, three student-athletes earned individual career scoring milestones, with one scoring her 1,500 career collegiate point and two reaching the 1,000 point milestone. Additionally, Caitlin Carter was selected to the CoSIDA Academic All-District team and the GSC All-Academic Team. Ten student-athletes earned GSC Honor Roll accolades.
“I want to thank Sean for his leadership of the women’s basketball program at AUM and congratulate him on an outstanding collegiate coaching career,” Acting Director of Athletics Amber Rae Childers said. “He has represented our basketball program, our department and our university with great class and will be missed. I know I speak for the entire AUM family in wishing him, his wife Susan and their two children the very best in this new endeavor.”
Assistant coach Steve Kenner will serve as AUM’s Interim Head Coach. Kenner has previous head coaching experience at Pratt Community College (Pratt, Kan.), Southeastern Illinois College (Harrisburg, Ill.) and Emory & Henry College (Emory, Va.).
“While change can present challenges, I am confident in the leadership of Coach Kenner and how he will mentor our student-athletes during this time of transition,” Childers said of Kenner.” He fully understands the importance of maintaining a positive relationship with our student-athletes and will help them continue to grow on and off the court.”
