Bio

Now in his 18th year as head coach, Buddy Stephens is the architect behind East Mississippi Community College’s 17 years of championship football. Since his arrival on the Scooba campus in December 2007, Stephens has completely transformed EMCC’s football program into a perennial powerhouse within the NJCAA gridiron ranks.

Having taken over a program that hadn’t managed a winning football season during the decade prior to his arrival and had only made one previous state playoff appearance in school history, Stephens has won 84 percent of his games as EMCC’s head football coach, including five NJCAA national championships, a national runner-up finish in 2023, nine Mississippi Association of Community College Conference/NJCAA Region 23 titles, and 11 MACCC North Division crowns.

For these accomplishments and the far-reaching impact that he has made on junior college football within the state of Mississippi and throughout the United States, Stephens was last year inducted into the NJCAA Football Coaches Association Hall of Fame as the lone 2024 honoree.

Presently sitting third on the NJCAA’s all-time list for career winning percentage among coaches with 100 or more career games coached, Stephens enters the 2025 campaign ranked third among the NJCAA’s winningest active head football coaches. He also currently ranks 21^st on the NJCAA’s all-time wins list and is fifth in Mississippi junior college football history.

Dating back to 2008, Stephens owns a 16-season head coaching overall record of 148-28 (.841) at East Mississippi, including a composite mark of 86-10 (.896) in regular-season division games. Including separate winning streaks of 25, 20 and 17 consecutive games (twice), the Lions are 124-20 (.861) collectively with seven double-digit win seasons dating back to the start of the 2011 campaign.

With their five national championships having come during an eight-year span (2011-18), Stephens’ EMCC Lions became just the second NJCAA member school to claim back-to-back national football titles twice (2013-14 & 2017-18). East Mississippi currently trails only Butler (Kan.) and Northeastern Oklahoma A&M for most national football championships (six apiece) in NJCAA history.

For his outstanding coaching efforts throughout his EMCC career, Stephens is a three-time NJCAA Football Coach of the Year recipient along with having received national honors twice by the American Community College Football Coaches Association and the American Football Monthly magazine. The nine-time Region 23 Coach of the Year also received the George Sekul Award from the All-American Football Foundation in 2011.

Stephens’ coaching success at East Mississippi goes hand in hand with the individual accomplishments that his players continue to achieve beyond the Scooba campus. While an average of around 25 EMCC football players annually move on to compete at the four-year level, Stephens has coached a total of 35 NJCAA All-Americans during his tenure, including nine All-America quarterbacks. In addition, 50 former EMCC players on the average annually compete at the university level during the college football season. On the professional level, the EMCC Lions have had nine players selected in the NFL Draft under Stephens’ guidance, while as many as 25 of his former players were on NFL, UFL, CFL or IFL rosters this past year.

Stephens arrived at East Mississippi after spending the previous seven seasons as an assistant coach at Pearl River Community College in Poplarville, Miss. During Stephens’ stint at PRCC, the Wildcats posted a composite record of 60‐12 (.833), including an NJCAA championship in 2004 and four consecutive MACJC state titles (2003-06).

Before his community college coaching career began in 2001, Stephens spent eight years at the high school level in Alabama and Louisiana.

Following an initial stop at Pearl River CC as a two‐year offensive lineman, Stephens continued his playing career at Delta State University. Upon earning his bachelor’s degree in education, he began his 34‐year coaching career as a graduate assistant at his alma mater. Stephens received his first taste of full‐time coaching experience and completed his master’s degree at the University of Louisiana at Monroe (ULM).

A native of Huntsville, Ala., Stephens is married to the former Robyn Lynn Douglas of Bogalusa, La.  They have three daughters – Lauren, Julianna, and Rebekah.