Longtime JC Smith athletics director Steve Joyner stepping down. ‘It was the right time.’
Longtime Johnson C. Smith athletic director Steve Joyner is stepping down after 18 years. He will remain as the men’s basketball coach for the Golden Bulls.
Joyner, 72, will remain in the AD job until the school conducts a national search and names his successor. Smith is also in the process of hiring a new school president.
Clarence Armbrister, named the school’s 14th president in January 2018, is retiring in June.
“The timing is right,” Joyner said. “It will be good for the new president to hire new athletics department leadership as the university’s transformation initiatives accelerate with the new president’s vision for JCSU.”
Joyner has spent most of his adult life at J.C. Smith in west Charlotte.
An astonishing legacy: Steve Joyner has coached basketball for 45 years at J.C. Smith
He was a star point guard for the Bulls from 1969-73. In 1978, he came back to coach women’s basketball as an assistant. In 1980, he got the head job. Seven years later, Joyner became men’s head coach.
And in 2005, he added athletic director to his titles.
Under his watch, Smith has won CIAA championships in indoor track (2017), outdoor track (2011, ‘13, ‘14, ‘16), women’s basketball (2009, ‘17) and men’s basketball (2001, ‘08, ‘09). Smith has also produced several NCAA Division II national champions and four Olympians.
Three times, Smith has hosted the NCAA Division II outdoor track and field championships, most recently in 2018. Smith is the only HBCU to serve as a host site.
“Coach Joyner has guided the athletics department through years of change in intercollegiate athletics, realignment in the CIAA and most recently the COVID-19 pandemic,” Armbrister said. “He has also been instrumental in the first visible signs of the recent transformation of our athletics program with the installation of artificial turf on the football field and the development of an Athletic Resource Center for all of our student-athletes that will house, among other things, an academic support center and training facilities. His immense contributions to Johnson C. Smith University’s athletics department and to the CIAA will endure.”
Joyner was named CIAA Athletic Director of the Year in the 2008-09 sports season, and under his watch nearly 600 student-athletes have received undergraduate degrees.
“I have made sure the athletics department puts an emphasis on the student part of student-athlete,” Joyner said. ‘We have a good graduation rate, and I’m fulfilled when I see them become productive citizens and leaders.”
Joyner said his focus now will be on his basketball team. He is 586-410 in his career. Smith finished 9-17 last season.
“I treasure coaching,” he said, “and I look forward to spending the next year or two focusing on the men’s basketball team and positioning it for the post-Joyner years. We started bouncing back from the effects of COVID-19 this year. I’m confident we will be better next season and hope to hit the milestone of 600 victories.”
