Steven Joyner Jr., an assistant women's coach at Florida A&M, is expected to be named the new women's coach at Winston-Salem State later this week.
Joyner, 30, is a former point guard at Johnson C. Smith and a son of Steve Joyner Sr., a hall-of-fame coach at Johnson C. Smith.
A search committee helped Bill Hayes, the athletics director at WSSU, through an extensive search to replace Dee Stokes.
According to several sources, Joyner and Keith Bell, a Winston-Salem native and the director of basketball operations for the Elon women's team, were both interviewed last week. Joyner, who could not be reached for comment yesterday, has extensive ties to WSSU and Winston-Salem. Joyner's father is a Winston-Salem native and Joyner's mother, Narell, is a graduate of WSSU.
Joyner is a 2001 graduate of Johnson C. Smith and was a four-year point guard for his father. He wound up with a 399 career assists (4.5 a game) and during his senior season helped the Bulls win the CIAA Tournament title.
For the last two seasons he has been an assistant for the Florida A&M women's team, where he worked for Hayes for one season. Hayes is a former athletics director at Florida A&M and came to WSSU in January.
Before coming to Florida A&M, Joyner was an assistant at UNC Asheville for a brief time, and he spent four seasons as an assistant at N.C. Central.
His first year of coaching was in the 2001-02 season as an assistant for his uncle, Buck Joyner, on Livingstone's men's team.
Stokes had a 19-90 record in her nearly four seasons at WSSU. She was replaced with seven games to go last season by Walter Mebane, who was named the interim coach. The Rams wound up 2-28, ending the season on a 26-game losing streak, the longest in school history.
jdell@wsjournal.com
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