Meet Nate Stephens

By choice, Nate Stephens immersed himself in basketball and the roundball game, especially so in the Sacramento and Yuba areas, is better off because of his involvement.

Currently an assistant coach at Yuba College as well as the coach of the top Youth Basketball Academy (YBA) varsity team and a skills trainer with I'm Possible training, the Sacramento native's engagement began with his playing hoops at Rocklin High. In fact, he was a member of the very first Thunder class.

After a successful run in the business world, life itself soon became a bucket list of sorts.

First, a friend who was the athletic director at Global Youth Charter High had an opening for the boys basketball head coach. Stephens accepted that challenge.

The result?

A two-year tenure in which the Bulldogs won 22 games and took the league title in 2008, with Stephens being named Coach of the Year. While with Global Youth Charter, he also began coaching in the YBA Dawgs organization, which he has done so now for five years.

Unfortunately, he was diagnosed with cancer in 2009.

Stephens jumped further into the hoops world and his time with Yuba College Coach Doug Cornelius now clocks in at three years and running. The 49ers are Bay Valley Conference champions seven years and running.

This spring and summer, Stephens' Dawgs squad took down the Oakland Soldiers and Play Hard Play Smart among others as well as taking the West Coast Swing tournament title.

Notice the trend here?

For the obvious impaired, it's Stephens and success.

But he would be the first to express modesty both about his record and because he has learned so much from others in the basketball world.

To dive into hoops was a no-brainer of sorts. "I decided it was time to get healthy, to get better, to enjoy life." Basketball provided that fulfillment, specifically working with players who want to learn and get better and coaches willing to share their knowledge.

Thus the coaching field became his focus.

"Basketball has been a catalyst to help me," he explained. "It has given me so many important relationships in my life." One person Stephens cherishes in particular is Ken Griffin, a fellow Yuba assistant and the winningest coach in Marysville High basketball with 429 victories. "I have learned so much about life, basketball, competing and how to treat people from him."

Stephens added, "Coaching also allowed me to make an impact through basketball but not necessarily about basketball."

More importantly, he is ecstatic to say that "this year my cancer was declared in remission."

So what does the future hold for Stephens?

He certainly wouldn't mind moving up in the coaching ranks. "You have to be willing to move around and I am," he said.

Calling him a win magnet would be a trendy quip but such simply doesn't do justice to Stephens as coach and person -- it's much too narrow a focus. The success is fine but it comes as a result of the relationships he has with fellow coaches and his players, and Stephens wouldn't have it any other way.