Andy Stephens has known the game of basketball and has been around the sport for a large amount of his lifetime.

Stephens is 49 years old and he has been a basketball coach for 27 years, which means he began at the young age of 22, just out of college after graduating from DeSales University.

Following the last 15 seasons as the Parkland High School boys head coach, Stephens has pursued another dream and passion, one in athletic administration. Late last month, he was approved as Parkland’s new athletic director at a school board meeting and takes over for good friend and a former assistant coach on his staff Bill Dreisbach, who is retiring after serving as AD the last five-plus years at Parkland.

“For the last five years I had the best seat in the house, watching our teams compete,” said Dreisbach. “Our athletes and coaches put so much time in both during the season and in the offseason, and that is a big reason for all of their successes. I’m leaving the keys to Andy and he will only make things better.”

Stephens will continue coaching the boys team during the summer and will become AD effective on August 1. He will also step away from being a social studies teacher at the high school. Under Stephens, the Trojans were 277-122, won three conference and seven District 11 championships, including last season’s 6A title. That team also reached the state quarterfinals, the farthest since 2015-16.

“I’m giving up both coaching and teaching to do this and it’s not going to be easy,” Stephens said. “I will certainly miss certain parts of what I did, but I am at peace with this decision and I feel good about it. I think the program is in really good shape and I am looking forward to becoming the athletic director and facing new challenges and closing out my career doing something different.”

Stephens was the head coach at rival Emmaus for four seasons before taking the head job at Parkland. His team won the 2007 conference crown. He was also an assistant at Parkland for four years and at his alma mater, Central Catholic for three and Freedom for one.

Stephens served as an assistant athletic director under Dreisbach this past school year and knew he needed to jump at this next challenge.

“I knew that if I didn’t do this now, the opportunity probably wouldn’t come up again,” Stephens said. “I’m very thankful for the opportunity.”