Coach Joshua Steffen

Joshua Steffen enters his second season as head coach for the Cougar women’s basketball team.

Steffen's first year in River Forest after coaching the previous 4 1/2 season at sister school Concordia Ann Arbor saw him take a Cougar team that played with only eight players for the last two months of the season to an eight-win season and the team's first trip to the CIT championship game in 20 years. Steffen observes that "while it was a tough challenge to manage a team in which your options were so limited because of the numbers, I believe that the experience will pay dividends this coming season. We are returning our top five scorers, and the extended amount of time that they had playing together should put us a step ahead of our competition."

While Steffen does indeed have a solid nucleus of players returning, his first full year of recruiting for the Cougars appears to have yielded a sizeable and talented class of players. He credits the success of his efforts to offering players "the opportunity to play competitive Division III basketball every night in a competitive conference and a great environment on the campus." Of the latter, Steffen praises the warm, close-knit feeling and the support from the faculty, staff and alumni of which he states, "Everyone is excited about the program. I love the setting here, and I think we have the opportunity to be successful for a long time."

Steffen's affinity for the environment at Concordia Chicago may be attributed in part to his experiences in the Lutheran school system. He attended Milwaukee Lutheran High School where he played two seasons on the varsity team. Steffen played collegiately for Edward "Skip" Noon at Wisconsin Lutheran College, and his four years with the Warriors made him a devotee of the Division III style of basketball. Upon coming to Concordia Chicago last year, he welcomed the opportunity to return to the philosophy which he calls "small college basketball in its purest form."

Steffen worked two years as a video scouting intern for the NBA’s Milwaukee Bucks and gained early coaching experience with Brookfield Academy High School (junior varsity team) and the JS Warriors AAU Basketball Club. His collegiate coaching career began at Concordia Ann Arbor as an assistant under Greg Rehberg before moving into the interim head coach’s position in January of 2004. Ironically, his first win came against the Cougars in that year’s Concordia Invitational Tournament, and he finished the season with a 2-7 record. Steffen became the full-time head coach for the Cardinals prior to the 2004-05 campaign and led the team for the next four seasons, increasing the team's win total each year. Steffen’s final season in Ann Arbor resulted in a 14-17 overall record and 6-8 Wolverine-Hoosier Athletics Conference (WHAC) record, the team’s best in the history of the program.

Steffen, a native of Champaign, Illinois who has also lived in Peoria and Germantown, Wisconsin, earned his B.A. in communications from Wisconsin Lutheran in 2001. He earned his Master’s degree in sports science with an emphasis in coaching from the United States Sports Academy in 2006.

Contact Information:
E-mail - Joshua.Steffen@CUChicago.edu
708-209-3106 (Office)
708-209-3154 (Fax)