Scott Byrd - Director of Track and Field
Scott Byrd will be starting his first year as track and field director and second year on the football coaching staff. He came to Shorter from Velocity Sports, where he was an assistant head coach for Team Velocity.
Byrd is USAW Club Coach and USAW Sports Performance certified. In 1980, he was the national collegiate power lifting champion and coached OTC from 1994-1996. He served as an IDEA Certified Trainer from 1987-2000 and is a professional member of the National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA).
Byrd coached 12 school-age national champion athletes including three gold medalists, four silver medalists and one bronze medalist. He coached a three-member competition team that won third place nationally and also coached three junior national athletes, including one silver medalist. Byrd graduated from Fayette County High School in 1979 after lettering all four years in varsity football and varsity track. He then graduated from Jacksonville State University in 1985.
In addition to football duties, Byrd will also be heading Shorter’s first-ever track program in the spring of 2007.
Jay Stephenson - Head Men's Coach
Coach Jay Stephenson begins his first year as the Shorter College men's track head coach. Before coming to Shorter, Stephenson coached at Berry College for 2 years.
While at Berry the men's team qualified for the NAIA Cross Country National Championship meet three times and the women's team qualified for the NAIA Cross Country National Championship meet two times. Also several individuals qualified for the NAIA Indoor and Outdoor National Championship meets. The teams also had two Cross Country All-Americans and several Academic All-Americans in Cross Country and Track.
Coach Stephenson graduated from Berry College in 2003 with a B.S. in Marketing concentrating in Sports Marketing, and a minor in Coaching. As an athlete Stephenson was a three time All-American at Berry College, twice in the 3000m Steeplechase and once in Cross Country.
Coach Stephenson has pursued the scientific side of running through graduate study at Georgia State University. Stephenson will complete his Masters of Exercise Science degree in the summer of 2006. Coach Stephenson is USATF Level I Certified. He looks forward to completing their USATF Level II Coaching Certification in 2007.
As an athlete, Coach Jay is still competing on the national level. He has PRs of 14:18 for 5k, 29:43 for 10k, and 8:53 for the 3k Steeplechase.
Karmen Stephenson - Head Women's Track Coach
Karmen Stephenson is a 2002 graduate of Berry College where she was 4 time NAIA National Cross Country qualifier and 2 time NAIA National Indoor Track Qualifier. She was a 2 time selection to the Transouth All Conference Team.
Her college track experience included the 400m, 800m, 1500m, and 4x800 and 4x800 relays. She is a USA Track and Field Level 1 Coach. While at Berry, Stephenson was part of four NAIA Cross Country National teams and two NAIA Indoor Track National teams. Her PRs are 19:50 for CC 5k, 4:56 for 1500m, and 2:22 for 800m. She earned a Bachelors of Science from Berry with a Major in Chemistry and a Math minor in 2002 and will receive her Masters of Education in Middle Grades from Berry this summer.
Walter Johnson - Assistant Sprint Coach
Fort Valley, Georgia native Walter Johnson will assist with Track coaching in addition to his football duties.
Johnson played his football collegiate career at Tusculum College in Greenville, Tennessee, from where he graduated in 2005 with a degree in sports science and a minor in coaching. He helped lead the team to their 2003 conference championship and was a pre-season all-conference linebacker in 2002. He finished his career placing third on Tusculum’s all-time sacks list and was among the Pioneer Elite for three years.
Although he has the statistics to show his football skills on the field, Johnson was also extremely active in child work and philanthropy in Greenville. When he wasn’t on the field, Johnson was consistently reading to children at local area schools and volunteering much of his time at the Boys and Girls Club.
Following his years as a player, Johnson went to Cumberland College in 2005, where he served as linebackers coach for one season.
Johnson has high hopes to one day lead a Division I football program to a national championship. He has one recently born daughter, Jaiya Simone.
Dr. William Spates - Assistant Middle Distance Coach
In addition to being an assistant professor of English, William Spates is the Shorter Track Team's Assitant Middle Distance Coach.Previously, he served as an assistant Cross Country coach under head coach, Patrick Cross, at Shorter College (1996 - 1997) and as a volunteer assistant coach for the University of Central Florida's Track team under Marsha Wentworth (1998). After moving to the United Kingdom in 1999 to continue his MA and, subsequently, his PhD, he became the University of St. Andrews' Athletics' Team treasurer (2002-2003) and co-captain of the Athletics and Cross Country teams from 2003- 2005.
As a competitor, Spates qualified for All-District and Conference and Academic All-American honors while at Shorter College between 1994 and 1996, as well as earning a Half Blue in Cross Country (2002) and a Blue in Athletics for winning the Scottish Universities' 3k steeplechase while at the University of St. Andrews. Spates has been a member of the Fife Athletics Club's senior men's team since 2001 and was part of the team that won the Scottish National Short Course Championships in 2004.
