Steve Smiley elevated to head coach at Northern Colorado

After four seasons as Jeff Linder‘s associate head coach, Steve Smiley has been announced as the new head coach at Northern Colorado. He replaces Linder, who took the Wyoming job earlier this week.

“Steve has been an integral part of building the men’s basketball program into one of the best in the Big Sky and no doubt will continue that process,” AD Darren Dunn said on Friday. “His ability to connect with our student-athletes and build champions for life made it an easy decision for us to elevate him to lead our men’s basketball program.”

Smiley is a Denver-native who was All-State at Pomona HS in Arvada, CO. Prior to his arrival at UNC in 2016, Smiley was an assistant at Weber State, head coach at Sheridan College (WY) and an assistant at his alma mater, D-II Northern State (SD).

“Four years ago, Jeff Linder gave me the opportunity to join him in the new era of UNC basketball and our entire staff worked tirelessly to build our program up from the depths that it was experiencing at that time,” Smiley said in the release. “The past few years have been an absolute blast and I can’t wait to work with our current and incoming players to build upon the special tradition that is UNC basketball. Our university is a special place, Greeley is a phenomenal community, and I truly believe that we’re only beginning!”

credit to Northern Colorado Athletics for the image