East Mississippi Community College head coach Buddy Stephens, left, walks the sidelines with offensive lineman James Davis during a game earlier this season. Stephens and the rest of the EMCC staff and players will take on Iowa Western Community College at 2 p.m. Sunday in the Mississippi Bowl in Biloxi.

In the world of junior college football, there is plenty of turnover on a year-to-year basis.

Often times, players and coaches move on to four-year universities each yearly cycle.

East Mississippi Community College is no exception, as an average of 20 players per year over the last five seasons have graduated and moved on to four-year universities.

But for the Lions, one constant remains.

For the past seven seasons, Buddy Stephens has walked the EMCC sideline as the team’s head man.

He has helped lead the program to new heights it had never seen before, claiming national titles in two of the past three seasons — including the school’s first in 2011.

On Sunday, Stephens and the Lions will seek to claim their third NJCAA national championship in four seasons when they square off against Iowa Western Community College at 2 p.m. in the Mississippi Bowl in Biloxi.

“Every team is different,” Stephens said. “They all have different positives and negatives. This year’s team is very athletic and very fast. We have a confidence level that is really high. And when really good players play with a high level of confidence, they are are going to be really good.”

It has been a long journey for Stephens to get where he is now.

After graduating from Delta State and earning a degree in education, Stephens  accepted a job at his alma mater as a graduate assistant, beginning his coaching career.

From there, Stephens would move on to the University of Louisiana at Monroe coaching staff, where his newly married wife, Robyn, attended graduate school

After stops at Sparkman High School in Alabama, Hammond High School and Plaquemine High School in Louisiana, and another stint in Alabama at Tuscaloosa Central High School, Stephens returned to Pearl River Community as an assistant, where he spent two years as an undergraduate on the football team.

As the team’s offensive line coach, Stephens helped guide the Wildcats to state championships in 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2006.

Following the 2007 season, Stephens moved on to accept his first head coaching job at EMCC. The decision to take the head coaching position for the Lions was an easy one for Stephens

“I learned a long time ago to not pick a job that you can’t win at,” Stephens said. “The thing that impressed me was every year you saw a lot of talent on the teams.  (School president) Rick Young was the initial draw, and the fact that you could win at EMCC. Mickey Stokes as the Athletic Director, and he is a super guy. Those were the big things that drew me, and I felt like they wanted to win.”

Making the trek alongside Stephens was Robyn, accompanied by their three daughters: Lauren, Julianna and Rebecca.

“The journey has been interesting,” said Robyn, who is a registered nurse . “In the early years, we had to move a lot as he moved up the ranks. That was a little challenging having young children. We’ve got to meet a lot of different people. I think each move was a good move; we learned things from each move.”

Yet being around the game of football was nothing new to Robyn, whose father, John Douglas, was a football coach in the high school ranks.

“I’ve been around football most of my life,” Robyn said. “So I had some idea about the commitment that it takes.”

It’s that dedicated level of commitment that maintains their relationship, as Stephens spends multiple nights a week away from home on campus, with his family 39 miles away in Meridian.

“During football season it’s a little challenging,” Robyn said. “But when he is home, he tries to make sure he spends quality time with us. He makes sure he’s at band concerts and special events that mean a lot to the kids.”

Yet Stephens has the added benefit of being near his eldest daughter, Lauren, a student at EMCC and member of the Mighty Lion Band.

It’s his daughter that helps give him a taste of home while he is at work.

“The other day I was having a bad day,” Stephens explained. “And I saw Lauren in the cafeteria, and it completely changed the way my day was going. There wasn’t a lot said, it was just being able to see her. It’s a really neat thing to be able to be around any of my girls.”

Upon first arriving at EMCC in 2008, Stephens had one particular goal with which he set out to achieve.

“The first thing you wanted to establish was you were going to get the kids graduated,” Stephens said. “That you were going to be good to the kids and treat them right. That’s the very first thing we wanted to establish because once you graduate them, there’s a really good chance they are going to go on and play somewhere else. And when you have guys go on to play somewhere else, then that’s a recruiting tool when you go into a recruit’s home.”

Tucked away in Scooba, a small rural town where everyone knows everyone, Stephens says contemporaries often attempt to use its location against them in recruiting. But Stephens takes it in stride and uses its location to his advantage.

“Everyone uses Scooba against in recruiting because where it is located geographically,” Stephens said. “But I take it as a plus, because there are fewer distractions there. There are no distractions as far as classes and football goes.”

The proof is in the pudding when it comes to Stephens’ recruiting efforts, with such talents like former Alabama standout and current San Francisco 49ers defensive lineman Quinton Dial, Ole Miss quarterback Bo Wallace and current EMCC defensive lineman and Florida State commitment D.J. Jones being just a fragment of the talent that has come through EMCC under Stephens.

“When our offense lines up against our defense in practice, our aim is to make sure that’s the best unit they’ll face all year long,” Stephens explained. “If that happens, then you’re getting better and you’re getting challenged, and you’re going to have the opportunity to go a long way. There’s competition here, and competition always makes the cream rise to the top.”

There remains a game to be played, and Stephens and his staff remain hard at work analyzing film, perfecting techniques and concepts in search of another national title.

“They’re very big and very well coached,” Stephens said of Iowa Western. “They’re always where they’re supposed to be. If they’re running a stunt, they run the stunt correctly and run it really well. If they’re supposed to be in the B gap, then they are in the B gap. On special teams, they’ve blocked 11 kicks this year. They take pride in what they do. They know if they run the schemes correctly, the way the coaches have taught them, then they will be successful.”

Stephens said as long as his squad makes the simple plays, they will have a good chance of hoisting the championship trophy.

“What it’s going to take for us to win is for us just to play our game,” Stephens said. “We have to make the average play. Don’t worry about making the spectacular play, just make the everyday play. Don’t try to be Superman. If we line up and do the things we’ve been doing, then we’ll be fine.”

But even more important for Stephens in potentially earning a third national title is the devotion to the program throughout the administration, the student body and loved ones associated with members of the football team.

“It takes a commitment from top to bottom,” Stephens said. “It takes a commitment from the administration, people on campus, coaches, families of coaches, it takes a commitment from everybody. Everyone must understand the significance to what winning brings, and understand what it can do for not only the football program but also the school.”