Every great recipe starts with great ingredients. Stephen Howard was born and raised in Dallas, Texas and grew up going to elementary and middle school in Richardson I.S.D. and then attending Bishop Lynch High School. His parents who are educators in Dallas I.S.D. & Garland I.S.D., watched their son grow just as tall academically as he did in stature.
Attending DePaul University as a “scholar athlete”, he achieved success in the classroom and on the court. Most notably, Stephen was the first DePaul University basketball player to achieve 1st team Academic All-American status (twice) as he made the Dean’s list in college every academic quarter. His senior year he was voted the top scholar athlete in the country when he was presented with the prestigious Anson Mount Scholar athlete award. In addition to his academic success, Stephen graduated from DePaul University as the 5th leading scorer and 5th leading rebounder in DePaul’s history. His academic and athletic talents at DePaul University were recently recognized by the school as they inducted him into the DePaul Hall of Fame class of 2009.
Making NBA history as the first and still only Dallas area private school player to play in the NBA, his professional playing career has taken him from the NBA finals with the Utah Jazz, to the Seattle Supersonics and to every top level league throughout Europe and the far reaches of Asia and the Middle East. Stephen's basketball career lasted 15 years which is a feat by itself but more amazingly it was a 15 year career of 1 year contracts.
In 2007, he began working with ESPN as a college basketball analyst and in 2009 added ESPN, Big 12 Phillip 66 studio host to his ever growing broadcasting resume. Along with his TV duties with ESPN Stephen acts as part of the radio broadcasting team for DePaul’s road games. He is also an active member of the “Legends of Basketball” for the National Basketball Retired Players Association.