Stevens, DaShena

DaShena Stevens has achieved success at every level, academically and athletically, from her career as a member of the women’s basketball team at St. John’s University, where she was inducted into the school’s Athletics Hall of Fame, to her current position as deputy athletic director at University of the Incarnate Word in San Antonio.

Before all that, however, Stevens belonged to Trinity Catholic High School in Stamford, where she was a three-time all-state selection, graduating in 2008, and a prolific scorer, finishing with 2,182 career points and later earning selection to the CIAC’s Girls’ Basketball All-Century Team.
Trinity Catholic went 63-0 in the Fairfield County Interscholastic Athletic Conference from 2006-08 with three straight FCIAC titles. The Crusaders won the Class S state championship in 2006 with a 59-50 victory over Kolbe-Cathedral.

“I became interested in basketball when I was in the third grade,” said Stevens, who remained true to her basketball roots and chose her mom, Debbi Cotterell, to present her for induction into the Connecticut Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame.

“My mother signed me up to play in my first recreational league when I was young. I was one of the only girls in the all-boys league. I still remember my first game. ... My mother was the person that introduced me to basketball. She has always been my biggest supporter, never missing a high school game. She has always been an inspiration of mine, and I would not be receiving this recognition without her.”

At St. John’s, Stevens, a 6-foot-1 forward, scored 1,515 points and notched 815 rebounds, earning the Big East Conference Scholar-Athlete of the Year honor as a senior. She was also a finalist that season for the NCAA Woman of the Year Award and the Lowe’s Senior Class Award. She earned All-Big East first team and Associated Press Honorable Mention All-America honors as a sophomore, leading the Red Storm to a 25-7 record and the school’s first of five consecutive NCAA tournament appearances. Stevens graduated from St. John’s in 2012 with a degree in accounting.

Stevens played professionally for a year in Switzerland following her graduation and returned to St. John’s as an assistant coach from 2015-18, encompassing the Red Storm’s Big East tournament title in 2016.

She lists a victory over UConn in Storrs, snapping the Huskies’ 99-game home court winning streak, as one of the highlights of her playing career. She advises young players to “keep working hard and enjoy the journey along the way.” Stevens’ parents played basketball at Stamford High School. She has four siblings; two attend college, and one is a WNBA’s Chicago Sky member.