Jackson Stepanian, a third-year student manager for the University of Rhode Island men’s basketball team, has played an integral role in the storybook 8-0 start to the season for the Rams, a role he dedicates to his late mother.
“My mom was my only parent,” Stepaninan said. “My mom was my everything, she continues to be my everything.”
The native of North Providence, Rhode Island was always planning on being a student-manager in college, even when he wasn’t enrolled as a student at URI.
“I was already enrolled at St. John’s University in Queens,” Stepanian said. “And I had the intention and was hired to be a manager at St. John’s before I switched my enrollment to URI… I had the intention of making this my career really early.”
After his time at URI is up and his career as a student-manager is over, he said he hopes to move down the bench closer to the scorers table and be the one making the decisions.
“I have a pretty clear 20/20 lens view of what I want to do with my life,” Stepanian said. “That’s to be a head coach of a basketball team, to be a winner, to be a championship-level contender at the highest level I possibly can.”
The drive and determination that Stepanian demonstrates on a daily basis stems from the woman who raised him, Lisa Stepanian.
“I am my mom’s son, and that’s something that I hear all the time,” Stepanian said. “So everything that I’m doing and trying to do isn’t that much of a surprise. My mom was a five-year high school graduate, [who] didn’t go to college and ended up being a president of multiple high level insurance firms. That’s just who my mom was.”
Lisa was diagnosed with stage four ovarian cancer in summer 2021, and due to a complication surrounding a COVID-19 diagnosis, an interruption of her scheduled cancer treatments led to her passing in March 2022.
“My entire life was completely stripped from me in a three week span of time,” Stepanian said. “I lost my house, I lost my pets, I had to move to a place I never lived before, my entire family structure was completely rearranged. So it is still something I am dealing with and adjusting to on a day to day basis.”
Stepanian moves through his life with his mom on his mind everyday, mainly through his life motto, “4mom.” The adage dedicated to the life of Lisa Stepanian is not one that is just for other people to look at and model, but for Stepanian to embody himself. He wants to live for his mom.
“That’s the goal and the idea that I chase every single day that I’m awake, that I’m breathing,” Stepanian said. “That’s going through my brain constantly of what can I do every day, every moment, every hour, every breath…That’s how I keep going. And I do so with the strength of my mom and what she taught me throughout my life of anything that I want, anything that I want is mine to get.”
Stepanian will continue to strive for greatness as the rest of the 2024-25 season progresses, helping the Rams along the way, all in the image of his mother.