Jared Phay
Head Coach
Phone: (208) 769-5975
Email: Jared_Phay@nic.edu
Office: GYM-133
Jared Phay returns for his eighth season as the head coach of the Cardinals and looks to continue to build on his program’s success. Phay has enjoyed great success in his tenure at North Idaho College, being named Region 18 Coach of the Year three times. Phay has led the Cardinals to three Scenic West Athletic Conference (SWAC) championships, one as co-champions in the 2005-2006 season and outright conference championships in 2008-2009 and 2009-2010 when his teams posted back-to-back 27-win seasons. The league titles in 2009 and 2010 are the first SWAC titles for NIC men’s basketball since the league’s creation in 1982. The consecutive conference championships are significant since the SWAC conference is considered the toughest junior college conference in the country. Last season, Phay led the Cardinals to the first ever No. 1 national ranking in school history and marked the fourth consecutive year the Cardinals have been ranked in the top 15 nationally. Last season’s 23-win total matched the fourth consecutive season with 20-plus wins for the Cardinals. Last season’s greatest accomplishment, however, came off the court with nine out of 10 sophomores graduating from NIC for a 90 percent graduation rate.
Prior to being named head coach at NIC, Phay was an assistant coach for two seasons at NIC under Hugh Watson, who recently retired from coaching. Before that, Phay was an assistant coach at Motlow State in Lynchburg, Tenn., where the team was nationally-ranked for most of the season and won the Tennessee junior college title with a 25-5 overall record. Before coaching at Motlow State, Phay was a graduate assistant coach at the University of Idaho under David Farrar. Phay began his coaching career at Falls Christian Academy, where he led his team to its first-ever state appearance in 1999.
“I learned a lot from Hugh Watson, David Farrar, Lonnie Thompson (at Motlow State), and my high school coach Wes Davis, and I still rely heavily on things I learned from the meetings I had with NIC legend Rolly Williams,” Phay said.
Phay believes that the success of his program should be measured not only by wins and losses, but also by the character building of his team.
Phay is a Post Falls, Idaho native and a graduate of North Idaho College. After attending NIC, Phay earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Idaho in physical education. He is married to Tamara Phay, who teaches first grade in the Central Valley School District and the two are proud parents of 2-year-old son Carson and a 9-month-old daughter Makenzie.
Corey Symons
Assistant Coach
Phone: (208) 769-3352
Email: Corey_Symons@nic.edu
Office: GYM-131
Corey Symons enters his eighth season as an assistant coach. Symons was high school teammates with head men’s basketball coach Jared Phay at Falls Christian Academy in the early 1990s. Symons has been instrumental in the success of the NIC program and has become known as a great recruiter, being involved in the recruiting process for several highly touted student-athletes. Symons lives by the philosophy of “stay until the job is done” and implements his strong work ethic into the players that he coaches. Symons has played a major role in the recent success of the Cardinal program.
“Corey has been instrumental in our success and our conference titles; national recognition would not have happened without him,” Phay said. “I can’t express how valuable he is to our program and I am fortunate to have the best assistant coach in America!”
Prior to coaching at NIC, Symons was the assistant varsity coach at Post Falls High School from 1999 to 2003. Before that, he was the head coach at Bellevue Christian in Bellevue, Wash.
Symons redshirted at NIC in 1993 and then went on to play at Blue Mountain Community College and Northwest University in Kirkland, Wash. Symons averaged 16 points per game in his final season and was team captain at Northwest University, where he graduated with a business degree.
Symons and his wife, Nicole, a junior high school teacher, reside in Coeur d’Alene and are the proud parents of 7-year-old daughter Madison and 5-year-old son Caden.