- June 2, 2026
Steve Ridder has won 811 games and a national championship in 36 seasons as the men’s head basketball coach at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, but, he says, he’s only the third best head coach in his family.
That’s because his youngest son, Reed Ridder, 32, is the new head basketball coach at Daytona State College.
This is Reed’s first head coaching job, but he has been an assistant coach and graduate assistant for the past eight years — the last four as an assistant under his brother, Ryan Ridder, at the University of Tennessee at Martin and Mercer University in Macon, Georgia.
Reed Ridder is not only a native of Ormond Beach and former player for his father at ERAU, he was an assistant coach at DSC in 2021-22 under Joey Cantens. Reed is now succeeding Cantens, who was recently named the head coach at NCAA Division I Florida International University.
“I've always been really intrigued with the Daytona State job,” Reed said. “But when I was an assistant five years ago for Joey Cantens, the biggest thing to me was the people in the whole athletic department; they're just very, very high level. I've been fortunate to work in a bunch of different universities and colleges, but Daytona State’s administration is one of the top of the line.”
The job has long been a stepping stone for Division I positions. Ryan Ridder’s first head coaching job was also at DSC, from 2013 to 2017. From there, he became the head coach at Bethune-Cookman University, then Tennessee-Martin and now Mercer. The most famous former DSC head coach is Brad Underwood, who led the University of Illinois to the Final Four this past season. Underwood was the Falcons’ head coach in 2003-06.
The two DSC head coaches who preceded Cantens, Brock Morris (2018-19) and Erik Pastrana (2017-18) are now assistants at Oklahoma and the University of Miami, respectively.
[DSC] can be seen as a trampoline job, that's for sure. You come here and can shoot up pretty quickly. Definitely that’s really appealing.
— REED RIDDER, DSC men's basketball coach
“[DSC] can be seen as a trampoline job, that's for sure,” Reed said. “You come here and can shoot up pretty quickly. Definitely that’s really appealing.”
Junior college is the perfect place for a first-year head coach to get started, Steve Ridder said.
“You have to do so much at a junior college,” Steve Ridder said. “You recruit, you fundraise, you handle academic enhancement, you're strategizing, you're breaking down film, you're game-planning, practice planning, getting kids to be able to move on to the next level. It's how you learn, and that is you have to do it. There's no better place for him right now in his career to learn how to coach, especially at Daytona State, where it's a great setup with great people. So I'm excited for him to have the opportunity.”
Reed was named DSC’s head coach on May 4, and since then he’s built his staff — his assistants should be getting officially hired in the next week or two, he said; he’s built a roster of 11 players so far with two players from last season returning and the others committed; and now he’s started working on next season’s schedule.
The new job is just part of a whirlwind 14 months for Reed, who got engaged last May, got married in September, and now he and his wife, Kamryn, are expecting their first child in November, right around the time basketball season is getting underway.
“People say, ‘hit the ground running,’ I'm hitting the air flying,” he said.
Steve said that since Reed has returned he’s been all business, with his phone attached to his ear, recruiting players.
“The saying is you cannot be a head coach until you're a head coach,” Reed said. “So, one, It’s hard to get head coaching jobs, but two, it's hard to get head coaching jobs you think you'd be successful at. I could have probably shopped around and maybe taken a Division II job or another junior college job, but I've already worked at Daytona State, and the biggest appeal was one, the people, but two, I know that we can be successful here.”
