Saint Stephen’s has set a standard of excellence since becoming a founding member of the Sunshine State Athletic Association in 2008. Since the 2015 season, the Falcons have reached the league’s championship game six times and collected three titles (2016, 2017, 2022).

The program’s run of success has been the culmination of a journey that seemed almost unimaginable when the program re-launched with a winless season in 2006 after a 32-year hiatus.

From 2015 to 2019 under former Head Coach Tod Creneti, SSES posted a 50-7 record that included winning 24 consecutive games between August 2016 and September 2018. The Falcons made four consecutive appearances in the SSAA Florida Bowl (2015-18) and won back-to-back independent state championships in 2016 and 2017. SSES fell one win short in 2019 of making a fifth straight trip to the title game. In nine seasons under Creneti, the Falcons posted a 68-32 record.

A.J. Brown, a former Creneti assistant, replaced his mentor in 2020 and led SSES to the SSAA Class 5A title in 2022. Saint Stephen’s again advanced to the 5A championship game in 2023 before falling short. Brown posted a 20-15 record in four seasons and another former Creneti assistant, Chris Valcarcel, took over the head coaching duties for the 2024 season. The Falcons began that campaign 0-4, but won three of their final five games to build momentum for the 2025 season.

Despite its brief football history, Saint Stephen’s has also had great success creating opportunities for its student-athletes at the collegiate level. In 11 of the past 13 years, at least one Falcon has moved on to play at a NCAA Division I FBS or FCS program: Tim Nutter (Furman/2013), Bradley Beazant (Rice/2014), Wyatt Knopfke (Boston College/2015), Jacob Westberry (Fresno State/2016), Josh Stevens (Georgetown-Delaware/2017), Sydney Brown (Illinois/2018), Chase Brown (Western Michigan-Illinois/2018), Dylan Davis (Furman-Illinois-Marshall/2020), Cam Vining (Army-UCF/2020), D.J. Clark (Stetson/2021), Cole Rogers (Bryant/2022), Jacob Clulow (Mercyhurst/2024), and Gavin Winterhalter (Richmond/2025).

Chase and Sydney Brown made school history in 2023 when they became the first former Falcons chosen in the NFL draft – Sydney in the third round by the Philadelphia Eagles and Chase in the fifth round by the Cincinnati Bengals. Sydney Brown went on to win a championship as a member of the Eagles in Super Bowl LIX on Feb. 9, 2025. Saint Stephen’s grad Josh Stevens (Chiefs) and former student-athlete Austin Fort (Broncos) have been free-agent invitees to NFL camps.