After turning down many scholarship offers to play soccer at some of the top schools in the country, Stephen chose to attend then-named SMS (Southwest Missouri State University) which is now known as Missouri State University. In October 1994 his father passed suddenly due to a massive heart attack. He left school, quit playing soccer and went back home. After burying his father, with the intent of finishing school, he enrolled at Webster University, in Webster Groves, Missouri, after a scout called him and asked him to come play soccer there. That year, the school won the National Championship, a first in the school's history.