Paul Kerry Mills (born April 4, 1972) is an American
college basketball
In United States colleges, top-tier basketball is governed by collegiate athletic bodies including National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA), the United States Collegiate Athleti ...
coach who is currently the head coach at
Wichita State
Wichita State University (WSU) is a public research university in Wichita, Kansas, United States. It is governed by the Kansas Board of Regents. The university offers more than 60 undergraduate degree programs in more than 200 areas of study in ...
.
Early life
Mills, the son of a pastor in the
Houston
Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 in ...
-area community of
Aldine, Texas
Aldine ( ) is a census-designated place (CDP) in unincorporated central Harris County, Texas, United States, located within the extraterritorial jurisdiction of Houston. The population was 15,999 at the 2020 census. The community is located on th ...
, grew up in a
parsonage
A clergy house is the residence, or former residence, of one or more priests or ministers of religion. Residences of this type can have a variety of names, such as manse, parsonage, rectory or vicarage.
Function
A clergy house is typically own ...
attached to the church where his father preached. In a story by
Pete Thamel
Victor Pete Thamel (born 1977) is an American sports reporter for ESPN. He previously worked for Yahoo Sports, Sports Illustrated, and the New York Times.
Early life
Thamel was born in Ware, Massachusetts to Peter V. Thamel. He was the sport ...
of
Yahoo Sports
Yahoo! Sports is a sports news website launched by Yahoo! on December 8, 1997. It receives a majority of its information from STATS, Inc. It employs numerous writers, and has team pages for teams in almost every North American major sport. Bef ...
during the
2021 NCAA tournament, Mills recalled that his family was one of the few
white
White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no hue). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully reflect and scatter all the visible wavelengths of light. White on ...
families in his neighborhood. Although he never grew beyond , he made the basketball team at Houston's
MacArthur High School. In the same Yahoo story, his high school coach Walt Kaser recalled that Mills was the last white player he coached. Kaser also told Thamel that he immediately recognized that Mills would become a coach.
While Mills earned a partial scholarship to
NAIA school
Southern Wesleyan University
Southern Wesleyan University is a private Christian university in Central, South Carolina. It was founded in 1906 by what is now the Wesleyan Church. The institution is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on ...
, he told Thamel that he could remember suiting up for only one game, in 1990–91. That fall, he dove for a loose ball in practice and suffered a broken vertebra in his lower back when it hit a concrete step. Recalling the accident, Mills told Thamel, "I knew it right away, I couldn’t walk. When the doctor told me I wouldn’t be able to play again, I was in full-fledged tears." To this day, he never sits during a basketball game because of lingering pain from the injury. He would transfer to
Texas A&M University
Texas A&M University (Texas A&M, A&M, or TAMU) is a public, land-grant, research university in College Station, Texas. It was founded in 1876 and became the flagship institution of the Texas A&M University System in 1948. As of late 2021, T ...
to be closer to home.
[
]
Coaching career
Early jobs
After graduating from Texas A&M in 1996 with a bachelor's degree in finance, Mills got a job as a bond analyst with a Texas bank, moonlighting as a high school coach in the Houston area at North Belt Christian Academy.[ In three years at North Belt, he led the team to a 63–17 record and three district championships. He then decided in 1999 to pursue full-time coaching. He and his wife Wendy prayed about this decision, and as he told Thamel, "My phone rings immediately after I say 'Amen'". The caller was the athletic director at Fort Bend Baptist Academy, now Fort Bend Christian Academy, who offered him a full-time teaching and coaching position. Mills also told Thamel "I never applied. To this day, I don't know who told her to hire me." He accepted the job despite a drastic cut in pay—from $80,000 at the bank to $12,000 at Fort Bend Baptist; this was the first of three times that he took a pay cut to accept a position that would advance his coaching career.][ Mills remained head coach at Fort Bend Baptist until 2002, when he became video coordinator at ]Rice
Rice is the seed of the grass species ''Oryza sativa'' (Asian rice) or less commonly ''Oryza glaberrima
''Oryza glaberrima'', commonly known as African rice, is one of the two domesticated rice species. It was first domesticated and grown i ...
under Willis Wilson
Willis Thomas Wilson Jr. (born March 22, 1960) is an American basketball coach. He was most recently the head coach of the Texas A&M–Corpus Christi Islanders men's basketball team before retiring in March 2021. He previously served an assistant ...
. This was the second time he accepted a pay cut; his position at Rice was a volunteer position, with his only pay being a $2,000 stipend for painting the 1,261 steps of Rice's basketball home of Tudor Fieldhouse
Tudor Fieldhouse is multi-purpose arena in Houston, Texas. Previously known as Rice Gymnasium, it was renamed in honor of Rice University alum Bobby Tudor, who spearheaded the renovation of the facility with a multimillion-dollar donation. The co ...
. Mills recalled that he was "hooked" on coaching during his season at Rice. Todd Smith, a Rice assistant at that time, recalled that Mills was so enthusiastic about coaching that he regularly arrived at the team offices before and left after Smith, with Smith giving Mills his set of keys to the offices.[
]
Baylor
In 2003, Mills joined Scott Drew
Scott Homer Drew (born October 23, 1970) is an American college basketball coach who is the head coach of the Baylor Bears, a position he has held since 2003.
Drew began his coaching career as an assistant for Valparaiso under his father Home ...
's staff at Baylor, where he stayed for 14 years, and was part of seven NCAA appearances by the Bears. Mills was initially a director of operations, becoming a full assistant in 2009 when Matthew Driscoll
Matthew John Driscoll (born February 7, 1958) is an American Democratic Party politician, who served as the Commissioner of the New York State Department of Transportation from 2015 until 2017. He served as the 52nd Mayor of Syracuse, New York ...
left to become head coach at North Florida
North Florida is a region of the U.S. state of Florida comprising the northernmost part of the state. Along with South Florida and Central Florida, it is one of Florida's three most common "directional" regions. It includes Jacksonville and near ...
.
Oral Roberts
On April 28, 2017, Mills was named the head coach at Oral Roberts, replacing Scott Sutton
Scott Andrew Sutton (born June 3, 1970) is an American college basketball coach, currently an assistant coach at Oklahoma State. He was formerly the head coach at Oral Roberts, and is the all-time wins leader in school history while leading ORU to ...
. This was the last of the three times he took a pay cut to advance in his profession.[ In the 2022–23 season, Mills guided the Golden Eagles to just the second perfect regular season in league history. He was named Summit League Coach of the Year.
]
Wichita State
Mills was hired by Wichita State
Wichita State University (WSU) is a public research university in Wichita, Kansas, United States. It is governed by the Kansas Board of Regents. The university offers more than 60 undergraduate degree programs in more than 200 areas of study in ...
on March 22, 2023.
Personal life
Mills is married to the former Wendy Scott, whom he has known since the seventh grade. They have two daughters. The family are devout Christians, and Mills earned a master's degree from Dallas Theological Seminary
Dallas Theological Seminary (DTS) is an evangelical theology, theological seminary in Dallas, Texas. It is known for popularizing the theological system dispensationalism. DTS has campuses in Dallas, Houston, and Washington, D.C., as well as cont ...
in 2020. When Mills was promoted to full-time assistant at Baylor, he inherited Driscoll's courtesy car, a Chrysler 300
The Chrysler 300 is a full-size luxury car manufactured and marketed by Stellantis North America (and its predecessor companies) as a four-door sedan and station wagon in its first generation (model years 2005–2010) and solely as a four-do ...
. This meant that Mills no longer needed the Honda Accord
The , also known as the in Japan and China for certain generations, is a series of cars manufactured by Honda since 1976, best known for its four-door sedan variant, which has been one of the best-selling cars in the United States since 1989. ...
he had been driving, and he gave it to a woman whom he saw waiting every day at a bus stop on his way to work—despite never actually meeting her until he gave her the car.
While at Baylor and Oral Roberts, he obsessively watched the basketball film '' Hoosiers'', claiming to Thamel that he had watched the movie more than 1,000 times in his life. According to Thamel, "Scott Drew would have him deliver lines on the team bus and then play the scenes to test his accuracy." Drew told Thamel, "Literally, you can pause it at any time in the movie and he’ll give you the next 10 lines in a row. He has it memorized."[
]
Head coaching record
The following table displays Mills' head coaching record at the collegiate level.
References
1972 births
Living people
American men's basketball coaches
Basketball coaches from Texas
Baylor Bears men's basketball coaches
College men's basketball head coaches in the United States
Dallas Theological Seminary alumni
Oral Roberts Golden Eagles men's basketball coaches
Rice Owls men's basketball coaches
Southern Nazarene University alumni
Sportspeople from Houston
Texas A&M University alumni
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