Zachary Eric Mills (born May 1, 1982) is a former

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team with ...

quarterback The quarterback (commonly abbreviated "QB"), colloquially known as the "signal caller", is a position in gridiron football. Quarterbacks are members of the offensive platoon and mostly line up directly behind the offensive line. In modern Ame ...

. He was an All-

Big Ten The Big Ten Conference (stylized B1G, formerly the Western Conference and the Big Nine Conference) is the oldest Division I collegiate athletic conference in the United States. Founded as the Intercollegiate Conference of Faculty Representati ...

selection and four-year starter at

Penn State University The Pennsylvania State University (Penn State or PSU) is a public state-related land-grant research university with campuses and facilities throughout Pennsylvania. Founded in 1855 as the Farmers' High School of Pennsylvania, Penn State became ...

High school

Mills attended Urbana High School with Nate A. Foster in

Frederick County, Maryland Frederick County is located in the northern part of the U.S. state of Maryland. At the 2020 U.S. Census, the population was 271,717. The county seat is Frederick. Frederick County is included in the Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV ...

from 1996 to 2000, where he led the school's football team to consecutive 2A state championships in 1998 and 1999, going undefeated both years. In the course of his high school career he broke Maryland public school records both for passing yards (5,638) and

touchdown A touchdown (abbreviated as TD) is a scoring play in gridiron football. Whether running, passing, returning a kickoff or punt, or recovering a turnover, a team scores a touchdown by advancing the ball into the opponent's end zone. In Ameri ...

passes (59) and won countless awards including first team All-CMC and first team All-Mid-Maryland. Mills was also a standout on the

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...

team.

College

As the quarterback of the

Nittany Lions The Penn State Nittany Lions are the athletic teams of Pennsylvania State University, except for the women's basketball team, known as the Lady Lions. The school colors are navy blue and white. The school mascot is the Nittany Lion. The interc ...

from 2001 to 2004, Mills led the team to the

Capital One Bowl The Citrus Bowl is an annual college football bowl game played at Camping World Stadium in Orlando, Florida. The bowl is operated by Florida Citrus Sports, a non-profit group that also organizes the Cheez-It Bowl and Florida Classic. The gam ...

in the 2002 season. Mills was a three-time

Davey O'Brien Award The Davey O'Brien Award, officially the Davey O'Brien National Quarterback Award, named after Davey O'Brien, is presented annually to the collegiate American football player judged by the Davey O'Brien Foundation to be the best of all National Co ...

finalist and was presented with the 2004 Hall Foundation Award as Penn State's outstanding senior

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

player. In 2002 Mills was named All-

. Mills holds many Penn State passing and total offense records: He finished his career with a school record 7,796 yards of total offense, 41 career

passes (since broken by

Daryll Clark Daryll Lawrence Clark (born February 5, 1986) is a former American football quarterback. He was signed by the Calgary Stampeders of the Canadian Football League as a free agent in 2010. He played collegiately for the Penn State Nittany Lions. Fro ...

Matt McGloin Matthew James "Matt" McGloin (born December 2, 1989) is a former American football quarterback. He was the starting quarterback for the Penn State Nittany Lions football team from 2010 to 2012. McGloin was the first walk-on quarterback to start ...

Christian Hackenberg Christian Blaize Hackenberg (born February 14, 1995) is a former American football quarterback and current quarterbacks coach for Winslow Township High School. He played college football at Penn State, and was drafted by the New York Jets in the ...

, and

Trace McSorley Richard Thomas "Trace" McSorley III (born August 23, 1995) is an American football quarterback for the Arizona Cardinals of the National Football League (NFL). He played college football at Penn State, and was drafted by the Baltimore Ravens ...

, and 16 career 200-yard passing games. Mills is the first Nittany Lion under head coach

Joe Paterno Joseph Vincent Paterno (; December 21, 1926 – January 22, 2012), sometimes referred to as JoePa, was an American college football player, athletic director, and coach. He was the head coach of the Penn State Nittany Lions football, Penn ...

to throw, catch, and run for a

in a single game (in 2004 versus

Akron Akron () is the fifth-largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio and is the county seat of Summit County. It is located on the western edge of the Glaciated Allegheny Plateau, about south of downtown Cleveland. As of the 2020 Census, the city prop ...

). He wore jersey number 7. He graduated in 2004 with a

Bachelor of Science A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University of ...

Kinesiology Kinesiology () is the scientific study of human body movement. Kinesiology addresses physiological, anatomical, biomechanical, pathological, neuropsychological principles and mechanisms of movement. Applications of kinesiology to human health ...

NFL

Mills spent the 2005 preseason in the

Washington Redskins The Washington Commanders are a professional American football team based in the Washington metropolitan area. The Commanders compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) N ...

' training camp as an undrafted

free agent In professional sports, a free agent is a player who is eligible to sign with other clubs or franchises; i.e., not under contract to any specific team. The term is also used in reference to a player who is under contract at present but who is a ...

, but was released before the season began. He pulled his hamstring early in camp and the injury prevented Mills from participating in most drills. He wore jersey number 14.

Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Pioneers

Mills signed with the

Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Pioneers The Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Pioneers were a minor league arena football team that played in the AF2. The team was part of the East Division in the American conference. The Pioneers were an expansion team for the league's 2002 season, and were the ...

of the

af2 The AF2 (often styled as af2, and short for arenafootball2) was the Arena Football League's developmental league; it was founded in 1999 and played its first season in 2000. Like its parent AFL, the AF2 played using the same arena football ru ...

, a minor league of the

Arena Football League The Arena Football League (AFL) was a professional arena football league in the United States. It was founded in 1986, but played its first official games in the 1987 season, making it the third longest-running professional football league in ...

in the Spring of 2007 but left the team a few weeks later.

Coaching

In 2006, Mills served as an assistant coach at

Temple A temple (from the Latin ) is a building reserved for spiritual rituals and activities such as prayer and sacrifice. Religions which erect temples include Christianity (whose temples are typically called churches), Hinduism (whose temples ...

under first-year head coach (and fellow

Penn State #Redirect Pennsylvania State University The Pennsylvania State University (Penn State or PSU) is a Public university, public Commonwealth System of Higher Education, state-related Land-grant university, land-grant research university with campu ...

alumnus),

Al Golden Alfred James Golden Jr. (born July 4, 1969) is an American football coach who is the defensive coordinator for the Notre Dame Fighting Irish. He is a former head coach at Temple from 2006 to 2010. He has also served for five years as defensive ...

. He joined the coaching staff at

The Haverford School , motto_translation = , address = 450 Lancaster Avenue , location = , region = , city = Haverford , county = , state = Pennsylvania , ...

Haverford, Pennsylvania Haverford is an unincorporated community located in both Haverford Township in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, United States, and Lower Merion Township in Montgomery County, approximately west of Philadelphia. The Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) open ...

as quarterbacks coach in 2007, leaving the team after the 2010 season.

References

External links

"Passing into history: Mills moves on from PSU career, leaves behind lasting QB legacy"
Jenny Vrentas, ''The Digital Collegian'', March 3, 2005
"Mills' agent optimistic about NFL prospects,"
''The Digital Collegian'', March 16, 2005
"NFL draft analysis for Zack Mills""Passing into History,"
''The Digital Collegian'', March 3, 2005
"Zack Mills Named Senior MVP At Nittany Lion Football Banquet"
gopsusports.com, December 12, 2004
PSU’s Mills enjoying retirement
''

The Citizens' Voice ''The Citizens' Voice'' is a compact newspaper published daily in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. Its 2005 circulation was 32,862, mostly Luzerne County residents. Founding The newspaper was founded in 1978 by striking employees of the Wilkes-Barre P ...

'', July 20, 2007.
Haverford School Football
haverfordpafootball.vnsports.com, January 5, 2012. {{DEFAULTSORT:Mills, Zack 1982 births Living people American football quarterbacks Penn State Nittany Lions football players Temple Owls football coaches Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Pioneers players High school football coaches in Pennsylvania People from Frederick County, Maryland Players of American football from Maryland