Giving Back.

Growing up in the foster care system, mentors and coaches were an instrumental part of her life. They provided her support personally and through the game of basketball — they were the one constant in her life.

For all she has received, assistant coach Kaylann Miller has only ever wanted to return the favor. 

“Basketball was one of those things where if I was having a bad day, I could always go to the court and get my frustrations out,” Miller said. “[Building] relationships with my teammates [and] coaches was my safe haven when life got crazy.”

Rather than playing the sport as a professional career, Miller took a different route. She began coaching basketball. After 13 years of coaching, Miller decided to make a change. She took a job as an NBA scout for the Indiana Pacers. She would scout collegiate athletes to judge if and when they would be drafted. Miller eventually made her way back into coaching, using experiences gained from her previous positions.

“[Through my experiences] I’ve gotten to coach a lot of different players,” Miller said. “Being able to coach different players at different levels has given me an opportunity to meet players where they are.”

This is Miller’s first year coaching at the school, but she hopes to make the biggest impact on her players as possible. She wants to be a person they can come to talk to no matter what is going on in their lives — just like her mentors were for her. 

“Sports are life lessons,” Miller said. “You [have to] be able to work with people that come from a lot of different walks of life. Life will get hard, just like [how] the games get hard at times, and having that resiliency is what life [and sports] are all about.”