Late Aggie coach Chuck Mills honored by former players
Before Utah State’s football game on Oct. 22 against Colorado State, dozens of people gathered around the Merlin Olsen statue south of the stadium to pay tribute to Chuck Mills, a former Utah State coach who passed away in January this year.
Several in attendance were former players of Mills, who coached the Aggies from 1967-72, and compiled a 38-23-1 record. All-American and NFL starter Phil Olsen, Utah State hall of fame running back Roy Shivers and several other contributing players from the Aggie teams of the 60s came out to support the late coach.
Olsen shared some words with the crowd, and a football was passed around to all the former players to be dedicated in his honor. The Aggies walked onto the field pregame, and the ball was deemed the official gameball.
In a final tribute, a video showed some of Mill’s ashes being sprinkled over Merlin Olsen Field at Maverik Stadium.
Mills was somebody that had a profound impact on Utah State Football in his six seasons as coach.
The Aggies, who were widely successful during the early 1960s, had a down year in 1966, going 4-6 under head coach Tony Knapp. So Mills was hired for the 1967 season, and came and led the Aggies to a 7-2-1 in his first season.
According to Wayne Lamb, who played center at Utah State from 1967 to 1969, Mills was able to get Utah State back to their winning ways in a short amount of time by fostering a dramatic change in team culture.
“He was the best leader I have ever had,” Lamb said. “And I spent 20 years in the military and 30 years in the federal government.”
Mills made all the players move into Richards Hall and the old Lund Hall. Keeping together helped keep them out of trouble. They weren’t allowed to smoke or drink, or they’d lose their scholarship.
Mills expected hard work. Leading up to the first game of the 1967 season, he’d have the team do three-a-day practices. They were on campus from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m.
At the end of the final practice of camp, the entire team was physically drained, according to Lamb. But Mills made them do one more thing.
“He said, ‘Here’s what you’re going to do. If you want to play for me, you’re going to do a 440 (meter),’” Lamb said. “So we sort of ran and at the end of the 440 he had this Good Humor ice cream, and we ate every bit of his ice cream.”
Mills also recruited players from all over the country, from different ethnic backgrounds and convinced them to come to Logan.
The 1970 roster consisted of 33 players from California, 18 from Utah, four from Canada, as well as 11 other states. In a world where racism and prejudice were prevalent in rural Utah, Lamb said Mills set the tone for how people should treat each other.
“He brought together a conglomerate of people from all over this nation on recruiting,” Lamb said. “It was every bit like ‘Remember the Titans.’ Mills said, ‘These are my players. And we’re gonna play and you can accept them. You better accept them.’”
With good players from across the country and a reinforced work ethic, the Aggies began to win games again.
“We knew that we needed to come in ready to play,” Lamb said. “And we did. The whole world changed.”
“A different type of coach,” said Ty Couey, the linebacker turned safety that played from 1968 to 1970. “He knew how to win. He knew how to select winners.”
In his six seasons at the helm, Mills went 8-4 against Utah and BYU. His teams won seven or more games four of his six seasons. And in 1968, the Aggies went into Madison and beat the Wisconsin Badgers 20-0.
“We played some really good games,” Olsen said. “West Texas State in 1967 was unbelievable. We beat and Utah and BYU.”
Along the ride, they had a lot of fun. Lamb recalls a time when a group of guys all jumped from the second-story balcony of Richards Hall into the snow.
Mills would get the team so animated they’d bang their heads against the wall. One time, before a game against Montana, following a pump-up speech from Mills, the team ran to go onto the field, only to find out the locker room had been locked from the outside.
“Really weird stuff. But he brought us all together,” Lamb said.
The impact he had is apparent, even today.
“He was such a coach that a group of us got together and created an endowment and his name because of the effect that he had on all of us,” Couey said.
According to Utah State Athletics, The Coach Chuck Mills Scholarship Endowment will be given out on an annual basis to players on the football team that are walk-ons or on a partial scholarship.
The hope is Mills can stay remembered.“Just through the media word of mouth. You know what I mean?” Shivers said. “We’re all getting up in a different atmosphere now you know? When you talk about Phil Olsen and all those guys you got to talk about Chuck Mills.”