Liz Mills

Mills began her coaching career in Sydney, Australia in 2002 whilst at Willoughby Girls High School. She has coached junior boys and girls club and representative teams for Northern (Sydney) Suburbs Basketball Association (NSBA), as well as senior women's representative teams at Norths.

Whilst in Australia she completed an undergraduate degree in Sports Science and Sports Management (2008) at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) and in 2014 completed a Masters of Education in Sports Coaching at the University of Sydney (USYD).

Since 2011 Mills has been a head coach and assistant coach in Africa of top league men's club teams, national men's university teams and national men's teams.

Prior to 2011, Mills had never coached men.[1] Mills started her coaching career in Africa in Zambia, where she was the head coach for Zambia's senior men's national league team Heroes Play United during the 2011-2012 season and guided them to a national championship win.[3] She went on to win another national title in Zambia's senior men's league in 2015/2016 as head coach of team Matero Magic. Whilst coaching in Zambia, Mills was also named as head coach for the Zambian men's national university team. This team competed in the 2012 CUCSA Zone VI University Games, finishing second and competed in All Africa University Games (FASU) later that year where they finished third.

At the club level, Mills worked with the Rwandan top league men's club team Patriots BBC for the 2019 pan-Africa Basketball Africa League Qualifiers. She led the team to the East Division Qualification Title, with the team going undefeated in the two rounds of qualifiers. The team went on to compete in the 2021 Basketball Africa League.

Having served as assistant coach of the national Zambia for the 2017 Afrobasket Zone VI qualifiers and Cameroon men's basketball teams for 2019 FIBA World Cup African Qualifiers, Mills joined the Kenyan Morans as Head Coach in January 2021. She steered Kenya to qualifying for their first AfroBasket championship in 28 years, after beating 11-time African champions Angola 74-73 in Cameroon in February 2021 at the 2021 FIBA AfroBasket Qualifiers.[3] Previously Kenya had never beaten Angola. As head coach of the Morans at the 2021 FIBA Afrobasket Mills led Kenya to a 1-3 record. Kenya defeated Mali to pick up their first win at an AfroBasket and for the first time progressed past the first round group stage.

On February 12, 2022, she was announced as head coach by AS Salé a club in the Division of Excellence, the top professional men's league in Morocco. Mills is first female head coach of men's team in Morocco and the Arab World, Mills appointment as Head Coach of AS Salé is just ahead of the start of the 2022 BAL season kicking off in March 2022, Mills will become the first female head coach of a men's team in the Basketball Africa League.[5]

Credit must go to Brigitte Affidehome Tonon as the first female head coach of a men's national basketball team in the African continent as head coach of the Benin national team for the 2017 Zone 3 FIBA Afrobasket 2017 qualifiers (pre 2019 FIBA World Cup qualification system). Benin won 1 game but failed to make it past Zone 3 qualifiers and did not participate in the 2017 FIBA AfroBasket.[6] Tonon has a rich basketball family pedigree with her father respected for his expertise in technical coaching, refereeing and as the Secretary General of the Benin Basketball Federation.

Mills grew up in Sydney with a passion for coaching basketball since an early age.[3] She and her identical twin sister, Vic,[1] grew up playing multiple sports such as netball, tennis, athletics and swimming. With Vic, she started playing basketball at the age of 15. Mills took her first basketball coaching position at age 16,[1] on many occasions co-coaching with her sister Vic.

In 2021, Mills stated that she is proud to be a "pioneer" as a female coach.[3]

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