Basketball
Favorite athlete: Klay Thompson
Favorite team: Sixers
Favorite memory competing in sports: Playing my first varsity minutes
Most embarrassing/funniest thing that happened while competing in sports: The ball slipped out of my hands on a fast break dunk attempt.
Music on playlist: Lots of Counting Crows and Jack Johnson
Future plans: Become an aerospace engineer
Words to live by: “Training beats talent when talent doesn’t train.”
One goal before turning 30: Graduate from college
One thing people don’t know about me: I can solve a Rubik’s cube in 7 seconds.
By Mary Jane Souder
Meet Micah Millis. A student-athlete who gets it right.
That might not sound like anything special, but in fact, it is.
The Cheltenham senior is a captain and reserve for the Panthers’ SOL Freedom Division basketball team that has punched its ticket to the PIAA 6A State Tournament. In the classroom, Millis excels and aspires to be an aerospace engineer.
“I don’t think that kid has seen a B since kindergarten,” Cheltenham basketball coach Patrick Fleury said and then reconsidered. “He probably never saw one.”
In truth, Millis is equally passionate about both sports and academics but recognizes that effort and reward do not necessarily equate in both – a topic he made the subject of his college essay.
“In school, it’s always been easy,” he said. “I obviously still work hard. I do the best of my ability to get good grades. I know if I put in 100 percent in school, I’m going to get a hundred percent on the test. There is really a direct exchange of effort and reward there.
“When it comes to basketball, you can put in as much as you can and you may not get everything you want out of it. That was really something that stood out to me while I was playing. My parents really tried to make it a point to me that regardless of the way that I work in school, that wasn’t necessarily going to happen in the world of sports. That understanding really helped me to navigate the journey I had through all three teams – freshman, JV and varsity. It really kept me going.”
If success in basketball were measured only by stats and minutes played, Millis might come up short, but there’s much more to it than that. For four years and all three of his teams, Millis was named a captain, and for four years, he was a valued member of the team. It was a success story of a different kind but, according to his coach, so very important.
“Micah is just a hard worker, a good teammate, a good person,” Fleury said. “He’s somebody that through good and bad times weathers the storm. He puts the work before the reward.
“Micah is a four-year player and somebody that we’re very proud of. He has put his imprint on the program way further than any statistics could go.”
Making Milis perspective especially significant is that he was born into a basketball family. His mother and father, Adam and Brandi (Butler) Millis both played basketball at Cheltenham. His mother is one of the girls’ program’s all-time greats. She went on to play Division 1 basketball at the University of Richmond and later professionally in Israel, leaving behind a remarkable legacy.
If it seems as though Millis would feel pressure – all kinds of pressure, guess again.
“Every time I am in the gym, I look up at her picture and her name on the 1,000-point banner,” Millis said of his mother. “But I think more than anything – it’s just something that inspires me to work harder. I don’t look at it and think, ‘I need to live up to that in any way.’
“She did so well that I don’t think there is any living up to that for anyone. I look at it and take it as an opportunity to push myself harder.”
It’s a mindset his parents encourage.
“One hundred percent,” Millis said. “My mom is all about that kind of thinking. She was definitely a volume player. She got a lot of minutes – scoring, assists all of that, but I think she really appreciated the hard work aspect of the game.
“She still wakes up at five a.m. to work out, and I think that’s really carried on to me. I’m really grateful that both my parents really drove into my mind that I’m not going to be the best player on the floor all the time, but I can do everything I can – make the most of my opportunities, and I’m glad to see that.”
Basketball from the beginning
Millis began playing basketball at a young age. He also played soccer and baseball.
“I was always in basketball leagues as much as I could – I was really into the sport,” he said. “I never played at a really high competitive level. I was in a couple of intramural leagues for fun.
“It wasn’t until around sixth grade that I really started taking basketball seriously. It was a dream of mine to play at a varsity level, and I knew I had to change something about what I was doing to get to that point, so that was the first year I joined travel. I started practicing every day on skills and stuff like that. I definitely didn’t feel any pressure to get into it. I think growing up around basketball just really increased my love for the sport.”
In eighth grade, Millis found himself playing for his mother’s Cedarbrook team.
“I always played for her in the leagues I played in as a kid, so I was kind of already used to it, but that was a step up in skill and competition,” Millis said. “The aspect of playing for her but also taking it a lot more seriously was really cool.
“She really treated me like any other player on the team, she pushed me just as hard as anyone else, and I am really grateful for that. If it wasn’t for that season, I don’t think I would be where I am today. That season really launched my high school career because it was the first year I realized that playing in high school could be a reality for me.”
When he arrived at high school, Millis was named captain of the freshman team.
“I made it a point to lead by example,” he said. “I didn’t want to be one of those players that showed that they didn’t care. That’s always been important to me – do everything to the best of my ability, and even if it doesn’t work out, at least I did everything I could.
“I was one of the starters on the freshman team, and that gave me more experience I desperately needed because I had only played competitively for a year or two before that.”
The following year, Millis was named captain of the JV team.
“Next year, same thing – JV captain again,” Millis said of his junior season. “I made it a point that year to really ramp up in terms of aggressiveness.
“I was not quite where I wanted to be yet, but I was making strides. I don’t look back on any of those summers or seasons and think – is there more I could have done? My junior year they also had me swinging (between JV and varsity), so I got to practice with the varsity team, which definitely gave me so much more confidence in myself and made me so much better.
Just the experience of being able to sit on the bench during games made me realize that my dream of playing varsity was actually a reality, and if it was possible, working harder to get to that point.”
Millis played with the varsity last summer, and at the beginning of his final high school season was named a captain.
“I’ve been getting rotation minutes,” he said. “I wasn’t sure how many minutes I was going to get, but I made it a point this year whether I got five minutes or 15 minutes, however many I get just to get on the floor and do everything I can.
“I’m not going to score 15 points a game, but I can get a couple of key stops, get the ball moving and bring the energy. I think I’ve done that to the best of my ability this year, and it’s just been really cool to be able to say I contributed to a varsity team.”
Millis’ approach to basketball does not surprise his coach.
“He’s a kid that has a goal in everything he pursues,” Fleury said. “He works his tail off, puts in the extra time. Micah is one of those kids that no matter what is thrown in front of him, he’ll find a solution.
“Defensively, he’s going to give you 150 percent on every position. He’ll sacrifice his body, he’ll dive on the floor. He loves basketball.”
A bright future
As much as he loves basketball, Millis – who can solve the Rubik’s cube in seven seconds - also loves life in the classroom and has taken a courseload of honors and AP classes.
“I love education,” he said. “I’m just a curious person. I love sports, but academics is also a passion of mine. I’ve always been more into the sciences and math, so I made it a point to take as many math classes as I could. I’ve taken all the calculus they’ve offered at my school, and I took AP Physics last year.”
He has been accepted at a lengthy list of schools that includes Penn State, Maryland, Drexel, Susquehanna, Lebanon Valley among others. He is waiting to hear back from Princeton. He plans to major in aerospace engineering, aspiring to one day work with rockets.
Millis is a member of the National Honor Society (his team stopped practice to attend his induction when he was a sophomore), and he volunteers at a local food pantry.
“Micah is more than a basketball player and that’s what we want,” Fleury said. “Everything that is great about him as a person is what it is with basketball.
“Does that mean he’s going to score 20 points? No, but he’ll give full effort. He’ll learn, he’ll figure it out. He’s a kid that wants it, not just in basketball but overall. He passes the test. He’s just a great kid. “
