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40 / ’southern
ATHLETICS
Courtesy of
Village Living
Bucky McMillan III ’08 is becoming
something of a coaching legend in
Alabama and is making a huge impact on
basketball in his community.
Now seven years into his stint as
head varsity boys’ basketball coach
at Mountain Brook High School,
the 31-year-old has led the school to
program gold. For the third year in
a row, McMillan coached his team to
the state championship game. He has
been awarded the Birmingham Tip Off
Club or Alabama High School Athletic
Association Men’s Hoops Coach of the
Year for each of the past four seasons.
Over the last five years, the basketball
program has won more games than any
6A team in Birmingham.
The Mountain Brook Spartans have
won 19 consecutive playoff games over
the last three years in the state basketball
tournament, and they earned two state
titles in 2013 and 2014.
“We were probably not the most
talented team Mountain Brook has ever
had,” McMillan said. “But I rank this
year’s team among the best we’ve ever
had in terms of their sheer will to win.”
The Spartans returned to the televised
Final Four in February with the hopes of
capturing a state title three-peat. Despite
the team losing the championship
43-50 to the Hoover High Buccaneers,
McMillan is hugely proud of his players.
“We had a great, great season and
it was an amazing final game,” said
McMillan. “Our goal was never to win
a championship. Our goal was to play
the hardest, to play fearlessly, and to play
unselfishly.”
Before 2001, Mountain Brook had
never made it to the final four of the state
basketball championship. But McMillan
changed that as the star point guard for
the 2001 team. After graduating from
high school, he came to Birmingham-
Southern on a basketball scholarship and
played under coach Duane Reboul.
McMillan was an outstanding point
guard and two-year starter on BSC’s
NCAA Division I team from 2003-06.
They were co-champions of the Big South
Conference in 2004; he was named to
the National Association of Basketball
Coaches Honors Court in 2006. When
the Panthers dropped from D-I to D-III,
McMillan sat out a semester and then
returned to complete his degree in
educational services.
“I learned so much under Coach
Reboul about basketball, life, and the
value of character,” said McMillan,
whose father is also an accomplished
basketball coach and whose wife is fellow
BSC basketball student Britni Ballard
McMillan ’07. “Reboul, along with many
coaches and professors at Birmingham-
Southern, really cares about the well-
being of students inside and outside of
the classroom and court.”
McMillan coached for the Over-the-
Mountain Basketball League during
his senior year at BSC and became the
junior varsity coach for the Spartans after
graduation, compiling a 36-6 record in
his first two seasons. When students ask
him about BSC, which he said they often
do, he views it as a chance to brag on
his alma mater and to share his personal
experiences as a student-athlete on the
Hilltop.
Would he ever consider coaching at the
college level one day?
“It would have to be something
unbelievably special to leave the special
place that I’m in,” McMillan said.
Game changer
BSC alum is shining star among state’s high school
basketball coaches
by Pat Cole