Baseball Senior All Business When It Comes to BVU Family
With his final semester transitioned to online classes, Colton Mills is thankful for the family bond created through his years on the BVU baseball team.
In preparing for his BVU Class of 2020 send-off feature, Colton Mills sends a photo of his BVU baseball team gathered in prayer in Tucson, in mid-March.
“The picture is really special to me because it is the last team prayer we ever had,” Mills says. “It came on the night our game got rained out in Arizona. After that prayer, I was lucky enough to give the last team breakdown of the 2020 season and of my college career.”
Mills says he’ll never forget what he said to the team for the breakdown: “We don’t know how long we have left, so let’s enjoy every step of the way as a family.”
Family. The word comes up with some frequency when Colton Mills describes his BVU experience. The Johnston native, an accounting major, says he felt an acceptance at BVU from the first day, a bond that would remain consistent throughout the ensuing four years.
“BVU gave me a family I didn’t see coming. It gave me some of my best friends for life.”
Colton Mills
“I ended up at BVU for the sense of family I felt; even on my visits as a high school student, I was welcomed and made personal connections,” he says.
Mills recalls forging friendships with Joe Powell and Steve Campbell, the general manager and the CPA, both who served as leaders and his direct supervisors during his summer internship at Buena Vista University Golf Course at Lake Creek.
“I learned a lot from both, and they couldn’t have been better to work with,” he says.
Mills would remain close to his accounting and business professors. “Beth Blankers (Professor of Accounting; Assistant Dean, Harold Walter Siebens School of Business) and Jennifer Hecht (Assistant Professor of Accounting) handled most of my accounting classes,” he says. “When you’re learning from people like those two, you can see why the accounting program and the BVU School of Business are so excellent.”
He’d grow closer to baseball coaches Steve Eddie, Steve Sonka, and, especially, Joe Paletta, noting that the coaches would do anything for the team, and vice versa. Mills, who represents Paletta’s first BVU recruit, says this of the assistant coach: “Coach Paletta recruited me from the start, and believed in me since I was a high schooler and a freshman. We still text frequently and have a friendship that I hope is lifelong.
Lastly, Mills says his suitemates and teammates strengthened ties that can’t be broken, even by a season- and career-ending virus.
“I read the senior story about my teammate Parker Truesdell and I smiled,” he says “I wanted to cry out of happiness, but also because I miss him and my teammates and suitemates. I’ve been with them every day for three-and-a-half years. They’ve become family to me.”
Sure, there is pain in a season and a school year cut short. There’s regret in not being able to control one’s fate on the baseball diamond. There is frustration in not having the chance to achieve goals.
And yet, a kinder far-sighted view promises to endure, at least for one BVU Beaver who will always remember the honor of giving the team breakdown following prayer on a fateful day in mid-March.
“I am thankful for BVU,” Colton Mills says. “BVU gave me a family I didn’t see coming. It gave me some of my best friends for life.”