Mizell Embraces New Challenge at Penn State
Mizell Embraces New Challenge at Penn State
Penn State Men’s Rugby opens up their new era with a game at Mount St. Mary’s and this is with new Head Coach Zac Mizell.
A star at Arkansas State, helping them to a D1A final in 2012, and later capped by the USA 7s team, Mizell has coached at Life, University of Texas, and, most recently, Adrian.
Now he is taking over from Justin Hundley, and when he spoke with GRR he said “I am starting to get my feet on the ground. With big schools it’s always a bit of a search-and-find-out. Having my experience at UT helped a ton with that.”
Mizell, whose brother, Jake, is an assistant coach at West Point, has drawn from his and Jake’s experience in developing his coaching approach.
“Each location kind of had its own lessons, and I learned a lot,” Mizell told GRR. “UT showed me how big schools operate and what it’s like to try to get rugby games scheduled at a big football school. Coaching at Life gave me my first taste of true varsity athletics and high performance.”
Jake Mizell coached at Arkansas State and Zac Mizell learned from that, too. “I got to see how you bring in a new culture and try to bring in your own coaching style. I got to see my brother do that.”
Not every level was learned the hard way. Sometimes you take lessons from the positive.
“At Adrian I learned what pitfalls to avoid, but the main thing I learned at Adrian was how to recruit,” he said. “You have to recruit and that’s part of the job. So I was attracted to the Penn State job at the start because I knew the job would need all those skills, and I felt my experience was suited for that and how I could improve on a program that has had success in the past but has struggled recently.”
And yes, that is Penn State. They finished last in the Rugby East last year, but it’s worth noting that most of their losses were close to very close. They also played out-of-conference, losing by 12 to Davenport, and beating Clemson and Ohio State in convincing fashion. That fall bowl game win over OSU in December was a message to everyone that a tough Rugby East conference record doesn’t mean you aren’t a good rugby team.
So going into this season, Mizell will have some short-term changes and some long-term goals.
“In any team I’ve been a part wins and losses will always be at the back of your mind, but if you focus on the process and try to get better each day, then the wins and losses take care of themselves,” he said. “I read Phil Jackson’s book.” (Jackson has written eight books on coaching.) “He’s really big on battling the present. We had to do that at Adrian. We worried about what was right in front of us, and that’s what we’ll do at Penn State—try to get better every game; try to get better every day.”
Faced with either changing a bunch of things or easing into changes, Mizell has opted to make the changes now.
“We have changed everything to be under my style,” he said. “Getting in as late as I did, I had to learn a lot on last year’s film rather than doing a preseason. But I used the leadership of the guys, asking them what they see about the players position-wise. It’s been a good two-way street and overall the guys have done a great job of buying in quickly and giving us an opportunity to progress. Honestly it’s been quicker than I thought.”
So while Mizell has his plans, he also is listening to the players about what they want in the program. But he needs something from the players, too.
“I say, if you’re a senior, and this is your last season, it should be the most important to you,” he explained. “It is at the end of the day a player’s sport.”
He’s been on the job for less than a month, and the first game coming up is a tough one. But you’ve got to start somewhere.
