Boyce College, the undergraduate school of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, has signed Corey Mullins as the new head coach of the Boyce Bulldogs basketball team.
Mullins served as head assistant coach of the women’s basketball team at Bryan College in Dayton, Tenn., for the past four years. During that time, Bryan won more than 20 games each season and annually qualified for the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) national tournament, advancing to the round of 16 in 2006. Bryan competes in the Appalachian Athletic Conference of the NAIA.
Boyce athletic director Lee Sexton said his on-court success as well as Mullins’ ministry experience made him the right man for the position.
“What I saw in Mullins was someone who had been in a very successful program for the past four years as a top assistant,” he said. “The other thing I saw was a commitment to ministry. He had been a youth director and a children’s minister and had a solid background in the Southern Baptist Convention. I felt like we were getting a good fit for who Boyce and Southern are.”
Mullins described the position as a “unique opportunity” because every student-athlete at Boyce senses a definitive call to ministry. He said he looks forward to coaching in that environment.
“I want to help continue to train Great Commission workers by using athletics,” he said. “I want to help players develop spiritually, ministerially and academically through athletics.
“Success for us in the next few years will come through discipline. This means working hard in the classroom, in the community and on the court. Winning is a by-product of discipline. As we continue to build our program, we will start to win games and in three or four years, I would love to be winning 15 games a season.”
Mullins graduated from Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro, Tenn., in August of 2003 and began coaching at Bryan the same year. Mullins said he began playing basketball at age four and later sensed God leading him into coaching.
“In college, I started working with Crosspoint Christian Sport camps, which is a ministry of LifeWay Christian Resources,” he said.
“In my freshman year of college, I felt God calling me to coach. I started looking for opportunities and got an education degree in college with the hopes of coaching at the high school or collegiate level. I was blessed to be able to spend four years at a Christian college at Bryan working under a successful head coach there.”
Bryan’s head coach Matt Bollant, who Mullins worked under for four years, recently accepted a position as the women’s basketball head coach at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, a NCAA Division I school. After Bollant left Bryan, Mullins learned about the opening at Boyce and contacted Sexton. Mullins replaces Casey Smallwood as Boyce head coach.
Mullins said offensively, he would look to run a half-court, motion offense that emphasizes getting people open for timely shots. Mullins said after reviewing game tape of the Bulldogs last year, being able to score does not concern him. He said his focus would be on teaching the team his preferred style of defense.
“Defensively, I believe in a pack defense,” he said. “Pack defense is a half-court, man-to-man defense where the person guarding the ball pressures tightly. The other people near the ball help him [as much as possible]. The majority of our defense will be half-court man to man with great pressure and great teamwork.”
In addition to being the head basketball coach, Mullins will serve as the college’s academic advisor. The Bulldogs compete in the National Christian College Athletic Association Division II Mid-East region.
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