During her senior softball season at Purdue, Mallory Baker was walking to the on-deck circle in a game at Indiana when she heard a familiar voice.
“You know you’re playing like (expletive).”
Baker laughed, turned around and saw Russ Milligan, her former coach at Center Grove, biggest critic and most ardent supporter, in the stands at Andy Mohr Field.
A four-year starter for the Trojans from 2012-15, Baker, who capped her high school career by being named Indiana’s Miss Softball, possesses no shortage of Milligan-themed yarns to spin. The same applies to anyone who played for, worked with or befriended Milligan.
He died Wednesday morning due to complications related to COVID-19.
Milligan, a five-time state champion during his 27 seasons (1992-2018), was 56.
“Abby Herbst and I would always call him a teddy bear to his face,” said Jordyn Rudd, also a four-year starter for Milligan and now the starting catcher for Northwestern University. “One day, he looked right at me and said, ‘If you ever call me that again …’”
Rudd laughs because it was so, well, Milligan.
And yes, Rudd and Herbst continued to address Milligan that way. To his face. Without hesitation.
Known for his brusque, no-nonsense demeanor, Milligan elevated Center Grove’s softball program to dizzying heights — including a jaw-dropping record of 741-95 (88%) — while deeply caring for his players between and outside the chalked base paths of a softball diamond.
“He was aggressive as a coach, but coach Milligan had one of the biggest hearts,” said Herbst, a sophomore softball player at the University of Wisconsin who was named Miss Softball in 2019. “Just an incredible teacher and person, and I loved being around him.
“You had to be able to understand his sense of humor and his way of coaching, but it was done out of love. I honestly wouldn’t be at Wisconsin playing softball if it weren’t for him. He gave me confidence and prepared me for that.”
Milligan coached Center Grove to 19 sectional championships and 15 regional titles. Center Grove’s final state crown under Milligan’s guidance came during the 2015 season when the Trojans defeated Lake Central, 6-2, in the Class 4A final at Ben Davis.
Jon Zwitt, who became Center Grove’s athletic director at the start of the 1996-97 school year, recently reread the coach evaluation of Milligan from the 1997 season.
“It could easily have been copied and duplicated every year after,” Zwitt said.
He wrote: “Russ is a ‘fundamental’ type of person. He stresses the little things, and it is those little things that metamorphose into success at the highest of levels. Russ does not shy away from intense competition and is willing to challenge the best of the best. This mentality permeates into the hearts and the attitudes of his players. That is what fills the softball program with survivors and winners.”
Milligan was born in Escanaba, Michigan, a city of nearly 13,000 residents in the state’s Upper Peninsula. His family moved downstate to St. Joseph when he was 2 and later to Memphis, Tennessee, before back to the Midwest — Goshen, to be exact — when Milligan was 13.
He later played football and baseball at Concord High School and attended Wabash College, where he earned a degree in biology. He parlayed that into becoming an assistant football and baseball coach at Frankfort High School from 1986-90.
Milligan left Frankfort to become a chemistry teacher and assistant football coach at Center Grove. He hoped to be an assistant baseball coach under Dave Gandolph, but when that didn’t work out, Milligan took over the softball program.
“I didn’t have any openings for an assistant at the time, so Russ went to softball,” remembers Gandolph, the Trojans baseball coach for 33 seasons and a close friend of Milligan. “It worked out well for everybody. Russ made the girls better, maybe better than they thought they could be in the first place.
“We coached together and vacationed together. Russ was definitely a good friend, and he’ll be missed.”
Milligan’s oft-blunt honesty wasn’t for the thin-skinned. At the same time, he was open to suggestions from players and assistant coaches if he felt it could potentially improve the product as a whole.
“He had a different way of doing things, but obviously, it worked,” said Center Grove football coach Eric Moore, who had Milligan on his coaching staff in the early 2000s. “It was about trying to win a state championship, and he got the most out of kids. They were just like him — feisty and hard workers.
“Academically, he’s never cheated a kid in his class. Russ’ most important priority was his students.”
Baker can’t recall the specifics on that game at IU two years ago in terms of hits and RBIs, only that she’s glad Milligan, a man who will forever mean so much to her, took the time to watch her play.
“Either you loved him or you didn’t. I did,” Baker said. “He definitely changed me as a player and how I viewed winning. It was tough love. When you’re a freshman, he scares you. You either adapt or you don’t. A lot of people in sports are coddled. He didn’t care. He wanted you to transform and to grow, but he had your back the whole time.
“Coach Milligan was just a good guy. A one of a kind.”
