PG Hires Baseball Coach

PRAIRIE GROVE — Leaving little doubt about their desire to keep Prairie Grove baseball among the premium 4A teams, the Prairie Grove school board approved the hiring of Chris Mileham.

The Tigers’ new head baseball coach was hired during a special school board meeting on June 8 with Prairie Grove acting quickly to replace former coach Mitch Cameron, who resigned less than a month ago on May 19 to take the head coaching job at Rogers Heritage. The Tigers made their move in business-like fashion in sharp contrast to the time lapse in filling the vacant athletic director position. Out of respect for former athletic director Mike Green, who passed on Aug. 31, Prairie Grove did not hire for that job until May when former Shiloh Christian girls soccer coach, Tommy Roy, was selected. Filling the baseball coaching job was a priority and when Mileham became available Prairie Grove snapped him up.

In a twist of irony, while Prairie Grove lost a good coach in Cameron to the 7A ranks, they then gained another quality coach in Mileham, who has been an assistant coach at 7A Fayetteville as well as a head coach of the Arkansas Express since 2012. Prior to that Mileham spent two years 80 miles south of the Mile High City as head baseball coach at Discovery Canyon High School, of Colorado Springs.

During Mileham’s tenure at Discovery Canyon he was praised for having an outstanding knowledge of baseball and ability to instruct and coach intricacies of the game. The team improved during Mileham’s two years as head coach. Mileham inherited a squad that went 2-13 the previous year, yet, made progress with a group described as having athletic ability but little feel for the game and lacking baseball discipline. In Mileham’s first year, the record improved to 6-11, with an improvement in team batting average of 40 percentage points, 20 more runs scored and team defense jumping from a .750 fielding percentage to .860. In Mileham’s second season, Discovery Canyon earned their firstever winning record and first playoff appearance while shifting in classification from 3A to 4A.

Before that, Mileham spent two seasons as a professional hitting coach with the Wichita Wingnuts, of the American Association of Independent Professional Baseball. Mileham also has experience at the junior college level as assistant baseball coach and recruiting coordinator at Pratt Community College, of Pratt, Kan. During 2007-2008.

Mileham graduated from Ponderosa High School, of Shingle Springs, Calif., then attended Cosumnes River College at Sacramento, Calif. He came to the University of Arkansas in 2003 and graduated in 2006 with a degree in Kinesiology. Mileham began his coaching career as an assistant at Elkins from 2003-2007 serving as head coach of a Fayetteville American Legion baseball team at the same time. He worked on and received a Master’s Degree in Sports Science from the United States Sports Academy in 2013