The pioneering force behind the UAA Sports Medicine program, Dr. William J. Mills, Jr., enters the Seawolf Hall of Fame in 2011 for his extraordinary contributions to the Department of Athletics.
Dr. Mills started volunteering as the first recognized UAA team physician during the 1976-77 academic year. Although in an unofficial capacity early on, he organized a core group of local doctors with a sports-medicine interest or background, to assist him with preseason physicals and volunteer coverage of various UAA athletic events.
Dr. Mills mostly handled the hockey team at the time and provided organized medical coverage at the Great Alaska Shootout. In the early 1980s, the program was still operated without official recognition from the University or the Athletics Department, but in 1985, athletic director Ron Petro officially named Dr. Mills as the first Head Team Physician.
With Dr. Mills as the integral medical advisor, the protocol for a formal Sports Medicine program was set in place. He was likewise instrumental in selecting and organizing the first official volunteer ‘Team of Physicians,’ assuring that Seawolf student-athletes would have a wide variety of specialists at their disposal.
Because of illness and an incumbent retirement from a 30-year career as an orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Mills tapped one of those colleagues, Dr. Jay Caldwell (Seawolf Hall of Fame, ’04), to assume the Head Team Physician role beginning in the fall of 1986.
Due to his valuable contributions, Dr. Mills has been honored with the title Head Team Physician Emeritus since his retirement. As a result of Dr. Mills’s interest in Sports Medicine and UAA Athletics specifically, in addition to his profound belief in volunteerism and love for his community, thousands of student-athletes have since been the beneficiaries of his early leadership.
‘Doc Mills,’ as he is commonly known, graduated from the University of California in 1942 and served the remainder of World War II in the U.S. Navy.
After earning his medical degree at Stanford University in 1949 and doing postgraduate training at the University of Michigan, he rejoined the Navy Medical Corps Reserve from 1956-78, serving a tour in Vietnam and retiring as a rear admiral.
He has held several positions at UAA, including affiliate professor of Medical Education (1978-82), adjunct professor of Nursing (1980-82) and director of the Center of High Latitude Health Research (1980-90).
He and his wife Elaine are the parents of seven children.
