LAGRANGE, Maine — Few 11-year-olds can boast of earning a state championship ring for his role on a high school basketball team.
But it’s all just part of life as a coach’s son for Zak Mills, a sixth-grader at Penquis Valley Middle School in Milo.
“When I was coaching basketball at John Bapst, he was 3 years old and down there with me dressed up in a warm-up suit,” said his father, Jason Mills, a physical education teacher at Penquis Valley High School as well as the Patriots’ boys varsity basketball and soccer coach.
“At Penquis, he’s always at my soccer games, and when I got done at Bapst and started doing middle-school basketball at Penquis, [former Penquis High head coach] Tony [Hamlin] took him in so he was always around for the high school team and always going to the tournament.
“He was part of the [2013] championship team, and he got a ring with all those guys. He’s just been a fixture with athletics here all his life.”
Zak Mills also is an active participant on his middle-school sports teams, but that’s on hiatus as he undergoes treatment for osteosarcoma, a form of bone cancer.
“Right after Christmas, Zak complained of a sore wrist after a middle-school basketball practice, and I just figured he had fallen during practice,” said his dad. “A week later, he said his wrist was still sore, but he was still playing in games and practicing, and finally one day, he went to see the school nurse.”
The nurse informed Jason Mills of a bump near his son’s right wrist, and while a subsequent X-ray found no break, a subsequent biopsy revealed osteosarcoma on Zak Mills’ right radius, the forearm bone that attaches to the thumb side of the wrist.
Mills began his first round of chemotherapy to shrink the cancerous tumor on Feb. 12 and completed that in time to attend a couple sessions of the Eastern Maine Class C basketball tournament with his dad at the Cross Insurance Center in Bangor.
“When we were down to the tournament, different coaches would come up to Zak and talk to him,” said Jason Mills. “He doesn’t like talking about it, but everyone knows him because he’s been out and about his whole life.”
Zak Mills will begin a second round of chemotherapy Thursday at Eastern Maine Medical Center that involves 72-hour sessions for each of the next three weeks. Then he’ll likely head to Boston to have what’s left of the tumor removed before undergoing a follow-up round of chemotherapy.
“He asks a lot of questions each time he goes down there,” said Jason Mills. “He watches them do everything, and he’s handling it real good so far.”
He said doctors told him the course of treatment being undertaken has a 95 percent success rate.
“It’s about a six-month process,” he added. “Zak has a goal that he’ll be playing soccer when school starts in the fall. That’s the way he’s approaching it.”
In the meantime, the community and Mills’ Penobscot Valley Conference coaching colleagues are taking steps to help defray some of the associated medical costs.
That includes a Coaches vs. Cancer basketball game featuring area coaches and athletic administrators scheduled for 6 p.m. Friday at Penquis Valley High School.
“Some of the coaches began to talk about things they could do to help the family and came up with the idea to have a coaches’ game,” said Jamie Russell, the boys varsity basketball coach at Piscataquis Community High School in Guilford and a resident of LaGrange.
“An email was sent out to the Penobscot Valley Conference coaches, and within a few hours, we had enough people to play, and within a couple of days, we had 40 people who wanted to help. There’s really been a great response.”
Tickets for the game are $5 each or a maximum of $20 for a family. Concessions will be sold, and the Penquis Valley High School band is scheduled to perform.
In addition, persons wishing to make a donation on Zak Mills’ behalf may do so by sending a check to Maine Savings Federal Credit Union, P.O. Box 447, Milo, Maine 04463, re: Zakary Mills.
