Story: Brad Marquardt, Assistant AD/Athletics Communications
Men’s basketball head coach Bucky McMillan announced coaching veteran Mitch Cole as the first addition to his initial coaching staff at Texas A&M.
Cole, who served on Billy Kennedy’s Texas A&M staff for five seasons from 2011-16, had been McMillan’s associate head coach at Samford since 2021. With Cole on the Samford staff, the Bulldogs posted four straight 20-win seasons, won three Southern Conference championships and advanced to the postseason twice.
Before his time at Samford, Cole was the head coach at Berry College from 2018-21. In his time at Berry, Cole posted a record of 51-17. In the 2020-21 season, Cole led the Vikings to both the Southern Athletic Association (SAA) regular season and tournament titles. For his efforts, Cole was named 2021 SAA Coach of the Year. The 2021 Vikings also broke onto the national scene, finishing the season ranked No. 11 in the final NCAA Division III poll.
Cole arrived at Berry after serving two seasons as an assistant coach at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. On Kennedy’s staff at Texas A&M, Cole served as a special assistant for three seasons before being elevated to assistant coach from 2014-16. In those two seasons, the Aggies posted a 49-21 record, including a school-record 28 victories in 2015-16 as the Maroon & White won the SEC regular season title and advanced to the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament.
Cole came to A&M after one of the most successful seasons in Birmingham-Southern men’s basketball history, leading the Panthers to a 23-4 overall record in 2010-11 and winning the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference (SCAC) Championship with a 14-2 conference mark. The Panthers ended the season by winning the NCAA Division III Provisional Tournament Championship. Cole earned D3hoops.com South Region Coach of the Year honors at the conclusion of the year.
Taking over as BSC’s 12th head men’s basketball in 2006, Cole was tasked with rebuilding the program from scratch as a result of BSC’s move from NCAA Division I to Division III. He quickly built the Panthers into a contender, achieving a 13-12 record with 15 freshmen in 2007-08. Two years later, the Panthers went 20-5 and won the SCAC East Division title. In his last two seasons at BSC, Cole’s teams went 43-9, leading the SCAC in scoring each year.
Cole spent 11 seasons as an assistant coach at BSC under then head coach Duane Reboul, prior to taking over as head coach of the Panthers. He was instrumental in the success of a program that amassed over 300 wins during his tenure at BSC.
A New Orleans, La., native, Cole graduated from Holy Cross High School in 1988. He played collegiately at Montana State University-Billings, where he double majored in history and education and graduated in 1992. Cole went on to earn his master’s in education from Auburn while working as a graduate assistant with the basketball team.
Cole and his wife, Amy, have three children: daughter Laura Kate and sons Carson and Joshua.
