Glen Mills

Glen Mills OD (*14 August 1949) is a sprinting athletics coach from Jamaica. He was the head coach of the Jamaican Olympic athletics team between 1987 and 2009. He is currently head coach of the Racers Track Club which includes world and Olympic record holder Usain Bolt and the 100 metre World Champion Yohan Blake. Other athletes that he has coached in the past include Kim Collins, and Ray Stewart.

Mills enjoyed athletics from an early age and, after moving to Camperdown High School, promptly joined the sprinting team at age 13. After his first year he was dissatisfied with his performances and gave up on the idea of becoming a professional sprinter. Despite this setback Mills was still enamoured with athletics and frequently attended the practice meetings to watch the others run. The high school coach, Henry McDonald Messam, noticed his interest and reluctance to participate and so assigned him various tasks and chores to keep him busy. Two years after, Mills had learnt well from the head coach and was given the job of coaching a class of younger track and field athletes. He retained the job after graduation, progressing to form an official part of the Camperdown High School coaching staff. The arrival of a new head of the sports department threatened Mills coaching opportunities and he was sacked in favour of a more experienced coach. The move backfired as many of the school's better athletes chose to stand by Mills, training with him at his new, unofficial training ground. Mills was quickly reinstated at the school and went on to train many successful sprinters, including Olympic silver medallist Raymond Stewart.

By the early 1970s, Mills had trained a significant number of male sprinters in the national junior team. The Jamaica Amateur Athletic Association (JAAA) called on him to work on the team, for the CARIFTA Games. Following this appointment Mills became a prominent coach in the Jamaican athletics scene. He continued to work on his coaching style and earned a diploma from the International Olympic Committee training centre in Mexico and a qualification in High-Level Sprint Tech training at the IAAF Training Centre in Puerto Rico. During his time as a coach in Jamaica he has worked with a number of Caribbean athletes including Yohan Blake, Aleen Bailey, Xavier Brown, Leroy Reid and Kim Collins. In addition, Mills also coached British sprinter Dwain Chambers when his athletics ban expired.

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