by Megan Murray
sports editor
In this new section, I will explore past student-athletes of Millsaps to see what their lives have been like since graduating from Millsaps and how our college shaped them into the people they are today.
Hunter Owen graduated from Millsaps in 2008 with a degree in Business Administration and then received his MBA from Millsaps in 2010. He played baseball from 2005-2009. During his career at Millsaps, Owen was a three-time all-American and the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference Player of the year in 2007 and 2008. He was also selected to the d3baseball.com all-decade team. Owen still holds the single-season record for doubles at Millsaps with 23. Owen now owns his own successful Crossfit gym in Madison, Miss., called Coyote Crossfit. Courtesy of goinggoinggone.ms
The Purple & White: What has your life been like since you graduated from Millsaps?
Hunter Owen: I graduated and I went back and played another year and got my MBA. And then after that I played two seasons of professional independent baseball. The first season I was in south Texas in the United League and then the next season I was in the Frontier League in Kentucky. After that I started looking for a job and I found one in December 2010 working for a company called Advanced Draining Systems in Byram, Mississippi. I was a dispatch/freight manager for them. Around that same time I started doing Crossfit…. I started competing in Crossfit and I really enjoyed that [but] I didn’t like my job very much at all. So after about a year and a half of working there, I decided that I wanted to open up my own gym. I approached a few people from the gym I was at who had business experience and we started talking about opening one. Long story short, it all came together and I quit my other job after two years and opened up Coyote in March 2013, so we’ve been opened almost two years now.
P&W: How did being a student-athlete at Millsaps prepare you for your profession?
HO: I learned a lot about real world stuff being a student-athlete. Millsaps is a hard school, so you have to put the time in in the books to be able to get good grades and you also have to put the time in to do well at sports. You have to kind of figure out how to make time for both of those, so you have to plan you’re days right. I think the biggest thing is I learned the value of hard work. You learn that if you put the work in, the results will come. Coach Page was a great coach and he was always teaching us a lot of things that translated into baseball, but also translated into life: the value of hard work, the value of never quitting, teamwork, and stuff like that. I can definitely say that I wouldn’t be where I’m at if it hadn’t been for my time at Millsaps. It definitely shaped me to the person I am today and kind of led me here.
P&W: What was your most memorable moment at Millsaps?
HO: I had a lot of really great memories. I think the best team moment we had was my senior year when we were ranked number 1 in the nation for a few weeks and that was the first time Millsaps baseball team had ever been ranked that high. That was a really cool memory. As far as personal moments, I hit two walk-off home runs my senior year and the second one was probably the most memorable because Frank Ezelle, the guy who takes the pictures, happened to be right there and he caught it frame-by-frame, so I still have the photo album to this day of the frame-by-frame and the celebration so that was a really cool personal moment. But I think more than anything, I just remember the times spent with the guys on the bus trips and in the hotel rooms and all that stuff. That’s what I miss more than anything is just hanging out with the guys and all the incredible life time relationships that I’ve built with them.
P&W: Who is the most influential person you met at Millsaps?
HO: I would definitely say Coach Page. Coach Page is just a great coach; I learned so much from him. Like I said, not just about baseball but about life. And he takes a freshman that comes in there and thinks he’s got it all figured out and because you know he was a hot shot in high school, but you learn really quickly that he takes that freshman and turns him into a man by his senior year and a leader. There’s a reason he’s been so successful there. I can definitely say I wouldn’t be where I’m at today without having had Coach Page play such a significant part in my life.
Very nice story!
This is a wonderful article. However, since he is entering his 27th season as head baseball coach, after several seasons as an assistant and four seasons as a player – close to 35 years as a part of the Millsaps community…
…I’d point out that Coach Jim Page doesn’t spell his family name with an “I.”