PENINSULA COLLEGE: Millie Long’s legacy will endure

PORT ANGELES — You could pretty much label her the Bo Jackson of Port Angeles and Peninsula College.

Former Pirate and Roughrider Millie Long is done with her remarkable athletic career in Port Angeles, having left a trail of championships, awards and shattered records in her wake.

But her career is far from over as she is starting a new chapter in her athletic exploits in a few weeks.

A few weeks ago, she signed to continue playing both soccer and basketball at Cal Poly Humboldt, an NCAA Div. II school in Arcata, Calif.

And it was the opportunity to continue playing both soccer and basketball that is taking her to Cal Poly Humboldt.

Long liked Cal Poly because she not only gets to play two sports, but because Arcata is very much like Port Angeles. It’s on the rainy far northern coast of California deep in redwoods country.

“Cal Poly reminded me a lot of Port Angeles. I got a lot of good vibes from the school. The program really had good energy,” she said. She begins soccer practice in late July.

Cal Poly Humboldt, which used to be known as Humboldt State, features another former local soccer star, Grace Johnson, who played for Chimacum High School and then blossomed as a huge star for Peninsula College before signing with the Lumberjacks. Johnson hosted Long during her campus visit. Long said it was a factor that Johnson was already there, but not a big one.

Her college coaches both say that while Peninsula has had some outstanding athletes in its history, it’s never had an athlete quite like Long. It’s not unusual for athletes to be big stars in multiple sports at the preps level, but it’s nearly unheard of at the college level for an athlete to excel at two sports.

“If she had been great at soccer and mediocre at basketball, it would still be a cool story,” said her soccer coach Kanyon Anderson.

Her Peninsula basketball coach Alison Crumb predicted she will end up in both the Peninsula College Hall of Fame and the Port Angeles Roughriders Hall of Game.

Crumb said some athletes have played two sports at Peninsula, but they haven’t been dominant at both like Long.

“No one [at Peninsula] has ever done what she’s done … at the capability that she’s done it,” Crumb said. “I can’t think of a better athlete that’s ever been at Peninsula.”

“I just hope [Cal Poly] protects her and lets her focus on her craft … because she has a lot of craft,” Crumb said.

Most of all, “she’s the most competitive athlete I’ve ever seen. You’ll see it on Tuesday when no one else is in the in the gym. Some people take days off, Millie doesn’t know how to do that,” Crumb said.

Anderson said Long had an offer from Western Washington University, which just won the NCAA Div. II national championship (with Sequim product Claire Henninger in goal). The University of Washington was also showing some interest in her. However, both of those schools wanted her to solely play soccer. Anderson told the Cal Poly coaches they were going to have to let her play both sports if they wanted to get her. And they agreed.

Long was already a star in middle school for the Olympic Avalanche basketball team, helping that team win all sorts of tournaments. She showed up at Port Angeles High School and immediately had a huge impact on the Riders sports scene, scoring 17 goals as a freshman for the soccer team in the fall. She got much taller after that freshman year and her high school coach Scott Moseley once said, she grew stronger and faster every season, too.

She ended up scoring 33 goals as a junior and a staggering 86 for her career, an all-time Roughriders record. That includes 15 goals in her COVID-shortened senior year.

She won Olympic League MVPs in both soccer and basketball. In her senior year in basketball, she led the Riders to a perfect 15-0 record. She was denied a chance to lead her team to the state tournament due to the pandemic.

And with all of her success in basketball and soccer, people may forget she also won an individual state championship her junior year in track and field. Long was the 2A state champion in the 300-meter hurdles, a tough event that requires speed, jumping ability and endurance.

Cal Poly Humboldt does have a track and field program. When asked if she is tempted to run track for Humboldt, Long paused and answered, “actually, yes.”

But she quickly admitted, “that definitely would be a little much.”

She continued to play both soccer and basketball at Peninsula College. She won North Region defensive player of the year award in basketball and made the first-team all-North squad in 2023, averaging 18 points, 6 rebounds and 3.68 steals a game. This was after she was named the North Region MVP and defensive player of the year her freshman year. She holds the all-time Peninsula record in steals.

In soccer, she scored 19 goals in the 2022 season, the fifth-most in one season in Peninsula’s illustrious history. She was later named the NWAC Baden Soccer Player of the Year, only the third Peninsula player to win the award.

“I was actually surprised [to win the NWAC award],” she said. “To me what’s important is the team and the season.”

“She helped us win an NWAC championship [in 2022] with arguably the best team we’ve ever had. A team that gave up three goals all year,” Anderson said.

Anderson said Long had a unique ability to simply steal the ball from other teams’ defensive players and set up scoring chances.

“To flat-out take the ball from the center-back, it’s one of the hardest things you can do,” Anderson said. “She was really fun to watch.”

While there were championships and MVPs, there was also some heartache. Her senior prep basketball team, which surely would have placed at state, didn’t get a chance to play in the tournament due to the pandemic. The Pirates also lost in the women’s championship game in overtime her freshman year, then lost in the final four, again in overtime, her sophomore year as the team was decimated by injuries, including one to Long’s ankle. Her soccer team her sophomore year entered the postseason unbeaten, then unexpectedly lost in the first round.

Long says she doesn’t dwell on the heartbreaks and concentrates on just becoming better and her next challenges.

“I’m never really satisfied. I always think that I can do better,” she said. “Obviously, there is a little part of me that’s disappointed.”

She also doesn’t dwell on the “what ifs” of how the pandemic disrupted her athletic career.

“I take it for what it is. Everyone had to deal with it. It was what it was,” she said.