Upon graduating in spring of 2004, SF State alum Keenan McMiller asked himself, “What’s next?”

Three years after receiving his degree in sports psychology, the 27-year-old is now coaching girls basketball and teaching algebra at Alameda’s Encinal High School, where he says he plans to build a powerhouse program that produces college-ready student athletes.

Last year, McMiller was teaching math in the morning, physical education in the afternoon and coaching as an Amateur Athletics Union Basketball Director in the evening, according to Jim Heartwig, a coach and physical education teacher at Encinal.

“He’s going in nine different directions,” Heartwig said.

He said he knows McMiller for his attention and dedication to his kids, and says they really respond to him. ”He’s a very good motivator.”

Kevin Ghoram, an SF State alum and athletic director at Encinal, said he hired McMiller for his enthusiasm to coach and teach and that along with McMiller’s new program, “there seems to be a renewed interest [in basketball] among students.”

At SF State, McMiller focused his interests on the psychology of competing, on what makes an athlete’s morale—and performance—soar or crash.

As a basketball player, McMiller would psyche out his opponents, subtly reminding them of their past bloopers, said David Smith, who coached McMiller in the Bay Area Junior College League.

“I’m like a proud dad to Keenan,” he said. “[He is] very good at psychological warfare on the basketball court [but] not a trash talker,” said Smith.

After graduation McMiller became a counselor for the YMCA, where he earned enough awards for excellence in coaching to be noticed by the director of youth programs at St. Paul’s Episcopal school.

McMiller said he remembers the director telling him, “Even though you don’t have a credential, we think you can handle yourself in a classroom.”

Soon after, he was offered a high school position as a combination math teacher and basketball coach at Encinal, according to McMiller.

“Boom, I can get a high school position by 30,” McMiller said.

McMiller turned tragedy into a motivation to succeed when his mother, whom he said did everything for him, died of an acute liver disorder, within months after he graduated from SF State.

“The only way to pay her back is to do the best I can,” McMiller said.

McMiller passes this motivating force on to his female players, who in a male dominated world have a hard time looking at themselves positively, according to McMiller.

In math classes, McMiller uses the dimensions of a basketball court to teach geometry and beginning algebra, and then uses the ball to illustrate concepts like diameter, radius and surface area.

McMiller said, “Basic math problems are a bunch of puzzles and games,” but added that sometimes teaching math is a monotonous process.

McMiller said when he arrived at Encinal, he wondered how an “open enrollment” school with sufficient resources could have such poor athletics and academics.

Properly motivated, McMiller said that he plans to lead his largely economically underprivileged and academically underscoring basketball players to on-court and in-class success.

This year McMiller will be coaching eight of the 10 strongest-playing eighth-grade graduates in the school district, many of whom he coached in the AAU.

To overcome challenges in coaching basketball, “[McMiller] demanded respect, and he gave it as well,” said Rochelle Green, a basketball coach whose son, Blake, played under McMiller.

Green said that Blake’s fear of “driving to the basket” disappeared after McMiller told him, “if you don’t do what I say, then you’ll be on the bench,” Green said.

She added that McMiller would explain his method, and then tell the player, “Do it.”

As for the “Do it” mantra, McMiller said he is “climbing the ladder one step at a time.”