At Washington, John Mills carries a family legacy

On tunnels and five generations of UW ties.

John Mills playing rugby at age 8. (Courtesy of Alden Mills)

SEATTLE — Joe Ryan remembers the old Husky Stadium tunnel in simple terms, which is fitting for what that unique fixture represented: the final march from the locker room toward game day, nothing left to do but hit somebody.

“It was a long, dark walk,” Joe Ryan said. “Not like today’s.”

Ryan grew up in Wenatchee, graduated from high school in 1960 and played football for Jim Owens at Washington. In 1963, Ryan’s senior season, the Huskies won their league and played in the Rose Bowl against Illinois and Dick Butkus. Ryan met his wife, Kathy, at the school, and her UW ties run even deeper; her grandfather graduated in 1903, and her parents both went to UW, too. So did two of Joe and Kathy’s three children, and they’ve added grandchildren to that list, including Jack Enger, who pitched for the Huskies baseball team.

Another will run out of the Ryan Family Tunnel with his teammates for a football game on Saturday.

John Joseph Mills, Washington’s starting left guard, turned 18 years old last month.

John Joseph Ryan, now 83, can’t quite describe what it’s like to watch his grandson play football for his alma mater.

Aside from births and weddings, Joe said, “I don’t recall anything that emotional or that impactful that has ever happened to me in my life.”

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So, about the photo.

Jennifer, Joe and Kathy’s second-born daughter, married a Navy SEAL named Alden Mills; they have four boys, each two years apart. When John, their third-born, was 7 years old, they moved the family to Barcelona, fulfilling their goal of an international experience for their kids.

At first, Alden recalls a sort of “reverse bullying.” John was always bigger than other kids his age. If he wasn’t wrestling during the day, he was slapping around a boxing dummy, just to get his energy out. In Barcelona, though, a different kind of football is king, and John’s peers thought him too big to be of much use on the pitch.

“He was really frustrated nobody would pick him for a soccer game,” Alden said.

Eventually, someone suggested he try out for a different sport: rugby. There, his size was considered an asset, so much so that John played U-12 and U-10 and helped his teams to championship matches in France in consecutive years.

John is 8 years old in the photo. It reminds Alden of a drill called “El Toro” in which one of John’s teammates would climb on his back as he ran, and two others would try to slow him down.

The kid has always craved physical contact. Nobody in his family is very good at sitting still.

Joe and Kathy’s oldest, Mike, played water polo and was a swimmer at UCLA, and, like Alden, a SEAL; he and Alden were swim buddies during training, and it was at Mike’s wedding that Alden met Jennifer, Mike’s sister, a UW graduate just like her parents (and an accomplished high-school soccer and tennis player in the Los Angeles area, where Joe worked for 25 years as an attorney).

There is something about the Ryan family and the water. Alden and Jennifer’s oldest son was a rower. Their second, Charlie, is a goalie on the USC water polo team, and their youngest son, a sophomore in high school, plays water polo, too. Joe and Kathy have owned a cabin on San Juan Island for nearly four decades that their grandchildren, John included, all grew up visiting. Their oldest daughter, Katy, founded San Juan Seltzer, the popular spiked beverage company, inspired by an afternoon sipping sparkling cocktails on the back deck (her husband, Kyle, was a rower at UW).

Alden was a rower himself at Navy, and a captain, before becoming a SEAL platoon commander and an entrepreneur, speaker and author. (In the mid-2000s, he launched the Perfect Pushup, one of several fitness products he had created over the years “along with a host of other people on my team.” And yes, the boys used them.)

Birthday parties growing up, as you might imagine, always included fitness elements.

“We’re not doing jumpy houses, right?” he said. “We’re going to do stuff in the pool, and then you’re going to go out and do a rope climb, and you’re going to shoot a BB gun, and then you’re going to use a bow and arrow, and then you’re going to do a zip line.”

John and his brothers often heard the following: “What’s the mission? What are we training for? Why are we training for it?”

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After two years in Spain, the family moved back to the Bay Area, and John played rugby until his junior year of high school. In addition to rugby, John wrestled and played lacrosse and basketball, and did some boxing, and played some water polo (“he hated water polo,” Alden said, laughing). His parents didn’t want him playing football until high school, preferring to let his body develop.

By the time former St. Ignatius football coach Lenny Vandermade laid eyes on him, it was clear where John’s athletic future was headed.

“For a big guy, he can bend knees, ankles and hips,” said Vandermade, who played offensive line at USC during the early Pete Carroll years. “I mean, he gets low. Not only can he bend, but he can come out of it. He’s got great hip extension, and can strike people.”

Off the field, Vandermade saw Mills as thoughtful and respectful; the coach’s parents came to games, and he appreciated that Mills always made a point to say hello.

Between the lines, it was a different story.

“He’s more of like a d-line mentality playing o-line,” Vandermade said. “He’s got a lot of juice to him. He’s super aggressive. He’s going to try to bury people.”

Former Washington coach Kalen DeBoer gave Mills his first scholarship offer, in June 2022, as he finished his freshman year. “We liked Kalen,” Alden said. “We liked the whole team, and what they were doing.” But they pumped the brakes after DeBoer left for Alabama, and, due to their intense familiarity with UW, encouraged John to evaluate many other schools, too. Alden figures they took 30 trips, counting repeat visits.

Five of those were to Austin, where Steve Sarkisian’s Texas Longhorns emerged as a favorite, along with UW and Nebraska.

“I liked the brand they have,” John said of Texas. “Big stadium, big brand, big name. Good food there.”

By then, John had grown to 6-foot-6 and well over 300 pounds, his long blonde hair splayed out the back of his helmet. He likes to hunt and fish and grill. “Everything’s big in Texas,” Alden said, and John was enamored with “the red, white and blue American attitude — pickup trucks, gun-totin’ Texans. John just clicked with it.”

So, in June 2024, John Joseph Ryan’s football-playing grandson committed to the University of Texas.

Joe would be “less than honest,” he says, if he didn’t confess to being disappointed, if only because of how much more difficult it would have been to travel to John’s home games. Ever the supportive grandfather, though, Joe was ready to buy Longhorns gear (even if he wasn’t jazzed about the prospect of watching football in the Texas heat).

“He didn’t let it on to John,” Alden said.

Jedd Fisch and UW coaches continued recruiting John, telling him they’d be there if he changed his mind.

“We don’t take that approach with everybody,” Fisch said, but it’s different for a player with Mills’ family legacy. “You know that you can continue to recruit those guys, and you don’t know where life takes them.”

Brennan Carroll, then Washington’s offensive line coach, went so far as to tell Alden: “I’m on a mission from God to get your son.”

Divine mandate or not, the Huskies’ “thoughtful” approach resonated, Alden said, to the point they decided to take another visit to UW before signing day. They wanted to “leave no stone unturned,” Alden said, and he couldn’t help but notice, as he told John, that “Washington seems hungrier for you than Texas was.”

When they arrived on campus, UW staffers had Dick’s burgers waiting, and, later, Chick-fil-A. (“Food is very important to John,” Alden said.) A meeting with head strength-and-conditioning coach Tyler Owens was eye-opening. Owens overlaid Mills’ strength profile from St. Ignatius against the strength profiles of Washington’s current team and asked what he noticed.

“It looks like I might be competitive,” John said, and not years down the road, but right now.

The coaching staff addressed matters both practical and emotional. Mills grew attached to the No. 75 jersey he wore in high school, but during a meeting later that day, Fisch sat across from him and suggested a different number: 72.

Joe’s number, all those years ago.

“And that hit him,” Alden said. “He turned to me and he’s like, ‘Dad, that’s Pops’ number.’ And Pops is a huge influence in all of our lives.”

“My grandfather is a great dude,” John said. “I’ve looked up to him all my life.”

After the trip, as they drove across the Golden Gate Bridge toward their home in Marin County, John turned to his father again. “Dad, I can’t turn that down,” he said. “I gotta go.” Washington had been more aggressive with its NIL offer, Alden said, and Texas didn’t put up much of a fight when told of John’s renewed interest in Washington.

Joe was John’s first phone call. At first, Alden said, Joe playfully chided his grandson, assuming he was joking.

When John made clear he was serious, “he just broke down and he wept. And I haven’t seen Pops weep.”

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Though Mills has played exclusively at left guard so far, Fisch says “he has absolutely an opportunity to grow outward and play tackle,” his high-school position. The Huskies lose starting left tackle Carver Willis to graduation, and don’t currently have an heir apparent at the position. Perhaps that pushes Mills in that direction next year.

Fisch and offensive coordinator Jimmie Dougherty each suggested there actually is some chance Mills could move out to right tackle this week, with starter Drew Azzopardi likely out due to injury. Paki Finau and Soane Faasolo also are options.

Vandermade, a center and guard himself, sees Mills’ pro future on the interior, “just his attitude and the way he gets after people and his mindset,” and also noted his pulling ability. But he also says, “I think he can play left tackle in college. He’s got the length, he’s got the feet.”

It’s what Washington coaches saw on Mills’ high-school tape, and part of what led them to believe he could not only play as a freshman, but compete for a starting job, too.

In addition to physical readiness and demeanor, Fisch said he also places emphasis on how incoming linemen fared against the best high-school defenders, “guys that are being recruited to Division 1 programs. What does that look like, how they played in those games?”

(Joe’s own evaluation of his grandson’s high-school games: “They were amusing. Shall we say, he was probably better than the players he played against.”)

Linemen who play as freshmen, Fisch said, essentially have to enroll early, preferably in January, as Mills did, because the weight room and spring-practice reps are crucial.

“He was all of that,” Fisch said. “He was all of that in regards to physicality, in terms of playing his best games against the best players. He had the attitude of wanting to come in and start right away, so he was attacking the weight room, he was attacking meals, he was attacking nutrition.

“And then on top of that, he was always upstairs (in the coaches offices) asking questions. He gave you every indication that if it was his time, he could do it.”

Mills said he arrived at UW weighing about 365 pounds, and estimated in September that he was down to around 338. By training camp, he said, “I felt like my body had changed a lot. I felt strong, fast, and I knew the playbook very well.” He also was getting more and more first-team reps as camp progressed.

It was little surprise, then, that Mills emerged as Washington’s Day 1 starting left guard. He missed the Rutgers and Michigan games due to a high ankle sprain sustained at Maryland, but returned for Washington’s 42-25 victory over Illinois.

Alden and his buddies marked the occasion by showing up to the game in blonde wigs.

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Playing for Owens, Joe said, was different from any modern experience.

“It was a Bear Bryant kind of attitude,” he said. “It was block and tackle with your hairline (and) not much concern about the impact of that. But that was the norm for the day.”

The style aligned, then, with the pregame march up that dark, spare tunnel.

Joe made enough of those that when UW representatives called one day to propose fundraising ideas for the 2013 renovation of Husky Stadium, both he and Kathy’s “eyes kind of opened wide” at the mention of naming rights for the tunnel. (They lived in Maryland at the time; they’ve since relocated to Bellevue.)

Their donation was the largest in school history by a former football player. A bronze plaque at the mouth of the tunnel, affixed to the right side as you enter from the field, commemorates the gift with a written dedication and an old photo of Joe and his younger brother, Mike, in their playing days.

Here, too, standards have changed; come game time, Washington’s players now file out of their spacious locker room and walk across newly installed purple carpet with music blaring.

“They’ve got 70,000 people and two decks and fireworks and smoke,” Joe Ryan says, but not ruefully. “It’s pretty damn cool.”

Cooler than ever for this particular John Joseph. His own father — also John Joseph — was an All-America football player at the University of Detroit, and then in the pros. Joe’s brother Mike was a UW captain and an Academic All-American who studied law at Harvard and became an attorney like Joe.

The legacy endures, and the memories echo.

“I keep thinking if my dad and my brother could be here now,” Joe said. “It’s overwhelming. Just overwhelming.”

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