What convinced Toby Lane to join Paul Mills’ Wichita State basketball coaching staff

A three-decade career in coaching basketball has taken Benton native Toby Lane down so many paths, it has been a surreal experience for the latest one to return him home.

Lane, who graduated from Wichita State in 1993 with a Bachelor of Arts in Secondary Mathematics Education, was recently hired by new Shocker men’s basketball coach Paul Mills as the program’s director of operations.

With a 22-year background working a variety of jobs at the NCAA Div. I level, from assistant bench coach to director of operations to video coordinator, Lane believes his experience can make him a valuable asset on Mills’ debut staff.

“I just want to help in any way, shape or form,” Lane said. “I think that has always been my gift. It’s just in my nature to want to help others and encourage others. Coach Mills and his staff have a great way of doing things already, so I’m just looking forward to fitting in, encouraging others and providing my two cents whenever needed.”

While a homecoming with his alma mater seems like an obvious move from the outside, Lane said it was an agonizing decision to leave his previous position as an assistant coach at Southern Arkansas.

He accepted the position at SAU, a Div. II program, in April and was ecstatic to begin working for head coach Logan Quinn, who was a graduate manager at Tulsa from 2017-19 when Lane was director of scouting on the staff. It is Quinn’s first crack as a collegiate head coach, and Lane wanted to be there to help provide assistance.

“I know it looks like a no-brainer decision to leave for Wichita State, but it was a really difficult one because of my relationship with coach Quinn,” Lane said. “I was so happy there and I really wanted to help him with his team and his program. And given the timing of it all, it was not an easy decision at all to leave.”

Lane said another Div. I program sent a feeler to see if he would be interested in joining their staff earlier this summer, but he politely declined. He told them it would have to be a “grand slam” opportunity to convince him to leave.

It turned out the bases were loaded when an old coaching friend, Kenton Paulino, who was an assistant coach at Tulsa from 2017-19 when Lane was also on staff, called and asked Lane if he would be interested in reuniting in Wichita as the Shockers’ director of operations.

The job was a late opening, as Luke Gore, who was hired for the role in April, left to take an assistant job opening at Princeton in late July.

Lane was hesitant with the idea at first, but he was willing to explore the possibility. He came away impressed with his first phone conversation with Mills, then traveled to Wichita to meet in person and observe practices before the team departed for its exhibition tour in Greece. By the time the Shockers returned home, Lane was sold on the job and Mills officially announced the hire of Lane on Sept. 1.

“Everything I heard about coach Mills was so positive and I’ve been even more impressed since getting to know him,” Lane said. “I’ve been blessed to be around a lot of really good coaches and coach Mills appears to be the total package. He’s always looking out for young people, looking out for his staff, and he’s such a grounded person. On the court, he’s great at communicating with guys, motivating them, getting points across in different ways. He’s just a very well-rounded coach.”

While Paulino, Quincy Acy and T.J. Cleveland are the assistant coaches on the bench, Lane also figures to be an important basketball mind on Mills’ staff. According to WSU’s official release, Lane will contribute with scouting, recruiting, team analysis and strategies, along with managing day-to-day operations in the program.

Before last season, Lane spent the 15 prior years working under head coach Frank Haith in various roles at stops at Tulsa, Missouri and Miami (Fla.). He also spent two years working under Kelvin Sampson at Oklahoma from 2002-04.

“Toby has been involved with high-level basketball for the past few decades and has had a front row seat for the competitiveness in the AAC,” Mills said in a press release. “He is also a Wichita State graduate, so he knows our institution and the conference. He will add tremendous value in preparing our team to be at our competitive best and add deep connections in recruiting.”

After coaching elsewhere for the last 26 years, Lane is excited to return to the state of Kansas.

Right after graduating from WSU, the Berean Academy graduate was hired as a math teacher, yearbook advisor and head boys basketball coach at Goessel High School from 1993-96. Lane also began his collegiate coaching career in the Sunflower state, serving the 1996-97 season as an assistant coach at Neosho County Community College in Chanute.

WSU’s campus is hardly recognizable to Lane after 30 years.

“It’s very good to be back and I’m impressed with all of the changes that have been made, not just with the facilities in athletics but also as a university,” Lane said. “A lot of things are different and upgraded and bigger and better now. It definitely has more of a campus feel than when I was here before. It’s been great to see the progress and it’s just great to be back.”