HOWARD – When her collegiate basketball career ended, former UW-Green Bay player Miah Meyer said it was time to take the next step in her basketball journey.

Playing for the Phoenix during the 2024-25 season, Meyer was recently named the new girls basketball coach at Providence Academy — a private Christian school in Howard.

“I couldn’t be more excited to begin my coaching journey at Providence Academy,” Meyer said. “I knew I wanted to be involved in basketball after my playing days were done, so I think this is perfect for me.”
When the Paladins suit up for the first time this fall in their second season overall, Meyer said she will most likely shed a tear when thinking about her basketball journey.

“It will be a full-circle moment for me,” she said. “I’m super excited to watch the girls, and I think it will be a learning experience for me as well.”

Coaching style

Though never serving as a head coach before, Meyer said she grew up in a basketball family – with her dad being her high school coach and her oldest sister coaching at her old high school.

“I’ve led camps through college and did some personal training on the side, but I’ve never actually coached a team,” she said.

As for her own coaching style, Meyer said she sees herself as being encouraging, while wanting a player-led team.

“My dad was a hard-nosed coach [in high school], but I learned so much from him,” she laughed. “He was a yeller, but I don’t see myself coaching that way. With my dad’s coaching style, it made us girls tougher, which was good.”

Because she was a leader, Meyer said her dad trusted her and another teammate — her best friend — on the floor.

“It was like we were coaches on the floor,” she said. “I think it’s really important to be player-led. I hope to implement the same thing on my team with a couple of the older girls. I think I’ll be a bit gentler when it comes to my coaching style.”

Playing under Coach Kayla Karius during her first year as head coach of the Phoenix in 2024-25, Meyer said she learned how important defense is.

“I’d like to press people and pick up full court, and I’d love to be the most conditioned team,” she said. “Obviously, scoring baskets is fun, but being a really good defensive team is even better. I feel like I really learned [sound defense] at Green Bay under Coach Kayla.”

Successful playing career

Attending high school at Glencoe-Silver Lake in Minnesota, about an hour southwest of Minneapolis, Meyer, an all-state selection, was named a Minnesota Miss Basketball Finalist her senior year, where she averaged 24.1 points, 9.2 rebounds and 6.3 assists per game.

Scoring more than 2,000 career points, Meyer led Glencoe-Silver Lake to the state semifinals her senior season before COVID-19 affected the tournament.

“I like to say I helped lead my team to a third-place finish [in Class AA] in 2021 because we didn’t get to play that third-place game,” she said. “My teammates made my stats for me.”

After high school, Meyer was recruited to play at Eastern Illinois University in Charleston — a Division I school playing in the Ohio Valley Conference.

“My head coach [at Eastern] was [former UW-Green Bay coach] Matt Bollant,” Meyer said. “His brother was a referee in Minnesota, and he brought up my name to [Matt]. I knew that’s where I wanted to play. [Matt] is a big family guy and made me feel really welcome.”

After completing her undergraduate degree at Eastern in three years, Meyer said a life change made her consider playing another year in college.

“I was getting married my senior year, and I was like, ‘How fun would it be to change it up, maybe move closer to home – I was pretty far at that point – and play another year someplace else?’” she said.
From there, Meyer entered the transfer portal and “crazy enough,” committed to the University of South Dakota — where Karius was the head coach.

After Karius departed for UW-Green Bay, Meyer said she followed the Phoenix’s new coach to Green Bay.
During her only season in Green Bay, she was voted the Teammate of the Year, played in all 35 games and was second on the team with her 88 assists.

“I stuck around in the Green Bay area after graduating in 2025 because my husband had a job, and then I eventually got a job – we love the area,” Meyer said.

A coaching job came calling

Last March, Meyer said a casual conversation with a woman associated with Providence Academy eventually laid the groundwork for her accepting the coaching job with the Paladins.

“She had told me about Providence being a smaller school,” she said. “They obviously had a coach at the time, and then the summer came. At that time, a Providence parent reached out and said, ‘Hey, do you want to grab coffee and talk hoops?’ I’m always game to talk hoops, so I agreed.”

Not knowing much about the situation, Meyer said that when the two sat down to chat, the conversation shifted to the open coaching job at Providence.

“I knew nothing about that before our conversation,” she laughed. “We chatted about the details and the fact that the school would be in its second year as a program. Last season, they had six girls on the team. I told her I would love to take a program and watch it grow – that’s right up my alley.”

Meyer said her main goal is not only to teach basketball, but to teach the girls spiritually through their faith.
“I think we’re up to about 12 girls this year – now we can scrimmage and go five-on-five,” she laughed.
To stay up to date on Providence Academy athletics, head to the school’s Facebook page.