Dr. Bethany Miller has led Biola Athletics since January 2016. Named Director of Athletics to guide Biola's move from the NAIA to NCAA Division II, she became Senior Director of Athletics, and in 2024 her role was expanded to Associate Vice President for Student Development/Senior Director of Athletics. A former Eagles women's basketball player, assistant coach and head coach, Miller succeeded legendary men's basketball coach and longtime athletic director Dr. Dave Holmquist.
Through her first 10 years at the helm, Biola completed its NCAA Division II membership process, won 14 PacWest Conference championships and four Pacific Collegiate Swim and Dive Conference titles, reached the NCAA Division II softball championship series and earned seven NCAA Division II Presidents' Awards for Academic Excellence. Over the same span the department added men's and women's water polo and women's flag football, and she launched Athletics Week of Giving, which has raised more than $2.35 million for the department in its first seven editions.
Leading Biola into NCAA Division II
Miller took over as Biola submitted its application for NCAA Division II membership. The NCAA approved Biola for the three-year membership process in July 2016, the Eagles began PacWest Conference competition in 2017-18, and Biola became an active NCAA Division II member on July 12, 2019. That October, Biola received its first NCAA Division II Presidents' Award for Academic Excellence. During the provisional years, when NCAA postseason play was not yet open to Biola, the Eagles won seven NCCAA national team titles.
Competitive Success
- 14 PacWest championships from 2018 through 2025-26, across six programs: men's cross country (2018, 2019, 2022, 2025), women's cross country (2022, 2023, 2024, 2025), women's golf (2022, 2024, 2025), men's soccer (2022, shared), softball (2025) and women's track and field (2026). Men's cross country's 2018 title was Biola's first PacWest championship in any sport.
- Softball, 2021 NCAA Division II national runner-up. In its first NCAA postseason, softball won the West Regional, beat the nation's No. 1 and No. 2 teams at the national finals and reached the championship series, finishing No. 2 in the final national poll. Softball won its first PacWest title in 2025 and reached its first NCAA Super Regional in 2026.
- Men's Basketball made its first NCAA Division II tournament and won its first NCAA game in 2021, the season Holmquist became one of five four-year college men's basketball coaches to reach 1,000 wins. The Eagles returned to the NCAA tournament in 2025.
- Men's Soccer reached back-to-back NCAA tournaments in 2021 and 2022 and won a share of its first PacWest title in 2022.
- Cross Country became a national-level program. Men's cross country was Biola's first team at an NCAA championship in 2019, women's cross country reached the NCAA Division II Championships four straight years from 2022 to 2025, and both teams qualified for nationals in 2024. Susi Bruennig became Biola's first NCAA Division II cross country All-American in 2023, and Bethany Mapes won the 2025 NCAA West Region individual title.
- Swimming and Diving won four Pacific Collegiate Swim and Dive Conference team titles: the women in 2021, the program's first, and the men in 2021, 2023 and 2024. The women also placed 14th at the 2021 NCAA Division II Championships.
- Water Polo, which began play in 2021-22, won its first Western Water Polo Association titles in 2023 for both the men and the women. Both teams reached the NCAA National Collegiate Championship that year, where the women beat Division I LIU, and the women repeated as WWPA champions in 2024.
- Spring 2026 brought men's tennis's first trip to the NCAA Division II national finals after the Eagles won the NCAA West Regional on Biola's campus, the first NCAA championship event Biola has hosted. Women's track and field won its first PacWest title, and Joshua Widdows was the NCAA Division II national runner-up in the 400-meter hurdles.
- Biola posted its best Learfield Directors' Cup Division II finish, 60th, in 2024-25, and its best PacWest Commissioner's Cup finish, second, in 2021-22.
Academic Excellence
Biola received the NCAA Division II Presidents' Award for Academic Excellence seven straight years, from 2019 through 2025, and its 99 percent Academic Success Rate in 2022 tied for the highest in Division II. Biola led the PacWest in Academic All-PacWest honorees in seven of its first nine conference seasons, including four straight from 2022-23 through 2025-26, setting conference records with 238 in 2022-23 and 239 in 2023-24 and a school record of 289 in 2024-25. Biola also led the PacWest in D2 ADA Academic Achievement Awards, for student-athletes with a 3.5 GPA or higher, in 2024-25 (a school-record 191) and 2025-26 (175). In 2024-25, Biola's men's teams posted the PacWest's highest men's GPA.
Building the Program
- Athletics Week of Giving. Athletics Week of Giving launched in 2020 under Miller. Its first seven editions, from 2020 through 2025, raised more than $2.35 million, growing from more than $71,000 in the first year to a record $592,158 from 2,197 donors in 2025.
- New sports. Biola added men's and women's water polo, which began play in 2021-22, and in September 2026 announced women's flag football as its 18th varsity sport, with a first season in spring 2028.
- Facilities. Projects under Miller include new turf at Al Barbour Field, a rebuilt track surface and an upgraded throws area in 2016; a renovation of Freedom Field that brought lights and the softball program's first night game in 2017; and an expansion of Chase Gymnasium that opened a 2,300-square-foot athletic training clinic and a 2,365-square-foot sport performance center in 2020. Chase's south wing was completed in 2022, adding team rooms, restrooms and family restrooms, public day-use locker space and additional offices.
- Strategic planning. Miller leads the Biola Athletics Strategic Plan. Work under the plan relaunched Midnight Madness in 2023, reimagined with Housing & Residence Life, Student Development and other campus partners; launched the Biola Athletics Board in 2024 and the first Athletics Alumni Day in February 2025; introduced the department's core values of Faith. Formation. Fierce, and led to a new Biola Athletics brand in August 2026. In 2026-27, Biola launched a Faculty Teammate program, pairing 20 faculty members with its 17 varsity teams.
Leading Through COVID-19
Miller led the department through the COVID-19 pandemic from 2020 to 2022, from the cancellation of spring 2020 competition through a phased return to training with regular testing and the delayed 2020-21 seasons. That 2020-21 year ended with softball's national runner-up finish and men's basketball's first NCAA tournament win.
Service
- Member, NCAA Division II Men's Basketball West Regional Advisory Committee (2021-22 to 2023-24).
- PacWest Conference chair institution (2023-24), with Miller and President Barry H. Corey each chairing their conference committees.
- Contributor, "They Say Sports Builds Character. Does It?" in Common Good magazine (2026).
Coaching and Playing Career
Before becoming athletic director, Miller spent four years as head coach of Biola women's basketball after years with the program as a player and assistant coach. Her teams went 64-60 and reached the NAIA Quarterfinals in 2011-12, opening with a 69-66 win over Lee University (Tenn.) for the program's first national tournament win in three years and following with a 73-58 win over Langston University (Okla.) before falling to eventual national runner-up Union University (Tenn.).
Miller played four seasons for the Eagles from 1999 to 2003, serving as team captain as a junior and senior. She ranks in the top 20 in Biola history in games started, minutes played and assists.
Education
Miller earned a degree in physical education (pre-physical therapy) from Biola in 2003, a master's degree in physical therapy from Cal State Northridge in 2009 and a Doctor of Physical Therapy from the University of Montana in 2011. She completed an M.A. in Spiritual Formation and Soul Care at Biola's Talbot School of Theology in 2021.
