The keys to his success: Meet Milton High School athletic director Kory Keys
MILTON, Ga. — Milton’s Athletic Director, Kory Keys, is finishing his first school year in this position. While he may be new to the AD role, Coach Keys is not new to Milton High School or our community. Kory feels like he grew up at (the old) Milton High School. His father, Van Keys, worked for Fulton County Schools for 32 years, of which he spent 27 at Milton High School. Kory’s mom, Lora Keys, teaches at Alpharetta Elementary School, where she was recently honored as their 2024 Teacher of the Year! Some of Kory’s earliest memories are riding the bus from Alpharetta Elementary to Northwestern Middle School and over to the old Milton High School to spend the afternoon watching his dad coach the Milton Basketball team.
Basketball has always been a part of Kory’s life. He played at Milton High School his freshman and sophomore years and then at South Forsyth High School until he graduated in 2006. Kory went to the University of Mississippi to study broadcast journalism. He hosted a TV show, co-hosted radio shows, and did internships with several sports stations in preparation for a career in sports journalism. But life had other plans for Kory, and a conversation with Torrey Ward, an Assistant Basketball Coach at Ole Miss, sent him on a different path. Coach Ward encouraged him to go into coaching while he was still young and with his mentorship, Kory was able to secure a position with the basketball team at Kennesaw State University after he graduated from Ole Miss.
Kory realized just how much he had missed basketball while in college and he couldn’t believe that he was going to have an opportunity to work with a Division 1 basketball team right out of college. The opportunity to work under Head Coach Lewis Preston at KSU was one he couldn’t pass up, even though they were unable to pay him his first year and a half with the team. Kory did secure a paid position after those first 18 months, but paid or unpaid the ability to be on the bench as part of a D1 team was reward enough because Kory was back exactly where he belonged–in basketball. After three years, Coach Preston and his staff were let go and it was time for Kory to find a new opportunity.
Kory had to figure out what was next. Despite the challenges of college athletics at KSU, he knew he wanted to continue to coach. He learned so many things about being part of a team and treating people right, that he knew he wanted to put that into practice in his next position. So in 2014, Kory landed back at Milton High School as the Assistant Coach for Boys Varsity Basketball and while he felt like he was home, another opportunity was just around the corner.
In the spring of 2015 Bill Armstrong, an Assistant Basketball Coach at Ole Miss, reached out to Kory and asked if he would like to return to the university as a Graduate Assistant with the basketball program. The position would include free tuition, a stipend, and the opportunity to be part of an SEC coaching staff, something you cannot put a price on. Under the direction of Coach Armstrong and Head Coach Andy Kennedy, Kory did everything that a Division 1 coach would do including on-campus recruiting, opponent scouting, and traveling with the team on their chartered flights! Kory finished his Master’s Degree in Higher Education at Ole Miss in 2017 and was once again back in the market for a job.
Kory was offered a few college team positions, but nothing seemed to be the right fit so he happily accepted the Boys Basketball Assistant Coach position at Roswell High School and stayed there for 6 years. His time at Roswell was well spent, under the direction of Head Coach Ty Phillips, as they went to the state playoffs five years in a row, making the elite 8 and sweet 16. While he loved working with the team, he yearned to have something a bit more challenging than the assistant coach’s position at Roswell and substitute teaching at various schools in Fulton County.
Then in the spring of 2019, Milton High School’s Social Studies Department Chair, Jackie Angel called and told him that they had a social studies teaching position open for the following year. Having a love for history, Kory was excited about this new challenge. While teaching, he helped coach the baseball team, and then in late 2022, he applied for the Athletic Director position and found out that he was selected in February of 2023.
With his experiences in teaching and coaching, Kory brings a unique perspective to the AD role. He admits that while the athletic program at Milton High School is strong, the fact that Milton is such a highly regarded school is mostly due to the “top flight” teachers. He said, “Athletics isn’t the biggest thing at Milton, what is happening in the classroom is unmatched. Athletics will always be second to that – athletics is supplemental to the entire learning experience.” Similarly, he advises parents to help keep sports in perspective for their children, starting from a young age. Kory warns of the danger of having your entire identity wrapped up in a sport and how an injury or being cut from a team can become something devastating that cannot be overcome if a child’s entire identity is built on their sport.
With 90% of his job being conflict resolution, Kory has to have many tough conversations with parents and kids and maintains an open-door policy. Given that so much of his success has come from great mentorship, he knows he needs to be there for the students, like all of his mentors have been there for him. When asked what he might say to a kid who didn’t make a team, he said, “I love you, I care about you, your opinion matters, your feelings matter, and at the end of the day bad things are going to happen sometimes and they may not because of anything you did wrong, but the way you’re going to succeed is based on how you’re going to respond to this situation.”
Kory acknowledges that “so much of what they are experiencing right now are life lessons and they don’t realize it at the moment because they’re teenagers–so much of what they are experiencing in the classroom, in the hallways, in their respective sports, good and bad, those are building them for the future.” He wants his students to know that “just because something bad happened, it does not mean that they have to quit or give up or that it changes their status in the world. Their response needs to be to stand back up and look the challenge in the face, and say ‘not today.’” He reminds us that kids are more resilient than we give them credit for – there will be challenges they will have to face and they will learn and grow from those experiences.
When he’s not working, Kory enjoys live music concerts, collecting vinyl records, reading historical non-fiction, listening to podcasts, and watching documentaries – he’s a true history buff! He said he loves his job as Athletic Director because it’s all new to him. He is surrounded by a support network that includes Fulton County Athletic Director Lamarr Glenn, Principal Brian Jones, the Assistant Principals, and School Resource Officer Jason Cash. Kory said he leans on these people and learns from them every day. Kory admitted that compartmentalizing in a job like this is hard, and yet what makes Kory Keys such a great Athletic Director is that he doesn’t compartmentalize, he brings all that he has to the table – his past experiences, lessons learned from his parents and mentors, and his education. He gives his whole self to the job – that is the true key to his success – and the students and parents of Milton High School get to reap the rewards!
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