New Tucson Sugar Skulls coach Billy Back: 'We're trying to build a culture' of winning

“We’re trying to build a culture,” Back said Friday afternoon, amid late-week preparations for the Sugar Skulls’ first home game of 2024 at Tucson Arena, set for Sunday at 3 p.m. against the Bay Area Panthers.

“We’re trying to build something we’re proud of and want to be part of for a while,” he added. “We’re not as good as we want to be right now, I don’t expect us to be, nor do I want us to be, we’ll get better each day as it goes and every game we play, we’ll be better.”

Back’s track record shows his mentality might just work; he’s won five indoor championships for various teams.

“All of our success has been as a group of men,” Back said. “We’re trying to do that here. We got a great ownership group here, got a great coaching staff here and got a great group of men and we’re gonna try to continue to build on that and make this the sixth championship I’ve been a part of.”

Upon hiring Back this past fall, Sugar Skulls’ owner Cathy Guy noted in a press release the excitement surrounding Back’s “history of winning,” adding that the organization is committed to hiring a coach in Back believe can put them in position to win what would be the franchise’s first-ever championship.

A coaching career in football wasn’t always in the cards for Back, however. Back played baseball for Miami-University of Ohio’s Hamilton campus — he’s a Miami Hamilton Hall of Famer — before playing minor league baseball.

Figuring out his next chapter upon his release from professional baseball, Back, being in the “right place at the right time” found his new path: leading others in arena football.

A former first team All-State football player on a league championship team at Edgewood High School in Trenton, Ohio, as well as playing in indoor leagues for six years, Back spent six years playing football in indoor leagues before joining the indoor coaching ranks.

“It’s something I never thought would be my career,” Back said. “I’m blessed to have it everyday to say this is my job so I can’t take that for granted.”

Back attributed his experience as a player to the success he’s already seen on the sidelines by seeing what he does and doesn’t want to replicate from his own previous coaches.

“Playing in the indoor game, I was around some good coaches and some bad coaches,” Back said. “Just knowing what I didn’t like from the bad coaches and what I liked from the good coaches and putting it all together and letting the players have a voice. Kind of being a players coach to where if they like something, we’ll run it.”

With just five returning players from last season, including veteran linebacker Mike Jones, who has been with the team since it began, Back “built the roster around those guys” for this upcoming season, stating that they know what the organization wants heading into the future.

“Just having those guys back and knowing the area, having played the game — those are the only guys that played the game, everyone else are rookies,” Back said. “They have been great leaders.”

While they’re both from Ohio, Back said he hadn’t met rookie quarterback Mylik Mitchell prior to both of them arriving in Tucson, but he does remember watching the ex-Kent State quarterback throw for 363 yards and five touchdowns in four games of action as a freshman. But through the connection of Mitchell’s former college teammate, running back Justin Rankin, who played under Back for the Frisco Fighters, they were able to forge a relationship early on.

The past game against the Duke City Gladiators, Mitchell impressed, going 15-for-18 passing for 153 yards and three touchdowns, earning him Indoor Football League Offensive Player of the Week.

“I got to give (Justin) credit,” Back said. “He put him out there for us. Mylik and I spoke; watching his film we knew this guy was going to be special and then just getting to know his personality and his character and his composure, he’s a player that needs to be playing somewhere else on a Sunday or up in Canada or the UFL; he’s got that composure about him.”

Sunday is the Sugar Skulls’ third game overall — they’re 1-1 so far — and first at home under Back. They take on the defending IFL champion Panthers (2-0).

The newest head coach labeled his team as the “underdogs” heading into the contest with a tough task at hand, yet he foresees his team giving everything they have and to come out on top versus the team that handed them a loss in the playoffs last season.

“I don’t go into games thinking we have a chance to win, I go into games thinking we’re gonna win this game,” Back said. “That’s the mentality we gotta carry out there — with that attitude. I expect the fans to be rowdy and loud, supportive.

“We just gotta maintain the course and understand it’s a 16-game season and it’s not about winning the first game, it’s about winning the last game and we’re setting steps towards that last game.”

Back added that Tucson fans can expect a “clean-looking team” with both him and the players fired up on every down.

“We want to be the bully out there,” he said, adding that “we want to be the aggressor.”