James Millwood is changing his stripes. Well, sort of.

The former Mililani football coach and longtime teacher at the Central Oahu campus has been selected as the new softball coach at Kamehameha.

Millwood confirmed the news to ScoringLive this week.

"I've already met with the returning players about a week ago and told them my philosophy and expectations," Millwood said when reached by phone Monday morning. "I think the meeting went all. They seemed to be excited."

Millwood coached football at Mililani for 25 years, including the last 13 as varsity head coach. He stepped down after the 2006 season, at the time citing a desire to spend more time with his family. He and his wife Arlette — both of whom are Mililani graduates — have four daughters: Jamie, Taylor, Jordan and Dallas.

"Having four daughters that have gone (to Kamehameha) or are still going there, I thought it was a good opportunity to step up," Millwood said. "I feel like I have something to offer the program and hopefully we can structure it where we can be a consistent and good softball team."

In his post-football days, Millwood coached his daughters through his Guava Jam softball club and also was an assistant coach on the 2009 Kamehameha team, which was the last to win a state title in school history.

"They have a lot of talent there," said Millwood, who said he received the blessing of Mililani principal Fred Murphy and athletic director Glenn Nitta prior to applying for the job.

Jamie Millwood was a standout first baseman/pitcher for the Warriors who went on to play collegiately at Stanford, while Taylor played softball until her junior year there. Jordan is a junior and played varsity ball last year, while Dallas — named after her father's beloved Cowboys — is a freshman and played on the JV last season.

"The school has done a lot for my kids and helped them prepare for college and prepare for life," Millwood said.

He has already recruited a few assistant coaches in former Kauai High and University of Hawaii standout infielder Jessica Iwata and Danielle D'Angelo, who played collegiate at Southern Miss.

"I kept some of the staff from before — whoever wanted to stay back — but I brought in some new young coaches that can relate to the players," said Millwood, who replaces Aloha Yamaguchi at the helm of the Warriors' program. "This is something that came up. It's not like something I was looking forward to jumping on. The opportunity just came up."

Ultimately, Millwood came to a decision with his family in mind.

"I've coached softball for a long time and the majority of my (club) players have gone to Mililani or go to Mililani now," Millwood said. "I have pride in Mililani and my community where I'm from, but you'd like to see where your family goes to school have some success. Coaching football and softball is almost the same thing: We're going to be disciplined, play the game hard, respect the game and try our best."

Kamehameha associate athletic director Maurice Maggiolino said Millwood fits the bill of what they were looking for in a coach.

"We're real excited," Maggiolino said. "He's a veteran coach, who's been around sports — Hawaii high school sports and the club community — and I think he'll be a great fit at Kamehameha."

The relatively-late hiring may put Kamehameha behind the eight-ball, but Millwood is banking on some familiarity to help with the transition.

"There's five players at Kamehameha from Guava Jam, so I think it'll help a little bit," said Millwood, who served as an assistant on the Mililani JV team last year.

The Warriors have 12 players returning from last year's team that captured the Interscholastic League of Honolulu title, including seven seniors. Among his top returnees is pitcher Kamalani Dung, who has signed to play at Fresno State next year.

"I'm looking forward to it. It'll be a fun experience, I think, and hopefully we can make the best of it now," Millwood said. "We do want to win, but whatever happens we're going to do it the right way and we're going to do it our way: smart and disciplined."

The Warriors first game under Millwood is just under two weeks away and comes against an all-too-familiar opponent.

"Our first game is in the Mililani (Softball Classic) and we play Mililani," Millwood laughed. "I think the majority of their starters will be from Guava Jam, so it will be interesting. I've been coaching a lot of those girls since they were 11 years old."