(Story courtesy of Scott Eddy, assistant athletics director for strategic communications at St. Bonaventure University and GoBonnies.com. This feature is part of the “Bonnies Baseline” series, which spotlights Bona players in each home game program. Game programs are available for free at Reilly Center entrances during the season.)

Frank Mitchell is a man of many talents.

Among them, a knack for music.

He will tell you how he plays a mean harmonica, along with the drums and even a little piano. This past summer, he picked up the saxophone as well.

“I love music,” he says. “I feel like music represents basketball. Basketball has its own pace, its own rhythm. Music is like that too. You feel the beat, the rhythm.”

Statistically speaking anyway, Mitchell is playing some of the finest music of any Bonnie in recent memory.

Entering this week, the Bona big man ranked eighth nationally in double-doubles while standing second among all Atlantic 10 players in scoring (17.2 ppg) and first on the boards at 10.4 rpg. On the offensive glass, he hauls in nearly five offensive rebounds per game to lead the country. He adds nearly three assists per night for good measure.

Included in those off-the-court talents, he describes himself as a “fish whisperer” with great success in fishing and he knows his way around the grill, adding chef and fisherman skills to his resume.

“God made me with a pinch of everything,” he quipped. “That’s what keeps me so obsessed with the game of basketball, because I have other things I enjoy.”

Indeed, the sport he first found a love for came on the ice, not the hardwood.

Being a native of Toronto, it shouldn’t come as a shock that he developed a passion for hockey from an early age.

“My first love in sports was definitely hockey. Growing up in Canada, hockey surrounded me,” he said. “All my best friends played hockey, so it was just something we did. Hockey was definitely my first love and still is a big part of my life. Hockey has shaped the individual I am today, just how you can be so aggressive.”

In fact, one of his best friends is Ty Nelson who plays for the Seattle Kraken.

Today, Mitchell has professional dreams of his own in basketball, but just over five years ago that possibility seemed far from reach.

He didn’t switch focus to basketball until he turned 18 and was cut from his high school team.

Mitchell started working construction and was doing carpentry and cement flooring, seeing a labor skillset as a path toward a career.

Then, the pandemic hit.

“The union shut down and basketball was really the only thing going on,” he said. “I picked it up and one thing led to another. If Covid didn’t happen, I don’t think I’d be playing basketball.”

Mitchell got spotted by a coach at a pickup game and offered a spot at Oakville Prep. He then came to the United States for a semester at a junior college in Indiana, but he left before the season began. He found a fit at Humber College in Ontario where basketball started to really click – his Humber team reached the 2022 national championships as Mitchell dominated in the post with 14.5 points and 18 rebounds per contest.

“I didn’t really know what a Division I player looked like; I was new on the basketball scene,” he said. “I just had a motor; I was a rebounder.”

True enough, Mitchell has always been a beast on the boards.

After a sit year following a transfer to Canisius, he was the only Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference player to average a double-double and his 11.6 rebounds per game stood fourth nationally in 2023-24.

“Rebounding is something you have to love. When I first started, they told me, ‘Board man gets paid.’ It’s what got me here and you don’t want to forget about that. Rebounding is the only skillset that translates at every level,” he said. “My approach is just get every ball. Play angry and be a blue-collar individual. It’s going to be a fight for 40 minutes.”

His performance at Canisius earned him a promotion via the transfer portal to Minnesota as he jumped to the Big Ten last season.

He saw 29 games of action as a Gopher with three double-doubles over 15.6 minutes per contest off the bench in an up-and-down campaign. His double-double efforts all came against power conference foes – 15 and 12 at USC; 11 and 11 vs. Wisconsin and 12 and 11 at Rutgers.

Looking for more consistency in his next stop, he kept St. Bonaventure in mind for multiple reasons.

For one, he had vivid memories of playing in the Reilly Center as an opponent.

“I remember being at Canisius and playing here. It was crazy loud; you couldn’t hear yourself think,” he recalled. “You could just feel that they (the fans) want the Bonnies to be great.”

Closer to home, he already had a connection to a Bonaventure great through fellow Canadian Andrew Nicholson.

“Andrew is one of my mentors. He’s a legend in Canada basketball,” Mitchell said. “He taught me how to approach my game better, how to to play with less emotions. Play with emotions, but not emotional. Be less results driven. When you talk to him, you understand what Bonaventure did for him and what he wanted to do for Bonaventure. He’s so down-to-earth and really cares about you as an individual. I’m lucky to have a guy like Andrew in my corner.”

Mitchell wasted little time making his own mark in a Bonnies uniform.

After a 12-point, nine-rebound effort to begin the season in a win over Bradley, he went on to record double-double performances in 10 of the next 12 games including a streak of seven straight at one point.

His dominating run saw an exclamation mark driven home by back-to-back December head-turners of 19 points and 18 boards in a win over Colgate before registering 27 points and 15 rebounds in an overtime heartbreaker vs. Ohio on his 24th birthday.

Opposing defenses have struggled finding an answer for Mitchell all season long: he’s totaled double-figure scoring in all but one game while logging nearly 19 points per night in Atlantic 10 play thus far. Most recently, a what has become routine showing of 18 points and 11 rebounds in Tuesday’s win vs. Loyola Chicago.

Playing the 80th game of his Division I career this week, he’s approaching personal milestones with 845 total points and 695 rebounds.

And while his list of interesting hobbies might be long, fans shouldn’t worry about his focus.

“I want to lead by example, come in every day and go hard,” he said. “I want my teammates to be able to approach me, and I want to approach them in the same way, hold each other to a high standard and with respect.”