Friday, September 29, 2006 10:25 PM CDT
What ever happened to Chris Miller?
God changed the coach’s game plan
By BRIAN NIELSEN, Sports Editor
bnielsen@jg-tc.com
CHARLESTON -- Speaking rather candidly for nearly an hour about anything from his self-declared crucial coaching mistakes spoiling a playoff run to a faring he considered unfair with jealous motives and his transformation to Christianity that carried him through, Chris Miller then stopped and thought.
“Can my wife read this first to make sure I don’t say anything stupid?” he said.
Journalistic principles did not allow such spousal censorship, but these days Miller is not so prone to trouble anyway. He tried to talk more about the present, his Father and Son Camp, started when a 3-year-old son asked to go camping leading to what is now a 300-camper event, and his daughters in a string quarter playing religious hymns.
Oh, details of that 1987 summer when he lost his head coaching job after guiding Oakland to the state football quarterfinals the previous fall stay in his mind.
“My flesh wants to tell about it,” Miller said.
He does but only to an extent.
“One thing I have learned over the years: It is better to be silent and thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt,” Miller said. “Sweetness of speech increases persuasiveness. I am inconsistent in many areas of life, but I don’t want to be. I want to be kinder than necessary, and treat other people the way I want to be treated. It’s not always easy, and words sometimes slip that you wish would have stayed in the thought canal.
“If I had it to do over, I would not have provoked the good folks at Arthur or anywhere else. I would have tried to balance the honesty. How boring would that fall have been without the game side of the game? An aspect of coaching is being an entertainer. If you want to put people in the stands, you got to put on a show. All I every wanted to do was spice up the game and see it played with passion.”
In the 1986 football season, Miller did provoke folks at Arthur.
After a convincing Oakland win in which some thought Miller’s Oaks needlessly scored more points than needed, Miller was quoted in the next day’s paper that he had had a vendetta against the Knights ever since getting a raw deal in a game between the two in his days playing lineman.
The 1971 Oakland graduate also irritated some people at Arcola when he told a newspaper on the eve of the Oakland-Arcola game that quarterback Dude Barker was out with an injury, only for Barker to play the entire game.
But more than providing some unconventional coaching gamesmanship, the farmer and coach won football games.
A year Oakland’s 3-6 season under Mike Grace, the new coach Miller’s Oaks went 10-2, losing only to defending state champion Arcola in the regular season and Iroquois West in the IHSA Class 1A quarterfinals.
“I guess I was even surprised, if you want to know the truth of the matter,” Miller said. “I could hardly look at them without their pads. They were so skinny and little. But on Friday they came to play.
“The key to the success of the team was the foundation that (former Oakland) coach (Gerald) Temples laid when these young men were freshmen and sophomores. I also had a great assistant coach/defensive coordinator in Warren Ormiston. My high school typing teacher Pat Echerty and my high school ag teacher Ulin Andrews taught me the value of learning a skill to mastery, and I used that principle as I coached. Steve Thomas and Byron Bradford had modeled a pattern of success, and I tried to emulate some of the things they did in Arcola.”
Even with that success, Miller 20 years later is haunted by the quarterfinal loss to a team he considered weaker than the Martinsville and Villa Grove teams his Oaks had beaten in the first two rounds of the playoffs.
“I’ve played the Iroquois West game a gazillion times and won every time,” the former coach said. “Mel McGregor was hurt. We turned the ball over eight times and lost by five points.
“They are the greatest team in Oakland school history, maybe not the greatest talent but the greatest team. If I would have been a better coach, we would have won a state championship that year.”
Second-guessing himself for several decisions in that game, Miller never got to be a head coach again.
The following summer Miller thought he was innocently enough contacting a possible transfer student.
When this was reported to the IHSA, it sent what amounted to a hand slap to Oakland.
But the Oakland school board lowered the boom, firing Miller during a meeting while protesters supported the coach.
“You know just the way that all played out, I struggled with bitterness for a long time,” Miller said. “I guess I was pretty naïve to thinking that everyone wanted us to succeed. I guess there were people that were bitter than we went 10-2.
“It wasn’t about recruiting. It was about petty jealousy and small-town politics. All I did was write the kid a letter and told him he would be welcome to joint the Oakland Oaks. It wasn’t the definition of recruiting.”
At least Miller found himself more prepared for this than had it been years earlier.
“In February of 1987 I gave my life to Jesus Christ, and that was probably a real good thing,” he said with a laugh. “If they thought Mount St. Helen was a disaster. . .It was really hard to take when people were lying about you and accusing you of things that weren’t even remotely true.
“In February of 1987 the Lord Jesus Christ radically changed my life. In Proverbs 29:18 it says, ‘Where there is no vision the people are unrestrained.’ Before Jesus Christ came into my life my whole world was marred by unrestraint. Jesus Christ civilized me and gave me a sense of vision, mission, and purpose with hope and expectation. Almost every lesson that I have ever learned has been the hard way.”
Two seasons later, Miller spent a season as Ormiston’s assistant coach, and while he did not enjoy being an assistant, Miller appreciated the opportunity to be humble and then “resign with dignity.”
These days Miller has a farm with 1,000 acres and 50 Angus beef cattle while he and his wife, Mary, have seven children ages 2-23. Since their oldest daughter was in grade school, the Millers have been home schooling.
“We wanted them to have a biblical view and you can’t get that at a government school,” Miller said. “Mary and I both had our degrees in education.”
This year the former Eureka College player returned to football coaching as an assistant coach for Charleston’s eighth-grade Junior Football League team for which his son Max is a fullback and linebacker.
“It’s better now, but I was fairly intimidated because it’s been about 20 years,” Miller said of his previous coaching duties. “I’ve had to learn new terminology. Now they have X’s, Y’s and Z’s instead of flankers, split ends and tight ends.”
He may be more comfortable organizing his Father and Son Camp at Walnut Point State Park near Oakland.
“My burden for the camp is to be at the crossroads in the lives of young dads and young sons to show them a better way and cast a vision of authentic Christian manhood through a relationship with Jesus Christ,” Miller said. “The vision of the fathers becomes the mission of the sons, the passion of the father becomes the mission of the son and the heroism of the father becomes the legacy of the son. I marvel at the goodness of God to alter the direction of my family generationally. God’s ways are past finding out.
“Psalm 78 is a real picture of what happens in one generation when the vision of the fathers is not communicated to the sons. The fear of man makes man a coward, but the bear of God makes man a hero.”
Those interested in attending this year’s Oct. 26-29 camp can check the Web site http://www.fathersoncamp.org/about%20us.html.
Until the camp grew to such numbers making the rule unpractical, Miller cited the Biblical verse saying he who does not work should not eat having campers kill a squirrel or a fish for their food. Along with learning some camping skills, participants hear from inspirational guest speakers.
Miller can pass along some advice as well about plans gone wrong.
“There is a Psalm that says as for God, his way is perfect,” the former coach said. “The thing I know is he had a plan for my life and it wasn’t a long term coach at Oakland High School. That was my plan but not his.”
Contact Brian Nielsen at bnielsen@jg-tc.com or 238-6856.
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 Ken Trevarthan (JG/T-C)
Former Oakland football coach Chris Miller now concentrates on farming and his Father and Son Camp.
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Angie Miley wrote on Jul 17, 2006 8:05 PM: