By: Jay Miller
One of my earliest childhood memories is playing on a playground just beyond the left field fence while my dad was coaching a high school team. I remember a few things from that day. Playing on the slide with my sisters and then my mom telling me to come back to the stands, the game was almost over. Then I watched in awe as my father’s team fielded the last out in the game and then stormed the field and dog piled right behind the pitcher’s mound. It was a district championship, of course I had no idea at the time what that was or what that meant, but I knew one thing for sure, I wanted to be part of that! Guys jumping on each other, players hugging my dad, fans standing and cheering, parents crying in joy for their sons. I was hooked!
Needless to say, I was raised in the game. Growing up my father was a head football coach, head baseball coach and Athletic Director to go along with his duties as a high school teacher. I lived for the days after school, walking from my elementary school to his practices. I was the bat boy and always tried to participate in everything I could. Growing up, I was always the youngest at baseball camps that my dad put on and all the workers were current or former players who let me take part in everything they did. There are not many memories that don’t contain some kind of ball or sport throughout my youth.
Baseball became real when, in second grade, I was invited to a tryout for one of the best little league teams in the area. Mind you, this is back in 1993… a tryout… for a second grader. Looking back now, I think they wanted my dad to coach the team, but needed to make sure I was good enough to play for them. That year we went on to win the Chillicothe SVYL “C” ball championship! I still have the t-shirt! Again, I was hooked!
My father is as old school as it gets. The kind of coach who is still not convinced depriving athletes of water won’t get a better performance out of them. I’ll never forget, I think I was 10 and forgot how many outs there were while playing 3B. Ball hit to me and I throw it to 1B instead of turning two. Then came another first, my first butt chewing! I remember having to wipe the dip spit off my face when he was done with me. A learning experience for sure. One thing my father was great at was being a coach on the field and then a dad/teacher of the game off the field.
In high school, I played elite travel ball or Legion Ball every summer. Somewhere between 50-70 games each year between May and August was the regular summer vacation for the Miller’s. Since my dad was the coach he was at every game. Something I took for granted until I was in college. Car rides were the best! We talked about our game and everything I needed to do on the way there and then turned on the Reds game on the way home. The car rides were where I learned to appreciate baseball and understand its history. The Big Red Machine was a big topic of discussion. I knew who Johnny Bench, Pete Rose, Joe Morgan and all those guys were. Listening to the “old left hander” Joe Nuxhall and Marty Brenneman every night was my education in baseball. We loved hearing “and this one belongs to the Reds” after each win. If other teammates rode with us, they better get on board, cus that’s how it was in the Miller vehicle.
My father made me learn all nine positions on the field. His theory was “how are you supposed to know what everyone is doing if you’ve never played there?” I was recruited by schools as an OF, 3B and a C. While at a small camp someone discovered I could pitch. That was it, once that happened, I was a submarine pitcher throwing mid-80’s. I signed with a small school in Southern Ohio. I was going to play two years, get drafted and start my career. The second year in, I was throwing a bullpen and felt a pop in my throwing elbow. I looked down and my forearm was rotated way past where it should be. Next stop, Tommy John surgery.
By now it was 2007. My parents moved to Florida after I graduated high school in 2005. So nice of them to wait right. After my surgery, I spent the summer rehabbing my elbow in the Sunshine State and for the first time in my life I started thinking what I was going to do if my elbow didn’t fully heel and professional baseball wasn’t an option. One day, my dad comes in and throws a softball rule book at me and says “read this, my travel ball coach can’t do it so you are coaching my high school team this summer.” Say whaaaaaaat!? See, I live in a world where baseball was the skyscraper and softball, well softball was so far below baseball you couldn’t even see it. I said “How much does it pay” and my dad came back with “Enough to let you live in my house and eat my food this summer.” I said, “Ok, I’ll do it.”
The team went 0-21 over the summer. They were freshmen and sophomores playing against college level ball clubs. We had six players end up playing college ball off that team within two years. As for me, you guessed it, I was hooked! Softball was just different than baseball. It’s a faster game, there is more strategy to it and I find that women’s athletics is simply more pure than men’s. With two sisters playing sports while I was the youngest, I had been exposed to female athletics my whole life. I found I was able to relate to female athletes more so than male athletes. I credit my amazing sisters and mom for that.
Moving forward a few years, I’m back in college ball and my fiancé is the starting right fielder on the softball team at the same school. Another connection to my father considering she played for him in high school. After I graduated, we moved to Missouri because my now wife (no longer fiancé) transferred for her final year of softball and I received a graduate assistance position within the athletics dept. Within two years we both graduated and I was searching for a college softball job. Since that summer in 07’ I knew exactly what I wanted to do with the rest of my life.
I spent one year as a Sports Information Director at a small NCAA DII school. During the school year, my wife told me we were expecting our first child. I was working 70 hours a week and more importantly, I wasn’t making an impact on anyone’s life. Memories of my youth came swarming back seeing my dad not only impact my life, but everyone on each of my teams and all the ones before me. He had former athletes playing in the NFL and professional baseball who still knew him as Coach Miller and still talk about all the lessons he taught them. That was my calling. So, with a pregnant wife in a one bedroom apartment, I turned in my resignation at my college and began searching for a softball job.
The job at Lake-Sumter State College came open at the same time I turned in my resignation. It was located 45 minutes from my parents and my in-laws in Florida. A small JUCO college that did not have a reputation for being good. It was my dream job. In-between the life lessons on baseball, in those long car rides, my father also taught me about Jesus and trusting in God. This was the point in my life I was being tested on my faith. It had been two months since I was last employed. My wife was now seven months pregnant. I had gone through 10 phone interviews and five face to face interviews. Everyone wanted a coach with previous head coaching experience. The first week of August in 2015, Lake-Sumter called me for a phone interview. It may have only been 20 minutes after we completed the phone interview that they called once again for an on-campus interview. The day of the interview was on a Friday, I thought it went very well. That night the athletic director called me to tell me he wasn’t gonna let me worry about it all weekend, he was going to offer me the job. I dropped to the floor, crying, praying, and thanking God. We went out to celebrate and I surprised my dad with the news and we hugged and we cried together. I followed up the tears by saying “you know I am going to need to hire an assistant right? You interested?” That night my wife went to bed early, most likely due to relief. I got online to check my bank account. The day I was hired at Lake-Sumter I had $150 left in my savings and checking combined. Faith and the lessons I learned on the car rides got me through the toughest time in my life.
My father and I are now in our fourth year of coaching together at Lake-Sumter State College. We inherited a program that averaged 11 wins a year for a decade, in a season in which teams play 60 games. In 2018, we broke the schools single season wins record on our way to the team’s first winning season since 1999. It is an absolute blessing. My favorite part, the car rides to and from recruiting. Especially when I am able to pull up the Reds game on my phone and we listen to it on the way home.
As for my wife and I, we live a half mile from her parents with our son Beckett. Named after Josh Beckett or Beckett Baseball Card Monthly magazine. Only I know the truth. My little dude loves to be at softball practice and of course the girls adore him. He’s three now and hits with his own wooden bat and runs the bases. Baby number two is on the way. It’s Maddux for a girl and either Gray or Grady for a boy. Baseball is in our blood. I don’t know where I’d be without it.