Remembering Ken Miller: “He was like a father figure
By Rob Vanstone
Ken Miller, a beloved Saskatchewan Roughriders head coach, passed away on Wednesday in Asheville, N.C., after a brief battle with cancer. He was 82.
A SaskTel Plaza of Honour inductee in 2022, Miller helped the Roughriders reach the Grey Cup in three of his five seasons with the CFL team while endearing himself to players, colleagues and fans.
“He was like a father figure, so the players hated to let him down,” long-time athletic therapist Ivan Gutfriend, who entered the Plaza in 2016, said shortly before Miller was formally inducted into the Riders’ shrine.
“They really loved the man and he was a great person.”
Miller was named the Roughriders’ offensive co-ordinator by then-head coach Kent Austin on Jan. 15, 2007. In November of that year, they shared in the third Grey Cup victory in franchise history.
After Austin surprisingly left Saskatchewan the following January to become the offensive co-ordinator at the University of Mississippi, he effusively endorsed Miller as the successor. Eric Tillman, the general manager, also felt Miller was the best man for the job.
So it came to be that Miller, at age 66, was a first-time CFL head coach.
“I march to the beat of a different drummer, in my own way,” he said on Feb. 6, 2008, during his introductory media conference.
“Hopefully we achieve the same level of success (as the team did under Austin). That’s my goal, even though my personality is substantially different from the rock star that we had.”
The “rock star” reference prompted Tillman to interject: “And you’re Mick Jagger’s age.”
The Roughriders kept rolling under Miller, winning 12 regular-season games in 2008 and matching their total of the previous year.
He also guided the Roughriders of 2008 to the team’s best start (6-0) since 1934.
The Miller-coached Roughriders of 2009 and 2010 both advanced to the Grey Cup Game before losing to the Montreal Alouettes by a combined four points.
In 2009, Miller guided Saskatchewan to top spot in the West Division’s regular-season standings for the first time since 1976.
A 10-7-1 Roughriders team ended up extending a 15-3-0 Montreal powerhouse to the limit in the 97th Grey Cup Game. The Alouettes won, 28-27, on a last-play, 33-yard field goal by Damon Duval.
It appeared that Saskatchewan had won the game after Duval missed his initial attempt, from 43 yards. However, the Roughriders were flagged for too many men on the field, giving Duval another shot from 10 yards closer.
“That loss in the Grey Cup is really a heavy burden for me, even to this day,” Miller said in 2018. “I think about that situation and that game often, and sometimes I can’t bear to watch football on TV when the game is close. I just cringe, still feeling the emotion of that game.”
The emotion was also palpable the following day, when 1,500 shivering spectators welcomed the Roughriders back to historic Mosaic Stadium. Miller was visibly moved by the fans’ outpouring of affection and support.
“I am so proud of these men who are on the stage with me,” Miller, a three-time coach-of-the-year finalist, told the crowd.
“I’d like to say they’re all mine, but they’re not. They’re yours.”
The 13th man — the difference between victory and defeat in the 2009 championship game — became a rallying cry instead of an albatross.
Miller’s handling of the situation, and the degree to which he was respected by constituents of Rider Nation, helped the team turn the page and return to the Grey Cup following year.
Once again, it was a heartbreaker, with Montreal winning 21-18.
The secret to Miller’s success extended beyond X’s and O’s. His relationship with the players was such that, as fellow 2022 Plaza inductee Weston Dressler said, “we’d run through a brick wall for that guy.”
The team-oriented philosophy incorporated Maureen Miller, Ken’s wife, who attended most practices and enjoyed them from a social standpoint. She would chat with anyone about anything.
She was also visible away from the stadium as a volunteer for countless community-based causes.
Maureen loved to ride her bicycle around the city and spend time at the Royal Saskatchewan Museum, where she was the librarian.
“I grew when I was in Saskatchewan,” Maureen said in 2018. “I think we both did. I think we both left there as better people.”
They returned to the United States after a season in which Ken Miller wore several hats.
Following the 2010 campaign, he stepped down as head coach but remained with the organization as vice-president of football operations. The latter title had been added to his job description after Tillman left the organization in January of 2010.
Miller returned as the head coach, however, after the Roughriders endured a 1-7 start to the 2011 season. Saskatchewan won its next three games by a combined score of 102-50 before struggling down the stretch and missing the playoffs.
He announced late in the 2011 season that he would step down after the final game. He finished with a 36-27-1 record — the victory total being the fifth-best in team history.
“Maureen’s and my time in Saskatchewan was really the high point of our lives up to that point, and certainly has provided a lot of memories that we’re able to reflect on,” Miller said in 2018.
“Our association with the people from there and the fact that she goes back and does the dragon-boat races, and the relationship with the players and the people while being part of that community is just a phenomenal experience for the two of us.”
Before joining the Green and White, Miller had been on the Toronto Argonauts’ staff as an assistant, coaching the quarterbacks (2002), offensive line (2003 to 2005) and defensive line (2006). He was part of the Argonauts’ 2004 Grey Cup championship team.
Miller did not coach professional athletes until he was 60, but there wasn’t the slightest semblance of a generation gap. He enjoyed a rare and remarkable rapport with players who were several decades younger.
As the head coach, he typically (and memorably) began each early-morning team meeting with a robust “Good morning, Riders!”
Player empowerment was his focus and, as it turned out, his forte.
“A lot of our success was that the players bought into the idea that if they were successful in the meetings and co-operated with each other and came up with good ideas, those ideas could be implemented into strategies that could be utilized in games — and often, they were,” he told the Regina Leader-Post in 2019.
“When we would do post-practice film review, I would have to tell the position coach not to talk too much to give the players an opportunity to evaluate what they were doing and why they were doing it so they could understand and work with each other at a much higher level than we could get to by telling them individually what to do.
“It was really successful and really a great thing to see.”
Miller wasn’t much older than the players when, in 1966, he took up coaching — as a graduate assistant at Dickinson State. He majored in biology and physical education while residing in Dickinson, N.D.
Born in The Dalles, Ore., he moved back to his home state in 1967 and spent two years coaching high school football.
Then came another move, to southern California, with an emphasis on coaching and teaching.
Miller earned a master’s degree in education at Azuza Pacific University, near Los Angeles.
He was also the head coach at Yucaipa High School from 1970 to 1976.
From 1977 to 1983, he was a part-time offensive line coach at the University of Redlands.
Miller became the Redlands Bulldogs’ football coach in 1984 and, two years later, also took over the school’s baseball team.
Redlands had a 250-235-2 record during Miller’s 15 seasons (1986 to 2000) as the baseball coach. He led the team to a conference title in 1991.
After four seasons as Redlands’ head football coach, he remained with that program as the offensive co-ordinator (1988 to 1993, 1995 to 2000) and defensive co-ordinator (1994) and contributed to a string of successes.
After the 2000 season, Miller retired from the University of Redlands, but a love of coaching compelled him to return to the gridiron game and mentor “the men in the locker room” — first in Toronto and then, most memorably, in Saskatchewan.
Even after moving back to North Carolina, Ken and Maureen Miller still referred to this province as “home” — routinely returning for speaking engagements or to simply visit the many friends they made here.
“It was just a great place for us,” Ken Miller said in 2022, “and just a great experience that we had the entire time.”