Doing his best to make NSU the best it can be

Marty Miller does his best thinking while tooling around in his little red Corvette.

In those moments, Norfolk State's athletic director imagines a dynamic future in which the Spartans dominate the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference.

Miller believes 2009 will be the football team's best season since joining Division I in 1997. Men's and women's basketball - both under upstart coaches - are two to three years away from separating themselves from the rest of the conference, he assures.

If NSU's major sports programs follow his lofty time line, it will largely be due to Miller's commitment to the program, which he took over on an interim basis in December 2004. He fashions himself a winner, and he has high expectations for the future.

Whether it's Scrabble or any game the Spartans are involved in, Miller hates to lose - one reason the former Army lieutenant coached the Spartans' baseball team to 700 victories.

"I'm always competing in everything I do," Miller says. "I wonder how I got to this point in life. But I'm like that at everything I do. In life, I want to be the best."

His wife of 35 years - and mother to their son, 33-year-old Marty Eric - confirms that.

"He would come home after coaching, and I knew when he walked in the door whether he won or lost," Liz Miller says. "It's always been about NSU for him.

"NSU is the other woman in my life."

All Miller ever wanted to do was play baseball. But he discovered his ability to work with people - to size up their skills, put them in positions to succeed.

"In life, we may have plans of our own," says Miller, a trim 62 today. "But I believe sometimes, there's a higher being who has higher goals for us."

Longtime NSU fans consider Miller to be one of them.

"He's always doing his best for this school," says Michael Hairston, a regular at football and basketball games since the 1960s. "He gives us his fax number, his phone number and his email address and tells us to call him any time."

Joe Stanton, treasurer of the NSU alumni association in Norfolk, praises Miller for his longtime ties to the community, including area churches and the Norfolk Sports Club, where Miller is set to become president in 2010.

What Miller is proudest of thus far:

• Pete Adrian, his first coaching hire, led the football team to an 8-3 mark in 2007, the program's first winning record in 11 years of Division I play.
• Miller hired Anthony Evans as men's basketball coach, despite Evans' unproven resume. Evans' team won 16 games in his inaugural season a year ago. After a tough non-conference schedule this year, the Spartans entered this weekend tied for fourth in the MEAC.
• NSU hired its first full-time strength and conditioning coach last summer and has upgraded its weight room.
• The baseball, men's basketball and football teams posted winning records in 2007-08 for the first time in the Division I era.
• Strides have been made under Title IX, including paying comparable salaries for men's and women's coaches and comparable equipment.n NSU has raised its Academic Progress Report in most sports and put into place an academic improvement plan, hiring a full-time academic athletic coordinator.
• NSU's men have won the past four MEAC all-sports awards, earning the athletic department $25,000 for each year.

Hanging in Miller's windowless office in Echols Hall are dozens of photos and plaques. His treasure: a bulletin board showing the 22 NSU baseball players who signed pro contracts over the years. A photo of outfielder Terry Bradshaw in his St. Louis Cardinals uniform smiles from the center.

"Those are my guys," Miller says, still proud that scouts used to confess their bewilderment at his ability to pull so much out of players who weren't top recruits. "I had the ability to evaluate talent. When I think of the guys on that board, they weren't highly recruited out of high school. That was my gift: to evaluate talent."

From the start, Miller would need that skill. When he took over as AD, Miller needed to make a key hire: a football coach to resuscitate a floundering program. Adrian's name topped his list.

For a rookie in the job, hiring NSU's first white football coach was a gamble.

"I knew it could create some unrest," he says. "I wanted to pick the best person to direct this program, and we had not been performing very well. I felt that Pete was the best candidate."

Supporter Cliff Jarvis says it was hard to find fault with Miller's choice at the time. After all, Adrian had come from Bethune-Cookman University, another historically black college. "He understood the problems black universities face," Jarvis says.

Miller regards hiring Adrian as "the single most important decision" he has made as AD.

Miller hired young coaches to fill jobs in men's and women's basketball, going with Evans - an assistant to former men's coach Dwight Freeman - and Tara Owens, among the youngest women's coaches in Division I.

Miller regards Adrian, Owens and Evans as coaches who can elevate the program. Seven of the football team's 11 games are at home next fall, and the Spartans return a talented core. Miller doesn't see a football championship in 2009 as out of reach, despite last season's disappointing 5-7 finish.

"That's the way the ball bounces," he says, shaking his head as he recalls the wild finishes of the football season, including a one-point loss at league champ South Carolina State. "With all our home games and everybody coming back, I just think things are favorable for us to win a championship."

Miller isn't deterred by this season's poor starts by the basketball teams - 6-11 for the men and 0-15 for the women, who have lost most games by wide margins. Both records reflect playing guarantee road games against a tough competition, he says.

"In men's basketball, I think in a two-year time period, we can be conference champions," Miller says. "I have a lot of confidence in coach Evans. I think he's on the right path. I like the way he conducts his practices; I like the student-athletes he's bringing in."

Miller predicts success further down the line - three years, perhaps for the women's program. Patience is necessary, he says, as Owens has restructured the program with freshmen and sophomores.

Orby Moss, whom Miller replaced in the AD job, did not want to comment on Miller for this story. But he says that as long as most other MEAC schools enjoy larger athletic budgets than NSU, it will be difficult for the Spartans to sustain a winning program.

In the most recent figures reported to the U.S. Department of Education, NSU is eighth among the 11 MEAC schools, with an athletic budget of $6.2 million. But the MEAC budgets are fairly competitive; the second-biggest, for example, is Howard, at $8.8 million.

Even with a modest budget, Miller's message to his coaches never changes: "Bring home the bacon."

The itch to play baseball never left Miller, a native of Danville whose father worked in a tobacco factory.

A shortstop and third baseman for John Langston High, Miller led his team to two state titles before he graduated in 1964. His speed and hitting caught the eye of NSU's Joseph Echols, who gave Miller the only college offer he would receive.

Miller found great joy on the diamond, leading the nation in doubles in 1968, the same year he became NSU's first College Division All-American.

Baseball wasn't an option after college. Like the others in ROTC, Miller had a two-year Army commitment. He spent that time at Fort Bliss, Texas, a second lieutenant in the air defense artillery unit.

He figured his decision to join the military had cost him any shot at pro ball, but in 1970, at age 23, he was signed by the Minnesota Twins' organization. "A dream come true," remembers Miller, who gave up the chance to be a general's aide to head to spring training in Melbourne, Fla..

"I thought I had a good experience, but I didn't make it," Miller says in a quieter tone, admitting he cried during the plane ride home. "It was very crushing to me. It took me over 20 years to get over that because... they indicated I was an excellent ball player. I was fast; I could hit well. Based on all the numbers, there's no reason I shouldn't have played baseball for 20 years."

Age has dimmed Miller's bitterness, according Liz Miller, though she adds, "Even now, he thinks about it. I tell him 'www.moveon.' "

On a whim, Miller sought work at the Norfolk Redevelopment Housing Authority. The day after he submitted his application, he was on the job, upgrading youth programs in public housing.

It was during that time that Norfolk State called, looking for a baseball coach. Miller was asked to tackle the job on an interim basis.

That was 1973.

It took years for Miller to embrace and understand coaching, but the game fed his competitive juices.

"Every year, I'd think that the next year we could do better," he says.

Miller would not step down from that job until December 2005, even then only because it became clear the demands of athletic director were too great to hold both positions. He finished with a 718-543-3 record, and his 584 wins in the CIAA made Miller the winningest coach in league history.

As much as Miller didn't want to coach baseball in the beginning, by the end, he hated to give it up.

"I had been on a baseball field every spring for 50 years," he says. Being away from it "was hardest the first year. But I still get that feeling these days from time to time."

The athletic department needed an innovative leader when NSU president Marie McDemmond asked him to serve as athletic director. The football team had won two games in two years, and the school's athletic program had self-reported NCAA violations.

While Miller had never given much thought about himself in the job, former AD Dick Price had. He had wanted Miller to be his assistant years before. The legendary football coach thought Miller had the ideal combination of skills to be successful, noting, "That's his school. He devotes all of his time to it."

When Miller jumps behind the wheel of his Corvette, he's mapping out strategies for Norfolk State, retirement far from his mind.

"I compare this to building a dream house. Before you can build into your dream house, you have to go through steps. We're trying to build a dream house here."

Vicki L. Friedman, (757) 477-6874, VickiL120@cox.net