
NATIONAL CHAMPS Evergreen graduate Brooks Miller has patrolled the sidelines at Trine University for 13 seasons culminating with a Division III national championship in March
By: Joe Blystone
THE VILLAGE REPORTER
publisher@thevillagereporter.com
ANGOLA – “…and David put his hand in the bag and took out a stone and slung it. And he struck the Philistine in the head, and he fell to the ground.” -Preacher from the state final locker room scene in “Hoosiers”
Just over 430 schools play NCAA Division III basketball in the country. Each year just one wins a national title.
Former Evergreen star Brooks Miller has faced adversity, tragedy, and more adversity during his nearly 30 years involved in the game of basketball.
But rather than not try to climb the mountain or slay the beast guarding it, Miller met every obstacle head on and fought it.
During his days at Evergreen, playing for recently retired coach Jerry Keifer, Miller led a team that had never won as much as a sectional championship to not only three straight of those titles, but also a pair of district championships and berths in the Sweet 16.
After his college time on the court at Hillsdale, Miller turned in his jump shot for a whistle and began coaching in the college ranks making several stops before settling in at Division III Trine University in Angola, Indiana some 13 years ago.
A few weeks ago, Miller again stared the beast in the face and in an ironically enough, the school he coaches from Indiana had a “Hoosiers”-like ending, beat the top ranked team in NCAA Division III, Hampden-Sydney, 69-61 to reach the summit and win a D-III National Championship.
Miller spoke of what started his trek in the coaching ranks. “You know my dad coached me and his friends always coached us in Little League and that,” Miller explained.
“But the day I knew I really wanted to start coaching was when I got out of college, and I was subbing at Evergreen and Coach (Bob) Beemer gave me (former NBA coaching great) Pat Riley’s book ‘The Winner Within’.”
“I read that, and the way Coach Beemer talked to me about it I thought, ‘ok this is something I can do. It was a realistic thing.”
“It was weird timing because my college coach at Hillsdale offered me a job a week or two after that and it was a no brainer. I wanted to be a teacher because I idolized Jerry (Keifer).”
“I loved his schedule and being off in the summer. But when I read that book, I thought let’s pursue this.”
Miller remembers the days when his trek first started at 12 years old when he and his friends made a pact to go to Evergreen and put banners on the wall.
Up to that point, Evergreen had not won any kind of boys’ basketball title in the 25 years of their existence.
“I loved the game,” Miller said of his early days. “I grew up with a group of guys that all we did was play whether it was baseball, football or basketball, we loved to organize games and play, that was our job, to get better.”
“I remember riding five miles on my bike to the park in Metamora to play with the older kids that were in high school. We played all the time.”
“We didn’t have cable then so when it was raining out, we watched every Tigers game, I knew every lineup in the American League back then, that’s just what we did.”
“We studied the game and we worked together. When you are around a game that much you just pick things up on how to play and get better.”
“It’s like recruiting now, our best guys are ones who play multiple sports. They are what I call ‘ball players’, they know how to make plays whether it’s off the ball or on the ball, it’s what they pick up from every sport not just basketball.”
“All of that was important to us, it was our culture out there, we wanted to make Evergreen good, it was a big motivating factor and get it done.”
Besides the mountain he and his classmates had to climb on the court, Miller was dealt another blow. Following a football game his freshman year, Miller was told his dad, Chris had passed away from a heart attack.
“I had two choices after I lost my dad,” Miller remembers. “I either could’ve sat there and wallowed in self-pity and played the victim my entire life or how can I take my experiences and help others who felt like I felt after that happened.”
“Anytime someone suffers a setback there’s people who help you get through the hard times. I’d hate to try to name them all because I’d probably leave someone out.”
“I look back and realize how fortunate I was to be nurtured in a community that was there for me.” In the days and months that followed, Miller connection with basketball coach Keifer grew.
“He gave us more than being just a basketball coach,” Miller says. “We had kids whose home situation wasn’t the best, we had guys who needed mentorship.”
“He wasn’t just there for us just that two hours in the gym during basketball season. He is one of my best friends now.”
As a sophomore, the Vikings rebounded from a 4-7 start to a 15-10 record, winning their first sectional title over top-seed Eastwood, then beat Sycamore Mohawk and Millbury Lake to capture the district.
After going 20-2 Miller’s junior year and again reaching the district after winning an NWOAL title, the Vikings again flourished a year later.
Miller’s senior season, the VIkings again reached the 20-win mark and beat the number one team in Ohio, Liberty-Benton to take another district crown.
Miller’s playing career had stops at the University of Toledo as a freshman, then at Hillsdale College his last three years. From that point he began his coaching regime.
Miller worked as an assistant at Hillsdale, then under Pat Knight at Texas Tech before coming back to the Great Lakes Region and taking the job at Trine where he faced another steppingstone.
Unlike his previous ventures at D-II Hillsdale and Texas Tech, under the rules of the NCAA, Miller was not allowed athletic scholarships at a Division III institution and had to put together a team based solely on those who wanted to be ‘all in’ at Trine.
“We have finished in the top four in our conference every year and in a very historical conference that is something to be proud of,'” expressed Miller.
“We have won three league titles the last six years. What we figured out what we needed was big guards and we need speed but most of all we need kids who want to be here. We have to show them what we can do for them after basketball.”
Almost every year the win total for the Thunder began a climb past being competitive to being dangerous. The culmination of that trek to the summit came this year.
The Thunder knocked off one formidable foe after another to reach the Final Four in another side of irony, to be played in Fort Wayne, Indiana.
The Thunder beat Trinity College of Connecticut to reach the finals, then before a raucous crowd, shook off a cold shooting start and early nine-point deficit, to take down top ranked Hampden-Sydney to win the Division III title.
“We knew what we had to do to improve before the season,” said Miller. “The more experienced you get the better you get. In 2021 we were the second-best team in the country. We created our own national championship game with Randolph-Macon who beat us, because the NCAA cancelled our tournament.”
“I studied Randolph-Macon, and you realize what you have to do to improve and what the formula is to take the next step.”
“We had to be faster and with the transfer portal and the fifth COVID year, we wanted to take advantage of every opportunity we had.”
“We realize with transfers to take guys who are proven players at the D-III level as opposed to guys who look the part at D-I or D-II who transfer down.”
“We had some good big guys coming back and emphasizing team play on both ends of the floor was important. We had two transfer guards who could make plays with the ball and give us a chance of winning a championship.”
Ninety-nine percent of people either wish about doing something that will impact people in a positive way…or they complain about those who do because they have accepted their fate in life without trying to do something better.
Over 99 percent of college coaches never win a national title of are named coach of the year. Besides being the one out of 436 this year and the coach who won it all, Miller was also named NCAA Division III Coach of the Year after going 29-4.
That was not the first but the second time he has achieved that honor, the initial time coming after the 2021 season. His record at Trine stands at 226-116.
“You get one of those awards it’s not just about you,” Miller stressed. “It’s about all of those around you, your assistants, your wife, your family, our players and even our administration, everybody is involved in winning.”
“They have to recognize winning in some way. My name happens to be on that award because my title is head coach, but that award goes to everyone involved, it’s a culmination of winning at a very high level.”
From 55 wins as a high school point guard to 226 as a head coach at a national title winning school, Miller has continued to find a way to again…slay the beast. Goliath after Goliath, his aim has been true.