Ralph Miller

Born and raised in Chanute, Kansas, Miller was a standout athlete in high school and college. At Chanute High School, he won letters in football, track, basketball, golf and tennis. Miller was an all-state basketball player for three years and set the state record in the low hurdles in 1937. He was all-state three consecutive years in football and basketball.

In college at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, Miller won three letters as a football quarterback and three in basketball. By 1940, he was beating the 1932 gold medalist in the decathlon Jim Bausch in seven of ten events.

As an undergraduate, he was coached by the legendary Phog Allen. In one of Miller's classes, a guest lecturer was Dr. James Naismith, the inventor of basketball. Miller was also a member of Phi Kappa Psi Fraternity at KU.[3]

After he earned a bachelor's degree in physical education in 1942, he spent three years in the Army Air Forces, leaving as a first lieutenant.

Miller's first coaching position was at Mount Oread High School in Lawrence, and the team consisted primarily of professors' sons. The season did not go well and left a sour taste in his mouth towards coaching basketball.

Miller didn't have to go overseas during World War II because of knee problems that began at KU. He enlisted in the Air Force and held desk jobs in Florida, Texas, and California. After the war, he became an assistant director of recreation and oversaw a swimming pool and playground in Redlands, California. Soon, he joined a friend in the business of hauling fruit.

In 1949, eight years after his ill-fated first attempt at coaching, a friend from Wichita named Fritz Snodgrass sent Miller a telegram asking if he might be interested in returning to guide his son's team at East High School. At East, Miller became a student of the game. He was fascinated by the full-court press zone defense that had been developed at Kansas in 1930, but he wondered why it was only used after a basket was made. Nobody could give Miller a solid answer, and so he began tinkering with ways to press after missed shots, too. His idea was to assign each player a man to guard, and when an errant shot went up, they were immediately to pick up their man. His ideas were very successful. In three years at East High, Miller's teams finished second, third and first in the state using his system of execution and pressure basketball.

Miller retired at age 70 in 1989,[10] his final regular season win was a comfortable one, over rival Oregon at a sold-out Gill Coliseum on Sunday, March 5.[11] The Beavers lost to top-ranked Arizona in the semifinals of the Pac-10 tourney,[12] then fell in the first round of the NCAA tournament to Evansville at Tucson.[13][14]

Miller's career record was 657–382 (.632);[15] the 657 victories were the most by an active coach and ranked him seventh among major college coaches, trailing only Adolph Rupp (876), Hank Iba (767), Ed Diddle (759), Phog Allen (746), Ray Meyer (724), and John Wooden (664). Miller's teams actually won 674 games, but the total was reduced by forfeits because one of his players, Lonnie Shelton, had signed with an agent while still in college in 1976.

The floor of Gill Coliseum is named Ralph Miller Court, and the street in front of the venue was renamed Ralph Miller Drive shortly upon his retirement.

In the fall of 1937 at the University of Kansas, he took a physiology class, and the students were seated alphabetically. Next to him was an attractive co-ed from Topeka named Emily Jean Milam; five years later they were married. The couple had two sons, Ralph Jr. and Paul, and two daughters, Susan Langer and Shannon Jakosky.[16]

The gymnasium at Chanute High School is named after Ralph Miller, and is home to the Ralph Miller Classic, an eight-team tournament.

Miller had an unequaled addiction to cigarettes, and chain-smoked More brand cigarettes during practices, on team buses, and in his office.[17][18]

A dozen years after his retirement, Miller died in his sleep at age 82 at his home at Black Butte Ranch, northwest of Bend.[1][18] He had suffered from congestive heart failure and complications from emphysema.[1] His wife Jean died at age 93 in 2014 in Bend.[16]

* 15 wins were forfeited and official record for that season is 3–24
** 1 NCAA Tournament loss was vacated
*** 2 NCAA Tournament wins and 1 loss were vacated
**** Official record with vacated and forfeited wins and losses

• List of college men's basketball coaches with 600 wins

• Ralph Miller at the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame
• Ralph Miller at Find a Grave