Jerry Miller's path to the SD Sports Hall of Fame: 'It's all about helping people'

Sep. 21—SIOUX FALLS — Growing up, Jerry Miller's father taught him a lesson about life that he carries to this day: "It's all about helping people," Miller said.

Now, Miller will be honored at the South Dakota Sports Hall of Fame banquet on Sunday at the Sioux Falls Convention Center, largely because he heeded his father's advice.

Although he didn't become a minister, or a lawyer, as his father foresaw, Miller made an impact on his state and community few others can match. As a long time coach, teacher and administrator, Miller, who turns 82 next week, was affiliated with 16 different high schools and colleges across South Dakota in his career.

"The ministry didn't quite fit me," Miller joked. "And I wouldn't have been a very good lawyer because I'm too outspoken and I'm not much of a politician."

Instead, the former all-state football player at White Lake jumped full-throttle into the South Dakota prep scene for 50 straight years.

It began with the desire to be a football coach. After studying at Dakota Wesleyan, where he graduated in 1963, Miller taught, and coached wrestling, track and football at Mitchell High School, including working with Wayne Haensel, who led the Kernels and later South Dakota State on the football field. In 1970, he landed at Sioux Falls Lincoln, where he did the same.

"In the back of my mind, I always wanted to be a football coach. But football wasn't the sport that moved me up to a bigger school. It was actually wrestling and track," he said.

Miller soon reached his goal, though, as he was named Lincoln's head football coach in 1972, a position he held until 1990. Not permitted to coach three sports while being a head coach, Miller began officiating wrestling instead, while continuing with track and field.

As a football coach, he won a state championship in the 1970s, and facilitated several changes which helped move the sport forward.

Miller convinced the middle school football league in Sioux Falls to make extra-point kicks following touchdowns count as two points. The move incentivized more kids to learn to kick.

Miller scheduled 10 games a season, instead of the typical eight at the time, which convinced kids to join his program.

And he helped establish the state playoffs for football in 1981, a move that took away "mythical" state champions voted on by the sportswriters — who Miller believes showed bias towards schools from Sioux Falls — and made teams earn a championship on the field.

"It's just hard to believe that all the other sports had state championships but football," he said. "That was a fun deal to see that go in and for football to be just like everybody else."

Miller's impact went beyond the gridiron. Alongside legendary Yankton track and football coach Max Hawk, he started the SoDak Track and Field Clinics in 1976. Thousands of coaches from across the country have taken part in the ongoing organization, which Miller stepped down as the director of in 2014.

Miller also joined the South Dakota Coaches Association, then started attending the national convention annually, and became one of six South Dakota natives to have served as president of the association at a national level. Today, the SDHSCA's distinguished service award is named in Miller's honor.

How did he have time for it all? He credits his peers.

"I learned way back that if you're going to be a coach, you need to surround yourself with good assistant coaches, and they have to believe in the same things that you believe in," Miller said.

After being the athletic director at Lincoln for seven years, Miller retired, but in name only. He went from Spearfish to Sioux Valley, helping out different programs. He was the head football coach at Waverly/South Shore, then became the head football coach at Montrose for seven years, something he said he enjoyed "maybe as much as anything I've ever done." Over 24 years, Miller led football teams to 131 victories as head coach.

"That's what was crazy," Miller joked. "I was still working full time."

All-in-all, it was a full career, and one that started with the desire to help others.