Max Miller owes his wife big time.
The retired Cordova High School football coaching legend has landed another coaching legend – former North Carolina men's basketball coach Dean Smith – to be his keynote speaker for Miller's first basketball, softball and baseball coaches clinic in October at the Peppermill Reno Hotel Casino.
The Millers were celebrating a birthday at an Incline Village restaurant this summer when Sally Miller told her husband, "Guess who is having a glass of wine in the bar?"
Miller, 68, dashed to the bar. The loquacious Miller wound up talking with Smith for nearly an hour.
"I just wanted to meet him, but then I was telling him what I was doing and he agreed to help," Miller said.
Miller has held a popular football coaches clinic for 28 years that draws some 2,000 youth and high school coaches each winter to Reno. But the fall event is new territory for Miller, although he's landed a number of top area college and high school coaches to work the clinic.
This is the first time in 45 years Miller hasn't coached football at some level in the fall, so he admits organizing the clinic helps, even if he is going through coach's withdrawal.
"I really miss the camaraderie of practice and being around the kids," said Miller, who stepped down after last season and 257 prep wins. "When you think about it, I've been going to school for 63 years."
When Cordova's opening day of school came recently, Miller sheepishly admits he walked out the door of his Gold River home with his lunch in hand, only to realize he's now retired.
"Sally asked me what the heck I was doing," he said. Miller responded: "I'm just going to take a walk."
Patience pays off at Rio Linda
Coach Mike Morris has built a perennial playoff football program at Rio Linda High School. But he's not sure if he'd still be around if he were starting his head-coaching career now instead of 1991.
Morris went 0-10 in his first season, and it took five years to produce a winner. The Knights didn't make the playoffs until his eighth season. It was Rio Linda's first playoff berth in 30 years.
Morris says building a successful football program takes time, patience and thick skin, comments he directed toward first-year coaches at Sunday's annual high school football kickoff brunch sponsored by the National Football Foundation's Sacramento Valley Chapter.
"Being a high school football coach is real hard," Morris said. "It all doesn't come fast."
Morris thinks a lot of programs struggle with coaching turnover – there will be at least 13 area first-year football coaches this season – because administrators, boosters and parents lack patience and newcomers quickly get discouraged.
"Today's attitude is, you've got to win now," Morris said. "The first four seasons at Rio Linda I didn't have a winning record. I'd probably be shoved out the door if that happened today."
Morris said it takes time for a coach to grow into such a demanding job.
"I was fortunate that I was allowed the time to learn from my mistakes," he said. "I don't think a lot of new coaches these days are getting that chance. That's why there are so many have-not programs."
Call The Bee's Bill Paterson, (916) 326-5506.
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