West Side's program on the rise
(Editor’s Note: This is the first in a three-part series on the rise of West Side Christian’s boys’ basketball program.)
West Side Christian's basketball program appeared to rise to unprecedented heights during the 20192020 season. The Warriors went 20-6, competing against a schedule that included public schools, claimed the Dual State championship and had a player, Stephfan Tabe, sign to play Division I basketball at the University of Central Arkansas.
Coach Randall Miller pondered the question, was this a ground-breaking season for the boys' program?
“In the sense that maybe the public got to see them and the way they were capable of playing, probably so, but I thought our real breakthrough came about halfway through the season before,” Miller said. “We have actually played a really tough schedule for a few years now, but they just are not recognizable names to people in the community. Halfway through the '18-'19 season, things really clicked. We averaged about 11 threes a game the last half of the year and our ball movement really went to the next level.”
Miller began working at West Side in 1995 as a PE teacher and coaching assistant for basketball, football, volleyball and softball. He returned to West Side in 2013, initially as a classroom teacher and boys' basketball coach. This season, he coached both boys' and girls' basketball teams and served as the athletic director.
He said the program has taken leaps forward in the past few seasons.
“The boys' team was young, had been beaten up pretty good by some older more experienced teams, and were not really familiar with the dayto-day level of work that it takes,” said Miller. “My initial goal was to establish an everyday blue collar approach, and we did that by putting a lot of work into their skills and defense. We believed we could become competitive quickly if we played great defense. The first week of practice, one of the players asked me if we were really going to practice every day, and at that level. It just illustrated how far we had to go.”