College dean returns from China as dragon boat medalist

By the time Scott Miller gets to his job at Broward College, he’s already been up for hours.

The Dean of Arts, Humanities, Communication and Design starts his mornings at 4:30 a.m. hitting the waters of Holland Park by 5. That’s where he trains for dragon boat racing.

Last month, Miller traveled to China to compete in the 2017 International Dragon Boat Federation World Championships. The following week, he returned to Broward College with one silver and five bronze medals.

“Not a bad haul for my first time,” Miller said with a laugh. “I’m really proud of everything we did. I was captain of that boat so it was my responsibility to lead.”

In dragon boat racing, there are 20 people on a large boat paddling — Miller compares it to a canoe — plus a person steering in the back and a drummer in the front.

“No one outside of Asia usually knows what dragon boat racing is. Everyone always gets it confused with rowing, but it’s actually paddling,” Miller said. “It’s a big drag race with 19 of your favorite paddlers.”

Miller has been with his team, Puff Dragon Boat Racing, for almost five years, but has been paddling for 28 years, starting as a spring canoer. This was his first — Scott Miller, Broward College Dean of Arts, Humanities, Communication and Design

time competing with the team internationally. Two years ago, he didn’t make the cut.

“So, I went through a lot of conditional training including weights, a lot of core, rowing machine and changing my diet to a vegan diet,” Miller explained. Two years of training later, Miller made the cut and headed to China with his teammates for ten days.

“We were competing where the sport originated over 2,000 years ago,” Miller said. “We oversaw a gorgeous lake with mountains plunging on each side. It looked like an ancient Chinese scroll painting.”

And by night, the teammates would watch themselves on TV.

“For the Chinese, this is like their world series,” Miller explained. “The competition is televised live and we’d come home at the end of the day and they’d be playing it again.”

But those replays just reminded Miller how badly he wanted a taste of gold.

“For the race where we won silver, we just smoked everybody,” he said. “We were so good and the last go around, the U.S. didn’t fair as well, so I think a lot of

people had already written us off. This was a wakeup call for people that we had really brought it.”

After returning to work where he oversees everything arts and humanities related — from symphonies to dance recitals — and a two week break from training, Miller’s already back at Holland Park for his morning routine.

“People always know what I do because they see me driving around with these canoes on top of my car,” Miller said. “I think they’ve gotten used to it and people know it’s a big part of my life.”

When Miller’s not paddling, he’s thinking about paddling — even for the sake of work.

“It informs the way I interact with other people because I think once you’re a part of a team, you see how much you can do with a group that you can’t as an individual,” Miller said. “Combining a group at different levels is a nice lesson for the office because everyone comes with a different skillset and it’s about striking a balance to come toward a common goal. It’s an obvious analogy.”

ebloch@sun-sentinel.com