Miller is under the radar, and that’s fine with him
Mohegan
Curt Miller, the occasionally volcanic coach of the Connecticut Sun, was about 24 hours removed from a notable technical foul, while doing some shopping at the outlets Thursday night.
Miller, hard to miss Wednesday racing onto the court after the refs — as if on a safety blitz — spotted two fellow shoppers wearing Sun gear. Here's how it went: Miller: “Hey, I love your shirts!” Fans: “Thanks! We're so excited! We won last night! We're going again Sunday!” Miller: “That's awesome!” Fans: “Did you go last night, too?”
Boom.
They didn't recognize their own head coach.
“I didn't have the heart to tell them,” Miller said, chuckling. “I was like, ‘yeah, I was there. Big win for them.'”
Miller's bemusing reaction almost runs afoul of an increasingly humorless public. Surely, we all know people who would have been chafed at the snub, perhaps going all the way to the odious, “what, you don't recognize me?”
It is indeed a life lesson that life lessons come when you least expect them. But anyone who has ever been in the public eye or achieved some celebrity status — local, regional, national — has felt such humbling doses of reality. It's just that we don't all react similarly.
“Oh yes,” Miller said. “Definitely humbling. You realize you can never take yourself too seriously or think you're too important. This league is about players anyway. I mean, unlike Geno at the outlets. I think everyone would have recognized him.”
Ah, but even Auriemma has a great story to tell. After UConn made its first Final Four in 1991, Auriemma realized they spelled his last name wrong on his commemorative ring.
“Just when you think you're famous,” Auriemma cracked, “you realize there's a whole lot of people out there who really don't give a (hoot) about you.” True, true. Might the rest of us learn a lesson from this, too?
As in: No matter who we are, who we know or what we've done, we're just not that important. Our life's travails just aren't as serious as we may portray. We all have our stuff. Everybody. Your form of suffering
isn't any greater or less than anybody else's. So get out of your own head.
Heck, even yours truly was awakened one night last week. A reader approached at a social event and said, “you're not nearly as big of an (expletive) in person as you are in the paper.” I laughed and shook his hand. What else can you do? As the old line goes, “life's too short. Smile while you still have teeth.”
Then perhaps realize that we pay too much attention lamenting ourselves and not enough attention helping others.
Who knew you could learn so much because two shoppers were sporting Sun gear?
Miller, ever entertaining during games, will become a whole lot more famous in these parts when and if the Sun win their first championship. They took a significant step toward securing a playoff berth with Sunday's win over the exhausted Bill Laimbeers of Las Vegas, who actually fought through their crushing travel fatigue and actually deigned to play a game.
Kind of funny, too, watching the postgame handshake. There's Miller, the little fella, encountering Laimbeer, who is, you know, bigger than a bread box. Hard to believe they do the same job.
“I get the questions a lot,” Miller said. “I'm small. I don't look like I'm with the basketball travel party. Like on airplanes, I'll get, ‘what do you do for the team?' They're genuinely shocked I have something to do with the on the court product.”
Miller was on his game during Sunday's 109-88 win, resorting to his familiar foot stomp in times of distress, perhaps letting his feet do what his mouth can't. He has one technical left this season. Any additional Ts result in a suspension.
“I'm not going to change the way I coach,” Miller said. “There was a foot stomp club at Bowling Green (where he coached in college). Call me what you call me, but if I'm worried about coaching a different way and not coaching with passion, I'm not being true to myself.
“I have an unbelievable staff. If it ever came to the point I wasn't coaching, I have more than a capable staff. I'm going to keep coaching the only way I know. The assistants also know they can rip my suit and grab my suit coat more than in the early part of the season.”
And if you see him at the outlets, don't forget to say hi. This is the opinion of Day sports columnist Mike DiMauro