Preaching and players
Langston’s Calvin Miller pastors at Mt. Zion Baptist Church and teaches young defensive players how to be men.
LANGSTON
Calvin Miller coached OSU defensive linemen for Les Miles in 2001 and also started pastoring the good folks at Mount Zion Baptist Church on Knoblock Street in Stillwater, not too many blocks south of Hideaway Pizza and Gallagher-Iba Arena.
If it sounds like a heavy load, it was. After that season, Miles called in the man who as a player helped change OSU’s gridiron fortunes and who sacked Joe Theismann while playing for the New York football Giants.
“I admire you, Calvin, but you gotta make a choice,” Miles told Miller.
“OK, Les, but that choice was made a long time ago,” Miller told Miles.
Miles moved Miller to a support role, where he could mentor young Cowboys. But while Christ was in his heart, coaching was in his blood. And so on a chilly, windy Tuesday this week, Miller found himself where he finds himself most autumn mornings, coordinating the defense at Langston University and impacting the lives of young men who need it.
“He changed my life,” said defensive lineman Jamarae Finnie, a senior from Tacoma, Washington. “He’s made me a mature person, inside and outside football. Life lessons every day. Tough love every day. You would think he’s a 30-year drill sergeant, a Navy Seal.”
No, but Miller is a 30-year football coach. He came to OSU in 1973 from East Mississippi Junior College and helped the 1974 Cowboys break a 16-year bowl drought. Those Cowboys of Jim Stanley went 7-5 and beat Brigham Young in the Fiesta Bowl. Bum Phillips was Miller’s defensive line coach; Wade Phillips was a graduate assistant.
Miller played a few years in the NFL, then went on about life. Drawn to those wayward boys, he worked at a juvenile detention center in Oklahoma City. Worked in the oil field. Drove a cab. Pastored a small church in Binger, 60 miles west of OKC.
In 1987, then-Langston head coach Ron Aiken offered Miller a job on the Lions’ staff. Miller loved it immediately. “Once I got into coaching, I was going to stay in coaching,” Miller said.
After that season, Dave Rader hired Miller onto the Tulsa staff, and Miller
coached Dennis Byrd. In 1991, Pat Jones brought Miller back to OSU, and he coached Jason Gildon and Juqua Thomas. When Bob Simmons replaced Jones in 1995, Miller moved to Kentucky, working for Bill Curry. Miller returned in 1997 and coached Jamal Williams and Kevin Williams.
But in 2001, Miller began pastoring the Mount Zion Baptist Church, and Miles made Miller choose. And Miller knows he needed to choose. He had moved up service times so that he could sooner work on game plans, which is not exactly how the Sabbath was drawn up. “I believe I heard a voice say the Lord’ll take care of me,” Miller said. “It was a hectic schedule. I worked around the clock. I guess the good Lord worked it out.”
And how. A year later, Miller got the chance to coach at Southern Nazarene. He spent three years there, then moved on to Central Oklahoma. Miller finally retired, or so he thought, after the 2009 season, but three months later he was offered a coaching position at Langston, just 22 miles from Stillwater.
Now on his fourth head coach at Langston, Quinton Morgan, the 9-0 Lions are ranked eighth nationally in the NAIA. Win Saturday at Wayland Baptist, and Langston wins the Central States Football League outright and could host a firstround playoff game.
Langston ranks second nationally in scoring defense, 12.9 points per game. Miller “is a great coach and, most importantly, an amazing man,” said Langston athletic director Donnita Drain Rogers. “He is a great mentor to his players and a tremendous asset to our athletic department.”
Miller knows he’s blessed. Knows that only at this level could he coach football and pastor a church. Only at this level is the recruiting done by phone and trips to the bus station to pick up a prospect sight unseen.
“It’s a privilege to be on a team he’s coaching,” said senior defensive back Michael Smith of Compton, California. “I’m soaking it all in. You want to be him. You want to be around him. Just his demeanor. You see somebody you could look up to.”
Miller talks fast, with a laugh that belies that tough-love discipline. But the Lions promise they’ve seen his angry side.
Show up late for a meeting, and you’ll be running sprints even if it’s zero degrees outside. The Lions already practice from 5 to 7 a.m., just so players will be up and ready to hit class. Miss an assignment on the field, and the former New York Giant will let them know that’s not how Harry Carson or Beasley Reece would have done it.
“When I’m out on the field, I’m not worried about what my friends and family will think,” Smith said. “I worry about what he’ll think. Can’t look soft in no form or fashion, or I’ll hear it from coach Miller.”
Tyler Bess, a senior defensive back from Hollis, first met Miller years ago when he recruited a player from the small town in far southwest Oklahoma. Bess never forgot Miller’s demeanor. By the time Bess was a Hollis senior, he said, “I just wanted to be around him.”
Miller, 64, said he doesn’t know how much longer he’ll coach. Can’t do it forever. You figure a man has only so many 5 a.m. practices in him after late-night calls from church members.
“There’s such a demand on you with the church,” said Miller, who already has made this choice once. But Langston “is a place where God wants me to be, and I can really make a difference in young men’s lives. I just strive to do your very best. Strive to love people. Strive to make a difference in your community and your state. I just feel this is my role. Always has been. I got a double calling.”
Miller is far from the bright lights. Far from the Fiesta Bowl and Giants Stadium and players who are sure-shot NFL prospects. But that’s OK. Miller isn’t looking for bright lights. He’s looking for bright futures in these kids that show up from Tacoma and Compton and Hollis.
“They learn how to work,” Miller said. “Perseverance. How to hang in there and get a degree. Sometimes guys stick. Sometimes guys don’t. Usually, they come out successful.”
Expectations. Standards. Responsibility. Those are the things missing in a lot of young people’s lives. Those are the things that Miller sets for the Lions.
But the drill sergeant doesn’t just run the money changers out of the temple, he also encourages the multitudes. On the sidelines of Langston games, Miller will sing the old spiritual, “Load the Wagon,” and get the whole sideline jazzed. He’ll chant, “Are you ready? Are you ready? Don’t fool me now. Are you ready?” And a band of Langston football players indeed will be ready.
“He’s not scared to show his emotion; it’s never about him,” said Finney, the kid from Tacoma who admits to looking somewhat like a man after spending a few years with Miller, who spends his Sundays preaching the gospel and chilly autumn mornings delivering the same to a different flock