Coal City’s Ken Miller enters Illinois High School Football Coaches Association Hall of Fame

The Illinois High School Football Coaches Association Hall of Fame most often rewards head coaches who enjoyed stellar careers from a record standpoint.

Not as frequent is the inclusion of assistant coaches among the elite.

Longtime Coal City assistant Ken Miller was surprised, to say the least.

“I got a phone call in December,” said Miller, a familiar figure these days as the director of community relations for the Joliet Slammers. “The gentleman said, ‘Congratulations, you have been elected to our Hall of Fame.’

“Tears came to my eyes. It’s one thing to be recognized by people, but another to be recognized by your peers, to have your name linked to the great coaches. It’s a great honor.”

The 70-year-old Miller – Ken P. Miller – was nominated for the Hall of Fame by longtime Coal City head coach Ken W. Miller. He was inducted April 2 at the annual Hall of Fame banquet in Champaign.

After three years of coaching football at Cornell High School, Miller was hired at Coal City as a baseball and basketball coach. He coached Coalers’ varsity baseball for 17 years and varsity basketball for 10 years.

“I didn’t get into coaching football right away; we had fall baseball back then,” Miller said. “Coal City started a football program with freshmen and sophomores in 1976.”

Miller began helping with the football program in 1980 and spent 35 years on the gridiron, largely on the staffs of Ken W. Miller and current coach Lenny Onsen. He coached linebackers, receivers, quarterbacks and the offensive line at various times.

“I spent most of my time with the line,” he said.

The current president of the Coal City School Board, Miller’s final season on the football staff was in the fall of 2014. He spent 17 years teaching U.S. history, civics and physical education at Coal City, and then 17 years as the guidance counselor, a position he entered in 1985.

Despite a busy schedule, he said he stayed with football for three main reasons.

“First, it’s not as long a season as basketball,” he said. “Second, the (often poor) baseball weather in the spring. Third, football starts the school year. It was always fun to be part of that. Plus, it helped that we were successful. We had a great run, made the playoffs something like 18 years in a row and I got to work with some great coaches.”

It also was in 1985 when Miller’s first wife, Barbara, the mother of their two children, was killed.

“She was hit on her bicycle,” Miller said. Patricia, who now is a stay-at-home mom in Coal City and tutors students in her home, was 12 at the time. Scott, who works for Caterpillar in Peoria, was 9.

“That was a really difficult time for our family,” Miller said. “But we made it through. We had to. Life goes on.”

Miller married his current wife, Colleen, in 1998. “She is a part-time math teacher at the high school,” he said. “She’s very good at it. They brought her back after she retired.”

For nearly 20 years, Miller has been a member of the Chicago Pitch & Hit Club, which orchestrates an annual banquet that honors baseball figures from the Chicago area on all levels, the major leagues on down. He has been on the board for most of that time and is a past president.

“An old scout named Charlie Hum was a friend of mine,” he said. “He asked me if I would like to be a member. That’s how I got involved. I’ve really enjoyed my association with the Pitch & Hit Club and also with the Old Timers (Baseball Association of Will County, of which he also is a member).”

The Joliet Slammers’ first general manager, beginning in 2011, was John Dietrich, who was a Pitch & Hit club member.

“We had tickets to a Dodgers game, and John asked me if he did become the Slammers’ general manager, would I like to go to work in Joliet,” Miller said. “I said sure.

“A lot of my responsibility is in sales. I sell season tickets once in a while. I represent the club at different organizations. I have really tried to get community nights together. I handle all donation requests.

“It’s busy, and I enjoy it. How could anything be better than working at the ballpark?”

In a sort of retirement, yet still the president the Coal City School Board and director of community relations for the Slammers. That’s the Ken Miller who wears so many hats.

“That’s what has kept me going, doing a lot,” he said.

He is a new inductee to the IHSFCA Hall of Fame, yet his life has been and is so much more than coaching football – which he did for 38 years in all.