LAGNIAPPE

Only twice in 17 years have I turned this space over to another writer, and this is one of those times. In this feature, Oregon Stater Editor Emeritus Chuck Boice shares a personal moment from the life of legendary Beaver basketball coach Ralph Miller. In submitting it, Chuck told me, "Here’s my tribute to Ralph. This is the one story I most remember about him, the one that tells the most about the kind of man and coach he was." gpejr

In my years of covering Beaver men’s basketball for the Stater and Associated Press, I had a variety of courtside seats at Gill Coliseum.

Always they were good seats and sometimes with very interesting neighbors.
On this occasion, Ralph Miller’s Beavers were hosting the USC Trojans. My seat placed me alongside the Trojan radio broadcaster, a well-known sports voice in the huge Los Angeles market. Before the game noise took over, I heard his brief pre-game report and a couple of interesting telephone calls.

Just before the teams prepared for the opening tip-off, he jumped to his feet and almost shouted into his microphone.

"Los Angeles, I cannot believe my eyes! Oregon State is starting an all-black team, five black players, and USC is starting an all-white team! And here at Corvallis, Oregon!"

This grabbed my attention. I thought he was about to lash out at Oregon State somehow. But he wasn’t. He went after USC. And hard.

Among other things, he pointed to USC’s location, not only within a huge, metropolitan city, but also very close to several large minority communities. He indicated he was ashamed to be so shown up by the Beavers.

I was not surprised, since the topic of racial discrimination was continuing to be an issue in college basketball in the 1970s. Earlier, some of us were talking on the subject with a basketball writer from the East. He said, with a cynical chuckle, "They say you can start two but can’t start three, not a majority."

The game that the Trojan broadcaster and I watched that night was another victory for Miller’s Beavers. His 19-year record against the Trojans: 28-10.

After Miller’s customary post-game discussion with the media, I caught up with him and told him of the broadcast excitement his lineup had caused. He simply gave me one of his looks, and I thought I might be about to receive one of his "that was a dumb question" responses.

"Well," I stammered, "you started an all-black team and they started an all-white team."
"I hadn’t noticed," he bluntly stated and turned to another writer.

Knowing Ralph Miller, I believed him. He hadn’t noticed. He put the best basketball team on the floor, and color had nothing to do with his selection process.

Interestingly, later that season the Los Angeles Times devoted a major story to Ralph in praise of what was termed "his major contribution to black players."

As a high school coach, he gained attention when he won the Kansas state championships with an all-black lineup at Wichita East High. He said when he was growing up in Kansas that the only sport in which blacks could participate was track. But, he said, he never could see any difference between black and white.

At Wichita State, his were among the first non-segregated teams to tour the South. He gained extra attention with his outbursts when there were shows of discriminatory practices against his black players.

For the turbulent ’60s, Ralph took his program to Iowa and the Big 10. One of his starts was black guard Freddie Brown, later a standout in the NBA.

"Ralph didn’t care what color you were," Brown said, "as long as you could play."
The changes concerning race problems in collegiate basketball were coming, but very slowly considering the times.

Coach Miller did much for collegiate basketball. One of his greatest contributions was to help speed those changes.

Chuck Boice