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Obituary for Miller Gene Don

Miller Gene  Don
Don Miller, more commonly referred to as “Coach Miller,” was born in his parents’ home in Thomas County, Kansas on February 29, 1936. Don was the youngest of six children. Don’s parents, O.J. and Lottie Miller, moved to Burlington Colorado where his dad was a tenant farmer. Don grew up in a sod house on the farm.
Don’s upbringing on the farm formed the lens through which he viewed the world. He learned an enduring appreciation for hard work and a great respect for anything earned through that work. Don was the first person in his family to attend college. He earned a scholarship to Western State and was a member of the football team from 1954-1958, earning all-conference honors as a senior. His time in college was also the period during which he suffered his largest number of broken noses and lost teeth, in no small part due to his position as a running back in the era before facemasks. Don Miller was nothing if not tough.
Upon graduation, Don served in the 82nd Airborne from 1959 to 1961. Upon his discharge, he used the money he earned in the Service to pay his remaining college loans, which left him with exactly $12. Don used that last $12 to buy a tank of gas and a case of beer, and then pondered his future with his friend Max Wheeler over a game of pool.
Don moved back to his alma mater in 1961 and began his coaching career. In 1962, Don accepted his first head coaching job for the Wiggins High School football team. Don married Karen Franklin, also of Burlington, on June 9, 1963. They lived in a trailer that was parked next to the practice field.
In 1964, they moved that trailer to Glenwood Springs, where Don began a 31 year career coaching football, track and wrestling for the Demons. At some point along the way, Don became “Coach Miller.” He embraced his players and the coaching community. These were his life-long friends. Don had particular respect for his mentors. Men on that list include Lloyd Gaskill, Nick Stubler and Tracy Borah, among others.
Don passed away in his home on July 6, 2015. He is survived by his sister, Velma Jacobs; his daughter, Kelly Alvarez; his two sons, Jon and Jason Miller; his daughter-in-law Jennifer Miller and eight grandchildren: Tristan and Finn Miller of Glenwood Springs, Colorado; Katie and Isa Alvarez of Burlington, Colorado; and Ashley, Jack, Nick and Paige Miller of Centennial, Colorado.
A memorial service will be held at 10:30 Sunday morning, July 12, at the Glenwood Springs High School football field. Coach Miller will then be laid to rest at Rosebud Cemetery, with a reception to follow at G.S.H.S.
In lieu of flowers, a scholarship will be set up to honor Coach Miller, and will benefit student-athletes that embody the spirit that Coach Miller sought to instill in his players – to try their best, hold their heads high, and never quit. Please contact Sandy DeCrow at 970-384-5501 or sdecrow@rfschools.com to make a donation.


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Life Story for Miller Gene Don

GLENWOOD SPRINGS — J.D. Miller remembers vividly the only time he saw his father, Don Miller, cry.

“It was right before the 1978 state championship game. Twelve inches of snow had fallen on the football field,” J.D. said. “And people came from all over to shovel the field. He was just so moved and couldn’t believe it.”

That, according to Don Miller’s youngest son, Jason, was the embodiment of what the longtime football coach at Glenwood Springs High School was during a coaching career that spanned more than a generation. It’s also how most people will remember Miller, who passed away on Monday. He was 79.

“His whole identity within this community was as a football coach,” Jason Miller said on Wednesday from the Miller’s Glenwood Springs home near Cardiff. “He was very proud of that.”

Miller, whose health had been fading for the past two years, amassed a coaching record of 204-174-4 in the three-plus decades he spent on the sidelines as the school’s football coach. The Demons won state championships under his tutelage in 1978 and 1980. He was inducted into the Colorado High School Activities Association Hall of Fame and the Colorado High School Coaches Association Hall of Fame, coaching his final high school football game in 1995.


“He was such a monumental figure here,” said Sandy DeCrow, a former coach and student at the high school. “If somebody asked, ‘Where’s coach?’ you knew exactly who they were talking about. You didn’t even need to say his last name.”

Miller also was Glenwood’s wrestling coach in the 1960s and was the school’s track and field coach until the 1997 season. His track and field teams claimed 20 district championships and finished second at the state meet twice.

“It was a great experience to coach under him,” said Blake Risner, Glenwood’s current head track and field coach who was an assistant track coach in Miller’s final two years. “One of the things I took from him was how much tradition mattered to him. When I took over, it was the least I could do to try to build on the tradition he had built already.”

Miller was also the school’s athletic director prior to his complete retirement in 1999. He was the school’s AD from 1975-79 and from 1995-99, giving way to former Glenwood AD Steve Cable.

Miller was well known not only for the success his teams had on the football field, but for what he wore on the sidelines. He always wore a T-shirt or a short-sleeved dress shirt with a tie regardless of the weather. It was, as his son John said, his way of telling his players that he was with them and would support them no matter what.

“The guy just made you believe you could do anything,” said Norm Bolitho, who played on both of Glenwood’s state-championship football teams in 1978 and 1980. “He never wore a jacket and he never wore anything warm, and it was to make a point to them that he would endure anything for them.”

Miller was part of a coaching staff at Glenwood that included boys basketball coach Bob Chavez, Athletic Director Nick Stubler and girls basketball coach Harlan Spencer, all of whom spent decades at the school. And all of them are forever immortalized at the school.

The football field and track, where Miller led the Demons to those two state championships, is now named Stubler Memorial Field. The school’s basketball court is now named Spencer/Chavez Gymnasium. The street behind Stubler Memorial Field was renamed Coach Miller Drive during a halftime ceremony at the field in October, 2003.

“It’s the end of an era, for sure,” said Mike Wells, who was Glenwood Springs High School’s principal at the time that Miller retired. “He’s a legendary man who impacted so many people in such a positive way. His legacy for the community of Glenwood Springs is just huge.”

Miller was born on Feb. 28, 1936. He grew up in Burlington, Colorado, and grew up in a mud hut with his siblings before earning a football scholarship at Western State College in Gunnison. He then helped coach baseball at his alma mater from 1961-62, was the head football coach at Wiggins from 1962-64, then spent the final 31 years of his coaching career at Glenwood.

“When dad brought him in, I was 5,” said Gary Stubler, the son of Nick Stubler who played for Miller on the football field until his 1978 graduation. “We just missed those great years, but you could see everything building into what it was going to be.

“He was hard-nosed kind of like our own Vince Lombardi,” he continued. “He was hard on us, but you could always tell that he loved us.”

Miller is survived by his sons, John and Jason, his daughter Kelly, and 10 grandchildren.

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