Ex-Mustangs head man less of a maverick

Myron Miller feature (leading up to NH semifinal)Miller, who led Costa Mesa to its only CIF final, will try to guide Tustin past Newport Harbor into another title game.It is often said that teams take on the personality of their coach. But in the case of the Tustin High football team and Coach Myron Miller, there also appears to be a physical resemblance.

Adorned in black shorts, white tennis shoes, a short-sleeve shirt and his trademark black visor, Miller strikes a no-frills image on the sideline.

One is more likely to find a pencil behind his ear than a headset over one. And the familiar laminated, two-sided play chart some coaches stuff down their waistband on game night is rendered unnecessary by the paucity of plays Miller has prepared.

A longtime practitioner of the smashmouth double wing offense -- which can break the will of opponents and scoring records with seemingly equal frequency -- Miller’s philosophy is as reductive as his wardrobe.

Miller has been known to call fewer than a handful of plays in a game. His idea of diversifying is running the power pitch to the left, instead of the right.

“I don’t do anything to look good,” said Miller, whose Tillers (6-6) play host to Newport Harbor (9-3) in a CIF Southern Section Division VI semifinal Saturday at 7:30 p.m. “I’d rather look stupid than be stupid.”

In his 11th season at Tustin, after a celebrated three-year stint at Costa Mesa High that included an appearance in the 1993 CIF Division VIII title game, Miller has been called much worse.

The Costa Mesa resident has endured questions of his character much more than those concerning his intellect or coaching acumen.

While his players and co-workers typically regard him with genuine esteem, coaches, administrators, parents and spectators alike have branded him an insufferable rogue.

Miller’s indifference to those insistent on “holding down” the score, has left behind a string of lopsided victories and more than a few vindictive victims.

“I don’t think people will ever forgive me for some of those scores,” Miller said.

Those scores included a 92-0 win over Ocean View in 2001 (a game later forfeited due to the use of an ineligible player). From 1996 through 2001, Tustin posted at least 60 points nine times.

But in recent years, Miller, 62, has relented to the more conventional guidelines of sportsmanship.

His team has not topped the 55-point plateau since the aforementioned 92-0 debacle. There is no coincidence, Miller said.

“When I was building a program, I could have done more to keep some of those scores down,” Miller said.

“I wasn’t very apologetic. But through talking to coaches and listening to people, I’ve decided that maybe they’re right.”

Miller said coming to Tustin was the right move for him, though he still cheers any success attained by the Costa Mesa program.

“I still run into somebody in the neighborhood or one of my former [Costa Mesa] players who remembers me from Costa Mesa,” Miller said. “I used to coach Little League when my boys were growing up, so I knew a lot of the names at Costa Mesa even six or seven years after I stopped coaching there.”

Miller said he will always recall with fondness the storybook 1993 season.

“I still have a picture of that team on my office wall at Tustin,” he said of the only Mesa squad to advance past the CIF quarterfinals.

The Mustangs went 9-3-2, falling to Trabuco Hills in the CIF title game. The three playoff victories that season represent nearly half of the seven the program has earned in its 46 varsity seasons.

“It was a group of kids that bonded well and had a great deal of success,” Miller said. “It was a special group that I felt really close to. It was just a bunch of soldiers and everyone knew their role.”

Former Costa Mesa assistant coaches Wally Grant and Alex Henderson remain with him at Tustin.

Miller is 85-43 at Tustin after going 19-13-3 at Costa Mesa. After several years as an assistant at several high schools, Miller debuted as a head coach in 1989 at Ramona High in Riverside. He guided the Rams to a Division IV co-championship that season.

Miller’s Tillers have won five league titles, been to the CIF semifinals five times and reached the title game in 1997. That season, the Tillers -- led by DeShaun Foster, now with the Carolina Panthers -- lost in the Division V title game to Carson Palmer-led Santa Margarita, 55-42.

“I figured out if I coach another 24 years, I could get 300 wins,” Miller said.

Chronic knee pain -- from damage done competing in football, wrestling and rugby at Grant High in the San Fernando Valley, then Occidental College -- has intensified with a “cyst the size of a grapefruit” behind one knee, Miller said.

“I’m supposed to have surgery [to remove the cyst] the Monday after our last game. But even though I’m a little gimpy, hopefully I can put that off another week.”

Miller said he plans to put off retirement, as well.

“There may come a time when I’ll just be someone else’s assistant,” he said. “But I see myself coaching until the last day of my life.