ROCKTON — Mike Miller, the second-winningest boys basketball coach in NIC-10 history, is retiring after 21 years at Hononegah.
For coaches who have worked in the NIC-10, Miller’s 572 career wins trail only former Boylan legend Steve Goers, who won 881 games at five schools, third all-time in the IHSA. Joe Murphy has 728 wins (and counting), all at Winnebago, to lead all current coaches, 16th in IHSA history.
Miller was one of the youngest coaches in state history to be inducted into the Illinois Basketball Coaches Hall of Fame when he won his 400th game. He turns 56 in May, so he is still fairly young. But he is retiring as a freshman life science and biology teacher at Hononegah and, after a few weeks of thought, decided this is a good time to retire from coaching as well.
“It’s just a good time for me to go out together, with teaching and coaching,” Miller said. “But it’s weird for me to think I might not coach again. I have been part of a basketball team as a player or a coach since I was in sixth grade. The idea of potentially not being part of a team is scary. But it’s also exciting to do something else.”
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Miller, who played at Hononegah, Rock Valley College and NCAA Division III William Penn, became one of the youngest head coaches in NIC-10 history when Guilford hired him in 1991.
“Guilford took a chance on a 25-year-old kid when they hired me,” Miller said. “And at the time, there weren’t other young coaches around. Every other coach in the league was old enough to be my dad. In fact, they were all older than my dad.”
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Yet in his second year, Miller led Guilford to the Class AA state title game, losing in the finals to a Chicago King team that started two 7-footers. That is the only NIC-10 team to reach the state title game in the last 60 years.
After five years at Guilford, Miller went to Galesburg for three years, leading the Silver Streaks to a state runner-up finish in 1998. After that, he was an assistant coach at Vanderbilt for one year, before returning to high schools and leading Elgin to a conference title in his only year there. He then returned to his alma mater and went 397-214 in 21 years at Hononegah.
His final game was a memorable 57-56 loss to NIC-10 champion Auburn in the regional finals when Auburn had to block two shots in the last 10 seconds to escape with the win.
If, that is, that is his final game.
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Miller won’t coach again to chase records. He says all his state medals “are somewhere buried in a box in our basem*nt.” What he loves about coaching is “the relationships.” Johnny Rucker, the point guard on that 1993 Guilford team, called Miller as soon as word got out he was retiring. Other former players have asked him to join their golf league, even though Miller says he isn’t much of a golfer.
Maybe those relationships will be enough for Miller. Or maybe, he said, he will eventually decide to create more.
“If something interests me I could take a new job in a week,” Miller said. “Or you may never hear from me again. The unknown is kind of exciting.”
Matt Trowbridge is a Rockford Register Star sports reporter. Email him at mtrowbridge@rrstar.com and follow him on Twitter at @MattTrowbridge. Sign up for the Rockford High School newsletter at rrstar.com.
Mike Miller’s coaching record
Year, School, W-L
1992 — Guilford, 18-11
1993 — Guilford, 27-7
1994 — Guilford, 12-19
1995 — Guilford, 18-10
1996 — Guilford, 16-13
1997 — Galesburg, 22-6
1998 — Galesburg, 30-3
1999 — Galesburg, 11-14
2001 — Elgin, 21-8
2002 — Hononegah, 15-13
2003 — Hononegah, 21-8
2004 — Hononegah, 24-6
2005 — Hononegah, 10-19
2006 — Hononegah, 23-8
2007 — Hononegah, 22-9
2008 — Hononegah, 28-3
2009 — Hononegah, 26-4
2010 — Hononegah, 22-8
2011 — Hononegah, 22-7
2012 — Hononegah, 20-10
2013 — Hononegah, 17-13
2014 — Hononegah, 16-13
2015 — Hononegah, 14-16
2016 — Hononegah, 18-12
2017 — Hononegah, 23-8
2018 — Hononegah, 20-9
2019 — Hononegah, 18-15
2020 — Hononegah, 15-20
2021 — Hononegah, 6-2
2022 — Hononegah, 17-11
Total — 30 years, 572-305
