I’m privileged to announce that Glen Lake hall-of-fame basketball coach Don Miller has been chosen as the Owen Bahle Award for Service recipient by the Suttons Bay-Leelanau Rotary Club. It’s basically a “person of the year” selection for Leelanau County.
A banquet in Don’s honor is scheduled for 5:30 p.m. Friday, May 3, at the Leland Lodge. Tickets will be available here at the Leelanau Enterprise, from Rotarians, and by calling Chet Janik who can be reached at (231) 633-7680. For folks who know Don, please consider attending.
For those who are learning about Don Miller for the first time, you’ll find plenty of material online about his success in molding young people both on and off the basketball court. Although he’s been retired for 20 years, that work continues. As part of the nominating process for Rotary I wrote a column about Don’s work with the scholarship committee of the Leelanau Prospectors Club, which follows.
*** I’m at my desk hoping to explain the huge impact Don Miller has had on one of the largest scholarship programs in Leelanau County, and all I can think about is the Sound of Music.
And I’m hearing a song. “How do you solve a problem like Maria?”
It’s more than a rhetorical question. It’s a non-nonsensical query, because Maria and Don are problem solvers. But there is a connection, somehow, even though Don would be the first to break out that wide smile and say, “You must not know me very well if you’re comparing me to a nun.”
Fair enough. But do you remember how quickly Maria broke through the barriers that built bridges between previous nannies and the artificially prudish Von Trapp children? Maria settled their hearts, letting them know that it was perfectly fine to be children and adults in one package. In fact, that’s the most difficult part of growing up, finding the right proportions for different situations and different stages of maturity in life.
I’ve been a member of the scholarship committee of the Leelanau Prospectors Club from just about the day I bought the Leelanau Enterprise from my former boss, Dick Kerr, in 1997. Early on we established a panel of judges, all educators, to separate the decision-making responsibilities from club members who might have a child, relative or friend apply for a scholarship. We’ve provided $150,000 in scholarships through the years, mostly to high school seniors heading off to college but also to auto mechanics, nurses and social workers who wanted to better their career opportunities though more schooling.
From its beginning, Don Miller has been the leader of the panel of judges doing the real work of the scholarship program.
A key aspect and my favorite part of the work of judges is the in-person interview process. As $2,000 is at stake, it’s a high-pressure day. Applicants come in various states of mind, but they are often more than a little befuddled. Hands tremble. Memories fail. For some, it’s their first job interview. There is a real chance that they will withdraw into nothingness even though they’ve gotten straight As and, often, competed at the highest levels of high school sports.
Don Miller throws them a life vest. He chats and warms their psyches. He prods to find their personalities. He gives them confidence to compete in a space that is foreign to them.
Then he and other judges are honest in telling those students what they did right in the interview and how they can perform better the next time, which just might be for the first job of their professional career.
He’s the face of the scholarship program. And we love him as much as the kids love him.
With Don Miller at the helm, we’ve never encountered an ethical question about the scholarship program. He’s there every year, taking time to dig deeply into the 10-20 applications we receive, provide input on the finalist selection, interview some of the top graduating students of Leelanau County, and then inform both the winners and non-winners (we have no losers as all have advanced their futures) of the outcome.
Don will say that it’s not about him, that the other judges contribute just as much as him. Again, fair enough. We do have a great panel of judges, no doubt. This story is about Don Miller.
How do you catch a moonbeam in your hand? Don’t know. But first you have to recognize it for what it is.
