Boise State scored a go-ahead touchdown with 22 seconds remaining, and some percentage of Idaho State fans in the 10,000-plus crowd at Holt Arena headed toward the exits. Figuring that many of them had reached their car radios as the Bengals started driving after a trick-play kickoff return, ISU broadcaster Jerry Miller said, "If you left, you got what you deserved. You have to listen to the rest of the game from us."
That may have been Miller's most inaccurate call of the last 40 years.
The truth is that Bengal fans have been treated to Miller's descriptive play-by-play accounts of six sports in various phases of an iconic tenure that will end after the ISU men's basketball season.
"It's time," Miller said, explaining his retirement plans for March 2023, three months before he turns 70. Making the announcement in August is part of Miller's strategy to give his full effort to one last season in football and men's basketball. The farewell year "will be very bittersweet," he said. "I know there will be some tears along the way."
ISU's 2022 football season begins Aug. 27, almost exactly 40 years after an unexpected sequence of events altered Miller's life. Having grown up about 80 miles from Pocatello, the graduate of Sugar-Salem High School never could have imagined how intertwined he would become with ISU. A stint that will have covered nearly 2,200 sporting events has led Miller to label himself "forever a Bengal."
In parts of five decades, he has chronicled some incredible moments in ISU sports, including that comeback win over Boise State in the "Globe of Death" game. Miller also has lived through a lot of tough losses, while being immersed in the Bengals and caring about the people involved, yet remaining detached enough to professionally convey what was happening.
"That has always been my philosophy," he said. "Whether the Bengals were ahead by 20 points or behind by 20, I wanted somebody who just tuned in to get excited about listening to the game and not know from my on-air demeanor who was winning."
Former football coach Mike Kramer, one of nearly three dozen ISU head coaches who have worked with Miller, labeled him "as strong a professional as exists in the broadcasting industry" and "part of the fabric" of ISU athletics. Same with the community. As president of the Gate City Rotary Club, Miller launched a fund-raising program to plant ISU flags in front of hundreds of homes and businesses on football game days.
There will be more to talk about with the Bengals in 2022-23, concluding a major phase of Miller's life story. This 40-year chapter has been marked by checkpoints such as calling a football game a couple of hours after his wife, Rozan, delivered the youngest of their seven children in the old hospital across the street from Holt Arena. He drove 1,500 miles to San Antonio to broadcast an NCAA women's basketball tournament game, while dealing with the effects of surgery to repair a detached retina. And during the 2020-21 basketball season, when the pandemic limited travel, he called games from his bedroom, with Rozan as his engineer, while watching a video feed.
It all started in 1982 with the stunning news of KSEI broadcaster Larry Eckenrode's dying of a heart attack at age 37, a month prior to a football season when his station would use a newly reacquired contract to broadcast ISU sports.
Miller, then working in various roles for KSL Radio in Salt Lake City, inquired about the opening. He was hired by KSEI general manager Rick Castle, himself having moved into a new role to fill that part of Eckenrode's job description.
In an Idaho State Journal story in August of '82, Castle talked about listening to Miller's tapes of fill-in broadcasts of Utah Jazz and BYU games, labeling his style "one of the most descriptive I've ever heard. … He almost makes you feel like you're actually there."
A visually impaired listener later would tell Miller much the same thing, how his accounts enabled her to picture what was taking place. That captures Miller's goal for his last school year of ISU broadcasts.
"I really want to make this a good year, to do a good job for ISU and the fans," he said. "I want to make sure what I'm describing is what's actually happening on the field. If I can do that, I'll be OK."
That's an expression of the humility that makes Brad Bugger, one of several analysts who have worked with him, marvel about Miller. "Most of us got into this business because we have an ego," Bugger said.
Miller is an exception. "He's always giving me room to express my opinion," Bugger said. "There's a chemistry that develops. If that chemistry is not good, it's not a good broadcast. That's absolutely the No. 1 thing that I appreciate about Jerry."
Dave Molitor's history with Miller covers all 40 years in Pocatello, as he formerly worked in sales for KSEI and later became a broadcast partner. Molitor was not a professional broadcaster, but Miller helped him grow into the role. "You become part of the team, instead of kind of a side man, saying a few token words," Molitor said. "He certainly made me more comfortable."
Miller's "absolute, positive attitude" in his broadcasts is another attribute, according to Bugger. Miller has called a lot of ISU losses, but "he never allows that to get him down," Bugger said. "I've never heard him say a negative word about the program. … He never gives up on his team."
The 1992 "Globe of Death" game was a classic example. Miller's only expression of mild disgust was directed to the fans leaving the stands after Boise State went ahead. "The least they can do," he said on the air, "is stay and applaud the Bengals."
Those who departed missed the trick formation on the kickoff return, as five Bengals huddled around Robert Johnson, who then sprinted down the sideline into Boise State territory. ISU then completed the comeback on Paul Putnam's touchdown to Romy Wheeler, as succinctly described by Miller: "Putnam … short drop … he'll look … he'll throw for the end zone … touchdown, Bengals!"
Ten years later, Kenny McGowen's buzzer-beating 3-pointer from the right corner lifted the Bengals over future NBA star Damian Lillard's Weber State team. After taking a pass from Chase Grabau, McGowen hit the shot that in 2020 was voted the No. 1 moment in Holt Arena history, celebrating the building's 50-year anniversary.
Miller's call: "Grabau raises … dishes … corner … shot … good! This place is bedlam!"
McGowen enjoys reliving that play "just to hear (Miller's) excitement," he said.
Miller provided the soundtrack of McGowen's inordinate number of great moments in his two-year ISU career, while they developed a personal bond. McGowen came to regard Miller as "my Idaho dad."
They would talk about more than basketball, and Miller was "always passionate about how I was doing, how I was feeling," McGowen said. "It just kind of shows you that there are still good people in the world."
The relationships have extended to fans. Frank Mercogliano, formerly ISU's director of athletic media relations, was always amazed how many people would greet Miller, even in the middle of basketball broadcasts. "That feeds his soul; that camaraderie, the shared energy of the Bengals," Mercogliano said.
Miller's ISU football broadcast experience started with a turbulent, six-passenger charter flight to the season opener in Des Moines, Iowa. The bookend travel misadventure, or so he hopes, came during the pandemic-altered 2021 NCAA women's basketball tournament. ISU's program was dear to Miller, who had returned to the microphone to call a 21-game winning streak in women's hoops in 2000-01 as part of his job of managing KISU Radio and directing student media operations. With two sons living in San Antonio and doctors forbidding him from flying after his eye surgery, he volunteered to drive to ISU's first-round game vs. Kentucky in the Alamodome.
Miller had managed to call a men's basketball game that season, hours after undergoing the procedure for his detached retina. But the altitude caused illness as he and Rozan drove through the mountains of Colorado in what he described as "an excruciating ordeal … one of those experiences you're always going to remember."
He'll also never forget moments such as Frank Selto's 97-yard kickoff return to beat Boise State in 1987 and in basketball, two heartbreaking losses to John Stockton's Gonzaga teams, Donn Holston's duel with Wyoming's Fennis Dembo in a victory and a four-overtime loss at Montana State.
Here's hoping Miller's final seasons of ISU football and basketball will be memorable for the right reasons. The Bengals' basketball schedule gives him a full-circle career opportunity, with November road games against BYU, his alma mater, and Utah in Salt Lake City, where he worked before moving to Pocatello.
"There's no way to explain what my association with the Bengals has meant to my family and me throughout the years. I admire ISU fans for their resilience, hope and support they've given the players and coaches. From the original 'railbirds' to cowbells and vuvuzelas, to 'Superfan Ross' running up and down the field waving a flag, the fans have been the best. It's been an honor for me to be able to watch literally thousands of Bengal contests. Also, I've been uplifted over and over again by the spirit and heart of thousands of athletes at Idaho State University. I'm truly grateful for the lifetime friends I've made at ISU and to those who made it possible for me to be a part of it all. Forever a Bengal!"
Jerry Miller
Voice of the Bengals |
