DETROIT (11/17/2020) -- University of Detroit Mercy Associate Athletic Director of Sports Medicine Mike Miller has had a busy 2020-21 academic school year, dealing with a unforeseen Coronavirus pandemic, along with trying to bring back student-athletes and staff back to campus.

Miller, the Director of Sports Medicine at the University since he was hired in August of 2006, is entering his 15th season with the Titans this year. He worked as the head athletic trainer for Titan men's basketball for many years, while overseeing the entire sports medicine department.

Before that, he worked in college athletic training offices at Ball State, Eastern Michigan and Notre Dame, where he was the trainer for the women's basketball team that won a national championship in 2001. In the summer of 2015, Miller was inducted into the Ball State Ring of Honor for athletic training at a ceremony at the National Athletic Trainers Association's (NATA) annual conference in St. Louis, Missouri.

With the absence of the fall sports season in the Horizon League, DetroitTitans.com caught up with Miller:

Can you talk about the challenges of this year, working in sports medicine in college athletics during our current pandemic?
MM: "The challenges of 2020 for college athletics alone is one, finding out how we're moving forward with our sports. The focus has been football initially, going back to March, April and May, so our focus was soccer and cross country, because those were our first sports. In those sports, we were trying to find what needed to happen to make it successful. At the last minute, it was canceling the fall seasons, so then the next focus was basketball. Getting kids back to campus, making sure that we are doing all of the protocols successfully, safely and then working with the people across campus to organize the Covid protocols, how we do things, testing, organizing that with the NCAA, it's still a working movement.

"Working with basketball, unfortunately, we are a staff member down, so now I'm working with women's basketball. It's been fun getting back and working with student-athletes. I do that anyway, but still it's more one-on-one, getting back in the game. I had to dust my tape shears off and get back into it. But then finding out what the next steps are for basketball and making sure that everyone is safe. It's just been challenging. It's been a lot of work, I'm on the Covid response team for the University. I'll be honest with you, those people and what we have to do on a daily basis, it's pretty unique and unless you are really in it and working it, it's not easy.

"Covering women's basketball, being part of the Covid response team and then also my other duties, it's been challenging, very challenging. Last night I was on the phone, texting back and forth with residence life about a concern and taking care of that at 10:30 at night. That's just helping each other out. There are people across campus, at the Wellness Center with Dr. Silveri, Monica Williams in Residence Life and Lanae Gill with Residence Life as well and her staff and there are other people that are part of that Covid response team that does a lot of things behind the scenes. So we are constantly communicating about things that are going on, we are constantly moving, sharing information, but it's a work in progress too.
 

"My athletic training staff, they all have that responsibility to track each of their student-athletes and then it comes to me. But, there are times when you don't have a lot of time to move things and that's very challenging and stressful. The environment is changing, mental health is a huge concern and so far so good. We've managed and we've done our part. Training has been different, the social distancing, the masking, our strength and conditioning staff has done a great job with that in conjunction with my staff and sports medicine. Just keeping the kids healthy and then next is moving into this testing piece. We're doing testing in-house for our kids, we're managing that with labs from Henry Ford and Dr. Workings and we are testing three days a week for our tier-one level, everybody that is kind of going to be bubbled together. It's very challenging and day-to-day, it's non-stop."

Working again with women's basketball kind of takes you back to your roots as you used to work with Notre Dame women's basketball, doesn't it?
MM: "I was very fortunate. I graduated from Ball State and went to Eastern Michigan, had a great experience there working with the football team and then it opened the door for Notre Dame. Last minute, I got a position there. I started out, working a gambit of sports and by my second year, I was primarily with the women's basketball team and that was great working with coach McGraw, we still stay in touch. Niele Ivey, who is the head coach now, was the point guard for our national championship team. In 2001, we won a national championship. I can tell you it was fun.

"I really wanted to be a head athletic trainer. There's only 360 or so of us in the country at the Division I level and that was my goal and I pursued it. The athletic director at the time, Brad Kinsman, we just had a conversation and didn't have any means to leave because I was working football and women's basketball at Notre Dame. If you go back now, we were in the transition to upgrading all of the facilities at Notre Dame, so I was a huge part in helping coordinate the sports medicine piece, but working at that caliber-level. Seeing where they are at now, I can tell you when I left in '06 from Notre Dame and going back in 2007, it was a different campus and everything had changed. But that was a great experience for me and it set the tone for where I'm at today. I had some great mentorship up the chain from where I'm at today, I've been very fortunate."

Was athletic training a passion from a young age, was it always something you envisioned yourself doing?
MM: "Going back, I was heavily involved in sports as a youth. I'm from LaGrange, Indiana, it's a small town in Northeast Indiana, there's not many people there, it's like a population of 3,000 people in the town total. I'm very fortunate to have been able to go to Purdue football games, my dad was a Purdue graduate. So from a young age, in 1978 we were going to the Blue Bonnet Bowl and watching Purdue play, I just grew up around sports and idolizing the people on the field. That takes me back to my roots with that, what would it take to get onto the field. I remember as a kid, going down and giving high-fives to the guys as they came off the field for halftime. That was something that I wanted to do and then when I got to high school, I had an athletic training course and started to learn that and I liked that piece. My dad wanted me to go to Purdue and into business or engineering. But I chose athletic training and sports medicine. I pursued it. I had an eye-opening experience. If I want to go where I want to go, I need to do things a certain way.

"As a student athletic trainer, it was a process to get into the program (at Ball State) and then it was a lot of hours working. Working in college athletics at Ball State as a student, it opened my eyes to college athletics and really pushed me to be a college athletic trainer. That was my goal ever since and my path has just been perfect. I wanted to be a football athletic trainer, so the Eastern Michigan job as a graduate assistant, I ran a Division I football program alongside the head athletic trainer, but he gave me free rein to do all of the administrative work, speaking with the coaches, injury reports and game day prep, all of that stuff and he was there to support me, but he gave me the best experience.
 

"Stepping out into Division I, not all football positions are open and going to Notre Dame, everybody wants to work football. You get the opportunity, but I really worked my butt off, I really worked hard to move up and get more exposure, more game days, travel and work with football, worked with women's basketball. My career really turned when I started working with women's basketball in my second year. That experience afforded me to see and do and be around some top-caliber athletes in Ruth Riley, Niele Ivey. We've had some great players there (at Notre Dame), but we've had great success there and it kind of roller-coastered after a national championship to getting back to prominence. If I was still there today, I would probably be doing the same thing I was back then. But it wasn't what I wanted to settle for."

You've seen a lot of successes in teams and student-athletes over the years, what are some of your most memorable things in your 15 years as a Titan?
MM: "One of the most memorable is just getting to work with some amazing people in Dr. Michael Workings, who is our team physician. Dr. Terry Lock is our orthopedic physician and actually that kind of opened the door to work with a physician who has worked with professional teams in the area and see some things that we've been able to do to make a top-quality sports medicine program with the resources that we have. I can say that I've grown a staff that was myself and a 10-month assistant and two graduate assistant athletic trainers to myself, three full-time staff and four graduate assistant athletic trainers and then also just having a solid foundation in place. Things have changed with physicians in coverage with Henry Ford (Health System), but Dr. Workings is readily available to us and we have a system that we get our kids the best quality care. Developing a program, that is the one biggest thing that I'm proud of. When I made my transition to Associate (Athletic Director), I hired another position to cover basketball, I let my staff step up and take the reigns a little bit and now it's kind of getting back to my roots of what I've developed and kind getting it back to where I see it again, that's one of my biggest, proudest moments.

"On the athletic piece, you just have the successes of kids that aren't 100 percent, have an injury or need surgery. That's where I hang my hat and that's where that warm feeling inside and you take a kid that has had a significant injury, or should have missed a certain time and you get them back to where they were before and it's just the success story. So we've had some kids that are very talented and playing professional sports now that probably may not have. There's one of our student-athletes that had a significant knee injury his senior year and this is going back to our 2012 year when we went to the NCAA Tournament and he had a significant, devastating injury and it was a lengthy process then your normal, typical ACL. He had to endure two surgeries, but throwing the work at him and having him go through it all, to see him have a successful fifth-year season and that year we went to the NIT and now he's still playing professionally overseas. It's no different than any other student-athletes that I work with that are playing professionally. There are the times, you've had a kid that was significantly ill, I mean it's not just the injuries it's the other aspects of sports. We've had kids who have been diagnosed with cancer, we've had kids that have made successful returns. We had a student-athlete who had a significant illness that if it wasn't for her coming in and seeing me and getting her through the medical care, it could have potentially been a tragic situation and those are the things that mean the most to me, too. Working with those athletes and working and helping them through their situations, but also getting them to that next level of play, those are the huge things too.

"Then you have your championships, you have the men's basketball team, watching a program that when I got here didn't win as many games and having a new coach come in, bring new players in and then you go to the NCAA Tournament or the NIT. I still have great bonds with a lot of my former basketball players or former student-athletes, those are meaningful to me. A lot of time and a lot of sacrifices."

What are some things you enjoy doing when you're not in Titan Territory?
MM: "I'm a homebody pretty much. I don't have a lot of hobbies. I work a lot. Vacation, I have to be told or reminded. I think the last vacation, it was the week before that I believe I agreed to go on vacation. I had forgot about it. I have three boys -- a senior in high school, Spencer, he's 18. Conner, he's a freshman, he's 14 and then Parker, he's a seventh grader and he's 12 and then my wife, we've been together since college. We dated for four or five years. She put up with me for that long to wait for me to finish my graduate degree, my Master's degree. The stars lined up that everywhere we've moved to or where I've got a job, she's been able to transfer her job.

"So, I'm blessed to have three very unique and very different personality kids, but also these last few years I've been able to be around more instead of traveling all of the time and spend and see them grow up. My middle son he's knocking on my height, he's about six-foot, we had a measure-off last night and he was a quarter-inch off from me. My family has been the most supportive, my wife has sacrificed probably more than anything. When our third child came, she stopped working to be home with him until our son was old enough to go to school. She's done a lot and I couldn't do it without her. I don't know what I would do if I had somebody else. Somebody that has just been with you, by your side, come home from a loss or sitting in the ER until four in the morning with a student-athlete, she's never once complained or hesitated, she's always been there."