The Miller Boys: La Grange’s Title Winning Trio

The backyard of the La Grange home where W.O. “Red” Miller and his wife Marilyn lived for over 60 years was where champions were made.

That’s where the Miller boys – from oldest to youngest: Bill, Neal and Michael – grew up competing against, and learning from, one another. All three boys won state titles for the Leopards in high school.

Then all three went on to win collegiate national titles (for the same coach but at different places!) – Bill and Neal as football players at Texas Lutheran College in Seguin (now Texas Lutheran University) and Michael as a quarterback at Southwest Texas State in San Marcos (now Texas State).

There’s is a tale of brotherhood, and a remarkable family that stoked a fire to succeed – and the Miller boys did, at every level.

A Father’s

Influence

The story of the Miller boys has to start with their dad, the late Wilbert “Red” Otto Miller, who was a principal, teacher and coach at La Grange for 26 years while his boys were growing up.

“I think we were all competitors because of our dad,” said Bill, speaking of his father who died in 2015.

And they were Studentathletes with a capital ‘S” because of their mom.

“Mom’s the one who demanded we study,” said Neal, who continued on that education path beyond college, and retired from LGISD a few years ago after climbing all the way to assistant superintendent. Their mom died in 2021.

The family arrived in La Grange when Bill and Neal were young and their mom was still pregnant with Michael. Their dad had been a basketball coach in Columbus but got a good job offer to move to La Grange. Their mom took a job working for St. Paul Lutheran Church.

“We owe a lot of what happened to us in life because of moving to La Grange,” Bill said. “I give a lot of credit to the people here.”

One person Bill specifically remembers as being almost like another Miller brother was his best friend David Zatopek, who still lives in La Grange “Besides my Dad and my brothers, David really motivated me to be as good as I could be. David made me better. We were both very competitive. I had to work hard to stay up with him academically and athletically. He was a big part of my success as a player and as a person,” Bill said.

But Red Miller was the driving force for all three of his sons.

“Dad saw something in each of us that nobody else saw,” Michael said.

“He was old school,” Bill said. “He never forced us to play, but if we were going to play he forced us to practice ... He said if you play, you play to win .. He coached our teams growing up. Every year the Cardinals won the Little League championship.”

Titles Pile Up

Those titles got more impressive as the boys grew. Bill, the oldest, and Neal, the middle son, were both players in the 1973 state championship La Grange team that beat Brenham for the school’s firstever baseball title.

Bill was a pitcher and first baseman on the team. Neal was an outfielder.

In 1974, Neal was an allstate quarterback for a Leps football team that was a state semifinalist.

“Kenny Hatfield was my back-up and he and Johnnie Johnson were my top receiving targets,” Neal said.

After graduation from LHS, Bill was on the 1974 TLU national title football team and then he and Neal teamed on the 1975 Texas Lutheran national championship football team. Both those TLU title teams were coached by Jim Wacker. The Millers and the Bulldogs won the NAIA title in 1975 going 11-1 (and outscoring their opponents 361-11) and beating California Lutheran 34-8 in the title game. Bill was a standout defensive back. Neal was the back-up quarterback to All-American quarterback Mike Washington.

At Texas Lutheran, Bill and Neal were also all-conference baseball players for the Bulldogs multiple times.

Bill was Most Valuable Player in the Big State Conference for baseball in 1975.

In 1978, Neal was named to the NAIA Academic All American Baseball Team as a first baseman.

Michael Miller, meanwhile, watched those accomplishments of his older brothers, and learned from them.

“I was younger, so there was some pressure on me to achieve,” Michael said. “I saw things in both of my brothers that made them super competitors. Bill had this tremendous work ethic. Neal had this fire. He was going to win because he was so competitive.”

Michael joined the family’s state title club as a sophomore on the 1975 La Grange state championship football team that went 14-1 and beat Childress 27-6. That Leps team included future NFL allpro Johnnie Johnson.

“I made zero contributions,” Michael laughed.

But that’s not really true. He was the back-up quarterback behind Leps great QB Kenny Hatfield, but Michael was the scout team quarterback, so really helped the starters prepare through his work in practice.

Michael, a self-described late bloomer, emerged as a standout quarterback at La Grange during the 1976 and 1977 seasons. It was assumed he would follow his brothers footsteps to TLU.

Neal was by-then a student coach for the TLU football team, but the Bulldogs just kind of took Michael for granted.

“TLU just didn’t try hard enough,” Neal said.

Michael signed with Southwest Texas State instead.

A New Path

By then Coach Wacker was gone from Seguin, having parlayed his success at Texas Lutheran into jobs at North Dakota State and then Southwest Texas State, where he inherited sophomore quarterback Michael Miller.

And he knew what to expect from a Miller boy.

“He believed we could win a national championship and we started to believe,” Michael said. “He could make average players great players. He was very charismatic ... He was a master at game prep.”

In Wacker’s explosive veer offense that was ahead of his time, Michael became a star. He threw for 4,446 yards and 31 touchdowns and ran for 33 touchdowns as a Bobcat. All those marks still rank among the top six all-time in Bobcats history. Michael was inducted into the school’s Hall of Honor in 1997.

His crowing achievement in San Marcos was going 13-1 his senior year and leading the Bobcats to their first football national title in 1981. He was named Lone Star Conference MVP that season.

He was drafted in the 12th round of the 1982 NFL draft by the Kansas City Chiefs.

“I think there were 326 players taken in the draft and I was 318,” Michael said. “I went to mini-camp but I decided pro football was not for me.”

Distinguished

Careers

All the Miller boys stayed around the world of athletics – and education.

Bill was a legendary head baseball coach at TLU (winning 530 games) and in 1999 became the school’s athletic director, and still is. Under his leadership the Bulldogs have won five NCAA Division III national titles in various sports and 61 national Top 10 finishes.

Neal is the only brother who still lives in La Grange and has been retired for five years from LGISD.

Michael is a retired high school athletic director, himself, and lives in Floresville, south of San Antonio Now, all these years later the Miller boys are still close – and still look like they could do some damage on a football or baseball field.

“We get together any chance we get,” Bill said. “We call each other on the phone at least once a week.”

During those calls they have lots of amazing memories to reflect upon.