Maccabi Master

Palisadian Rich Miller Coaches LA Westside’s 16U Basketball Squad to Gold Medal

By STEVE GALLUZZO | Sports Editor

Asked to reveal the secret to his success, Rich Miller couldn’t find the words. Call it instinct, or karma or a sixth sense. Whatever “it” is, when it comes to coaching this humble Palisadian father and husband has the Midas touch.

Each summer for the past 20  years Miller has volunteered as a basketball coach for the Maccabi Summer Youth Games. Earlier this month he piloted his LA Westside 16U squad to the  championship—his 16th gold medal and 20th medal in all—a record of sustained excellence that has earned him the respect and admiration of his peers.

“I know the community pretty well, I know the programs and club coaches, so a lot of it is word of mouth,” Miller says. “I’ve been fortunate over the years to have really nice families and kids. This year, there were 2,400 kids from all over the world. You’re there for eight days and it’s exhausting. I’m up from six or seven in the morning to 10 or 11 at night.”

This year’s tournament was held in Irvine at the Merage Jewish Community Center of Orange County and no team demonstrated the motto Rachmanas—meaning “good sportsmanship”—more than  Miller’s.

“I’m intensely competitive but what’s more rewarding to me than winning is building character,” he says. “We’re careful about not showing anyone up. I’m calm, I have to be a role model all the time and  I connect with the kids pretty well.”

The last few years have been the hardest for Miller because he has had to coach his own sons.

“I started doing this before I was even married and when my boys were 4 or 5 I started taking them on the trips with me,” Miller recalls. “They were ball boys and liked being around the older kids.”

Miller’s older son Sammy, now a junior at Windward School, played for his dad’s 14U team in 2016 while his brother Max, a sophomore at Viewpoint, played on that team as well as Miller’s 16U teams the last two years. Max made the clinching three-pointer in this year’s semifinals versus another LA Westside team. Miller’s team went on to beat New York 92nd Street’s Y-Hudson for the championship. This summer’s LA Westside roster also included Pali High player Caden Arnold.

“I had to be overly conscious not to show favoritism… to treat my boys like I would any other player,” he confesses. “When they were growing up I tried never to coach my own sons’ teams.”

Miller moved to a bachelor pad in Castellammare in 1987 and has since remodeled it twice to fit himself, his loving wife Vicky and their two boys.

In 2002, a couple of parents from one of Miller’s Maccabi teams were so enthusiastic about their sons’ experiences that they asked him to coach the varsity team at Malibu High. He accepted, even though his kids were merely toddlers.

“Being a high school coach is consuming but once I gave that up, this became a perfect way to get my coaching fix,” says Miller, who can be flexible with his time working in real estate investment and finance. “We have three or four tryouts in January and February to get the team down to 10 players.”

Miller’s love for the sport   began at an early age in New Haven, Connecticut. He started playing when he was “5 or 6,” competed at the local Jewish Community Center, then captained the varsity team at Hamden Hall High. He played another four years at Adelphi University in New York

Miller represented the USA in the Masters Division at the International Maccabiah Games, twice in Tel Aviv, Israel, twice in South America (Sao Paulo and Buenos Aires) and once in Mexico City, winning two gold medals, two bronze and a silver.

As his players have moved on in their lives, Miller has made it a point to keep in touch. In many cases, he has followed players’ career paths. No matter what, he has stayed true to his principles.

Prior to a big game at Malibu, Miller learned that one of his best players had skipped practice to go surfing. Miller decided not to play him, even though his team trailed the entire game and lost. At the final buzzer, the player’s dad skirted across the court and thanked Miller for not playing his son.

One of his team parents used to Miller the “Zen Master” since he remains focused on the sideline even if his team is losing. For 10 years now Miller has been a vegan, saying “he just feels better.”

Miller has always set a high bar and in 1994 he earned his black belt in Shotokan Karate.

Upon returning from Orange County victorious once again, Miller wrote his players a letter thanking them and reflecting on their time together.

“In our first practice we spoke of some of our goals as a team,” the message read. “Obviously, we all wanted to bring home the gold.  At that time, I set some higher goals for us which I think we were able to obtain. You might ask ‘What is higher than first place?’ Let me answer that by summarizing our discussion from that first practice. We spoke about the great honor it was to be representing Los Angeles in a national competition. We spoke of the great opportunity to compete not only as basketball players, but also as Jewish basketball players. We spoke of becoming responsible young men who will win with humility and lose with dignity. We spoke of respecting our opponents as fellow competitors. We spoke of supporting our teammates’ efforts. I closed that practice with the concept of this team being your second family. I mentioned that we might not win every game, but we’ll all be winners if we stick together and think of the team rather than ourselves. I believe we obtained those goals and for that I’m thankful for all of your efforts. It was also apparent that there were strong friendships developing as well as a mutual respect for each other. We won with humility, carried ourselves with dignity, played with intensity and I certainly will remember this journey for many years.”