Jon Lambert

Coach Profile: Sally Miller

11/25/2020 10:24:00 AM

By: Evan Shomo

Each Wednesday, TCNJ Athletics will profile a coach from one of its programs. Today, it's head softball coach Sally Miller. Miller has been at the helm of the softball program for the last 25 seasons. She owns a career record of 635-325-3. In her first season at TCNJ, Miller directed the Lions to an NCAA Division III Championship.

You are now in your 26th year at TCNJ. What is it about The College keeps you coming back?

What initially brought me to TCNJ 25 years ago still holds true today. It is a college that supports a strong Division III philosophy, where I am surrounded by student-athletes who want to compete at a very high level in the classroom, on the field, and who want to be coached. I thoroughly enjoy the student-athlete that TCNJ attracts where academics and softball are very important. I also enjoy how players and their families understand there is a bigger picture. I also thoroughly enjoy the people I work with day-to-day, who make coming into work so much fun. It's been really hard not seeing them on a routine basis since March 13^th. I enjoy the day-to-day of life's ups and downs with them. Many coaches and staff members have also been at TCNJ many years like me, so we've gone through so much of the same day-to-day challenges while becoming genuinely very good friends. There are really good people in the athletic department and all across campus who just want to provide a good experience to students who choose to attend TCNJ.

In your first season, you led the team to an NCAA Championship. How did it feel to coach a team to a National Title in your first season at TCNJ?

It was a blur to say the least, and so stressful that I know I did not enjoy it like I wish I would have. We had 12 players my first year. However, those 12 players could not have been any more committed to learning from me as I was to learning from them. I was young, and even though I had come from a variety of assistant coaching jobs, I did not for a second think I knew everything. I had a lot to learn, and I was grateful that those 12 players and assistant coaches accepted me right away. I don't remember a lot from that year. I do remember the day before the championship game sitting with Michelle Carlson Neveling in the hotel, plotting strategy on how we were going to beat Chapman's All-American pitcher. I remember bringing the players into my hotel suite with whiffle balls, going through the strategy and having them believe in it. We could do it, we just had to trust what we were saying. We took a different strategy than other opponents, because we also had tremendous speed and great baserunning awareness. That ultimately was a big factor to winning a lot of games in 1996 and then winning the National Championship.

You have led one of the most successful programs in Division III softball history, with 635 wins over the course of your career. What has been the key to the success over the years?

I have always been able to recruit the right student-athlete to TCNJ, who genuinely can be successful in the classroom and on the field. Not only are they good students, they are also very talented on the field. It's definitely a teaching program where expectations are to push yourself every day to be better individually and for the team. The team always comes first. I depend a lot on upperclassmen to help me on and off the field. If I didn't routinely have upperclassmen who helped me year-to-year instill the standards and expectations of the program, we would be average. I've also had very good assistant coaches through the years who were committed to upholding the standard level of play and support what our standard of play will be. Ultimately though, it will always come back to those players in the program who year-to-year were dedicated on and off the field in challenging themselves to be a better player and teammate. If you don't have players that want to get better and also learn how to perfect a new skill that might be challenging where "walking away" would be easier, we would never have a consistent group of leaders pass down what it takes. There is a progression in learning the TCNJ style of play, and after a player's first year, they typically settle in.

What are some of your favorite memories and moments from your coaching career?

I think my favorite moments of late have been from Senior Day at Dr. June Walker field. If I have any regrets, it's that I wish I would have thought of doing "their" day much earlier in my career. It's a day of reflecting on those players through their years of playing in the program. The speech takes me weeks to write, and I often change it the morning of. It's an emotional day for sure, because I have such respect for what my players do every day. The challenges that they have as a student-athlete at TCNJ are so demanding. This day gives me the opportunity to celebrate with others who they are as a person, student-athlete, teammate, and what their contributions have been to the program. It's already very emotional thinking of Senior Day 2021.

Who are some of the people who have helped you the most in your coaching career?

I was fortunate to have been an assistant coach at three other colleges: Princeton, Michigan State, and Indiana, but I came from a program at University of Iowa with Gayle Blevins, where she showed such dedication, passion, and a genuine interest in our lives. This is where the foundation of what inspired me the most originally came from. Once I started coaching, I had such different experiences with different responsibilities at all three universities. During those years, I was also fortunate to move around in the summer months working many camps and clinics. This allowed me the opportunity to watch and learn from so many great coaches. I do know in my first few years, I was on the phone with Cindy Cohen and Gina LaMandre six of the seven days a week. Cindy coached at Princeton which is where I started my career, and Gina was the coach at University of Maryland who I met through Cindy. These two people became my biggest mentors, because I trusted them 100% with any ups and downs in my program.
Cindy coached with Dr. Walker, and Gina was an alum of TSC, so they both understood the amount of stress I felt of not wanting to let anyone down. I needed to learn how to keep this National Championship atmosphere at TSC/TCNJ going. I needed to keep trusting myself, and they helped guide and support me. They knew me better than anyone else, and I trusted them and still trust them more than anyone to this day. Without them, there's not a chance I would be still be at TCNJ. They have always been my sounding board, especially in my early years of so much stress in following in the footsteps of Dr. Walker. I think it took me 15 to 20 years to come to the realization that I did the best I could in that transition, and that I maybe was the right person to take over for Dr. Walker. The jury is still out.

What is the biggest challenge you have faced in your coaching career?

By far the biggest challenge was taking over Dr. Walker's program, while also being hired in the beginning phase of a college basically transforming itself into a top academic college in the northeast. I had to adjust my recruiting to make sure those I was recruiting were not only going survive academically, but thrive in the ever increasingly higher demands and expectations being placed on them in the classroom.

Outside of coaching, what would people find interesting about your day-to-day life?

I am a homebody for sure. I typically get up around 4:30 a.m. to have coffee by myself before my kids wake up.

The Extra Point- Asked from Justin Lindsey in last week's coach profile: How has coaching at the collegiate level changed your life?

Upon graduating from the University of Iowa in December of 1989, I had a great opportunity to go work on a cruise ship, because I really did not know what I wanted to do with my life. I thought I wanted nothing to do with the 'athletic world'. I wanted away from it all. Well, fast forward a few months working on the cruise ship. I remember specifically being in Bermuda by myself in a beautiful cove just sitting by myself thinking how much I missed my "people". Fast forward six months, and I accepted my first coaching job with Cindy Cohen at Princeton where it all started. Being able to work on a college campus help and guide student-athletes find their next phase in life is honestly very rewarding. Coaching has afforded me great opportunities to teach and hopefully inspire young girls to explore their dreams, like my high school and college coaches did for me.
Nothing was ever easy, and for that I am grateful to this day. To play a game that definitely requires the most skill of any sport and take all the challenges it has to offer while letting it help you in your own personal life is so much fun! I have also been able to meet an amazing group of people, who also happen to coach, that have become such good friends of mine. I was often reminded this past summer (in COVID) that I certainly am the first to complain about recruiting every weekend, and COVID reminded me how lucky I am to be able to do it. I get to see and talk with other coaches who have become really good friends through the years of recruiting and competing against each other. Recruiting is not necessarily "hard". It's long hours and so much time trying to find those student-athletes who will fit in your program. It's welcoming to know you will often have good friends in the same complex doing the same thing. It certainly makes it a little easier to get through, most often, the long days. I wouldn't change it!

Leave a question for next week's coach profile.

If you were not coaching, what other profession would you have?

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