Three-plus decades as head coach

BREWSTER – It’s going to take some getting used to. Following 32 years as the coaching face of the Brewster Lady Bears varsity softball team, Rick Miller is handing the reins off to a new successor next spring.

Following a coaching career that by any standards can be called a solid success, Miller took the Brewster girls to 16 state appearances with two, fourth-place trophies, 13 league championships, and 10 district championships. Out of 763 total games from 1987 through 2018, the Lady Bears won 472 and lost 291 for a near-62-percent winning average.

Miller also understood the importance of mentoring well-rounded students as well as athletes. In his letter of resignation from coaching to school Athletic Director Greg Austin last November, Miller described “the Academic State Championship the players achieved in 2008 as one of my proudest moments.”

Miller took over coaching duties from Randy Taylor a year after the softball program debuted at Brewster in 1985.  He has been the head coach ever since, guiding his team through its transitions from the Central Washington 2B League to the 1A Caribou Trail League and back.

Miller reached his 100th win against Waterville in April 1994 and notched his 400th win against Tonasket in March 2016. That was the same year the Lady Bears were among the finalists for the second straight season for the North Central Washington Rotary Female Team of the Year.

Miller graduated Grandview High School and attended Central Washington State College before coming to Brewster in 1986. He teaches business education at Brewster High School and will continue to keep his fingers in Bears’ sports as an assistant coach for the varsity basketball program.

“I figured I’d come here for a year,” said Miller of a tenure with the Bears that is now well into three decades. He took over the head coaching position with the softball team in 1987, and after two short years led the Lady Bears to their first league championship. The following year they were district champs and a state participant.

Miller was familiar with softball both as a player himself and AAU coach. As the team moved into fastpitch Miller attended clinics and drew on the experience coaches like Sue Enquist of UCLA, Mike Candrea of Arizona, and Teresa Wilson from the University of Washington.

“My dad was actually a fastpitch pitcher, so I picked up a little bit of that stuff when I was younger,” said Miller. “My dad got the chance to play against Eddie Feighner in San Diego when he was with the Navy.”

Feighner from Walla Walla billed himself as the King and His Court when he and four other players barnstormed the U.S. on fastpitch exhibitions. At his peak Feighner was clocked throwing the fastest pitch ever, 104 mph, and was considered all but unhittable.

Miller said his father “actually got a hit off Feighner,” one of few to do so.

Miller’s influence runs deep in the softball crowd among locals who grew up here.

“I’ve had a lot of kids play who are now adults and I’ve got their kids who have played for me, too,” said Miller who coached his own daughters, Sarah, and Kaitlin, from 2006-2008. “It’s a hard sport to give up.”

A replacement has yet to be named to fill Miller’s vacancy next spring.

Asked how Brewster High School manages to turn out solid teams and gifted athletes year after year, Miller said “I think a lot of that is the time and effort parents put in prior to them getting to junior high and high school.”

Miller said that by the time his kids were second and third graders “we were always playing AAU tournaments and were gone every weekend.” He said that is true of many parents of local athletes.

Miller’s wife, Cindy, graduated Brewster in 1983. They met in the late 80’s and will be married 30 years next March. Miller said that when the couple discussed his retirement from softball coaching, they discovered there may be some adjustment needed with the home schedule.

“You realize, we’ve never had a spring together,” Cindy reminded him.

The Millers live in Malott where future spring plans call for loading up the horses and riding the nearby hills. As Miller said in the closing sentence of his resignation letter to Austin: “It’s time to head home after work and sit on the tractor.”