Longtime voice of ISU sports, Jerry Miller, set to retire at end of basketball season

POCATELLO — Growing up just outside of Sugar City, Jerry Miller spent many a night laying in bed, clutching a transistor radio and soaking in the silky sounds of legendary sportscasters like Vin Scully, Bill King and Jon Miller.

“My nights spent in my bedroom doing homework were magic,” he told EastIdahoNews.com. “It was like growing up on a farm but being able to travel around the country every night.”

As he grew into a teenager, Miller continued tuning that old radio into Scully’s Dodger calls and Kings Warriors games. And with the rise of televised sporting events came the broadcast team of Chick Hearn and Hot Rod Hundley, who called the Los Angeles Lakers.

“That’s where my dream of being an announcer was born,” Miller said.

Miller will retire at the end of the college basketball season after 41 years of painting word pictures for Idaho State University sports. With his pending retirement, he was honored Saturday with an induction into the ISU Sports Hall of Fame and with a Lifetime Achievement Award.

Of those 41 years, he has spent 35 as the play-by-play man for numerous ISU sports — most notably football and men’s basketball.

In all, he has called 2,170 games with only the men’s basketball playoffs left in front of him.

Asked if there were any of those nearly 2,200 games that jump out to him when he looks back on his illustrious career, Miller immediately mentioned the “Globe of Death Game,” when the Bengals beat Boise State after surrendering a go-ahead touchdown with 22 seconds remaining.

He also fondly recalls Weber State visiting Reed Gym while now-NBA superstar Damian Lillard was leading the Wildcats. There have been “hundreds, and hundreds, and hundreds” of games, Miller said.

“There are some that stand out, and so many others I know I’ve forgotten about,” he added. “It is a long time, there’s no doubt about it.”

And though the dream began as a child listening to that old transistor radio, it first became a possibility in 1970.

Miller was a team manager for the Sugar-Salem High School basketball team.

During his junior year, the school purchased a reel-to-reel camera. A camera Miller decided to use one night. He taped the microphone to the side of the camera and called the game as he panned the camera back and forth with the action.

“The next week, one of the basketball coaches was walking through the hallways, he saw me and said, ‘hey Miller, I heard you on tape, you’re as good as the guy on the radio.’ That’s all it took to push me over the edge,” he said.

He pursued his dream at Ricks College — now Brigham Young Unversity-Idaho — where he called the school’s basketball games for a local AM station.

After serving a Latter-day Saint mission in South Korea, he returned home and enrolled at BYU, where he called local high school basketball games.

He landed an internship with KSL radio in Salt Lake City, and, as fate would have it, the Jazz moved from New Orleans to Utah a short time late. He auditioned to be the backup to Jazz’s color commentary man — the same man Miller had spent so many years listening to — Hot Rod Huntley, and landed the gig.

“In one year, I went from being a college student to traveling with an NBA team all around the country,” he said.

That journey left Miller with so many memories he said could never be duplicated and will never forget. He called a game at Madison Square Garden — the center of the sports world. But he worked another game that takes the cake.

It was his first road trip with Jazz when he walked into the Fabulous Forum — the home of the Los Angeles Lakers.

“I remember, it was a Sunday afternoon and I walked into the Forum — all of that purple and gold, and I could smell popcorn,” he described. “I thought back to all those games that I’d listened to on the radio.”

Miller made his way to the visiting broadcast table — which was just a couple of seats in the crowd — and cozied into the seat that would normally be occupied by Hundley. As he prepared for the game, Hearn walked toward Miller and took the seat directly behind him.

After the game, while he was exiting the arena that would soon become the epicenter for the basketball entertainment movement, Miller stopped and looked back to soak in the moment once more.

“It was surreal,” he said. “I had just lived my dream. The ultimate dream I’d had as a teenager.”

Despite the litany of memories he took from his time as an NBA broadcaster, Miller says his 35 years’ worth of games calling for ISU has outdone that previous chapter.

Now, he prepares to close this new chapter and begin yet another.

“My wife and I have been planning for this for a long time,” Miller said. “She thought I was going to retire after last year’s season.”

Miller has reached a point that the next Bengal loss he calls could be his last game as the voice of ISU sports — their next game is Monday, at 5:30 p.m., against the University of Montana.

From there, Miller said, he and his wife, Rozan, will serve a mission for their church. The two plan on spending 18 to 24 months on the mission before returning home where he can focus all his energies on being a father, grandfather, and great-grandfather.

His family, particularly his wife, Miller said, allowed him to pursue this career and create the lasting legacy he has created.

“They’re the ones that have really sacrificed,” he said. “(Rozan) was the glue that held us all together and allowed me to have this kind of career.”

And asked if he plans on attending ISU sporting events once he returns from his mission, Miller said he asked Athletic Director Pauline Thiros and her staff for one thing when he retires.

“I said when I’m done the only thing I want is a lifetime pass for two to any ISU athletic event played at home. If there’s anything I think I’ve earned, it would be two passes to any game.”