Eastern Connecticut State University

No individual has made a more long-lasting professional commitment to the athletic and physical education departments than Dr. C. Robert Miller, a Sardinia, Ohio native who, over a 30-year period, served as an athletic administrator, head coach of three sports (men’s basketball, women’s basketball and baseball) and fulltime faculty member in the health and physical education department. After being named on an interim basis in 1974, Miller stayed on to coach 19 consecutive seasons before stepping down in 1993 as the winningest women’s basketball coach in New England Division III history, fourth nationally. Over that span, Miller won 332 games and lost only 149 (69.0 percent) and directed the Warriors to 16 post-season tournaments and four national tournament berths, including back-to-back NCAA Division III Final Four appearances. An ardent proponent of equality in athletics as far back as the early 1970s, Miller served as a founder and first president of the New England Women’s Basketball Association (NEWBA) and was honored in 1995 as the first male inductee to the Connecticut Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame.