Creston’s Miller to join Officials Hall of Fame

He’s donned the striped officials shirt everywhere from Australia to Madison Square Garden to tiny gymnasiums in southwest Iowa.

Wherever he worked — whether it be a high school state championship football game, or a Harlem Globetrotters appearance halfway around the world — Richard “Butch” Miller was respected for being in command of the event, as well as the rule book.

“I knew the rules and how to apply them,” said the 76-year-old Miller, who will be inducted into the Iowa High School Officials Hall of Fame next week.

Miller said he learned that important lesson as a rookie training to officiate with one of the state’s best, the late Bill Sears of Creston.

“Bill was a real student of the rules,” Miller said. “We spent several hours going over rules when I was getting started. He always told me, you can sell a call to a lot of people if you know the rules.”

Miller will be one of five inductees to be honored at halftime of the Class 3A championship game at the Boys State Basketball Tournament on Saturday, March 14. The 3A game begins at 6:30 p.m. at Wells Fargo Arena.

The tournament championship games will be televised on KCWI and streamed live online at http://www.ihssn.com.

Other officials to be honored are Michael Droll of Coralville, Garry Greenlee of Ames, Stan Millage of Sioux City and Mike Vint of Marshalltown.

“I was totally shocked when I got called about this,” Miller said. “It’s been a long time since I refereed.”

A native of Creston, where he played football and basketball, Miller attended Northwest Missouri State University and later took up officiating.

Respected crew

From 1959 to 1982 Miller worked with five other Hall of Fame officials in football and basketball. Early on he worked with the likes of Sears and the late Howard Browne. Later, he would partner with other respected southwest Iowa officials such as Bill Baldwin, Paul Somers, Ron “Fox” Clinton and Steve McCann.

“I will say this, when we had Fox (Clinton), Bill Baldwin and Paul (Somers), we were a very fine football officiating crew,” Miller said.

Miller officiated in the football playoffs 10 years, including 15 games and one championship contest.

In basketball Miller officiated sectional, district and substate games for 17 years and also refereed girls basketball and softball games, plus numerous junior college contests.

Globetrotters

In the early 1980s he hooked up with the Harlem Globetrotters, through a connection with Creston acquaintance Terry Horning. He would end up traveling the globe with that basketball entertainment group from 1982 to 1986 in all 50 states and foreign countries on four continents.

“I told Horns to put my name in if they ever needed someone,” Miller said. “They called and asked if I was interested. I got hired full-time and worked the Far East, South America, seven weeks in Australia. I worked all 50 states. Got to work Madison Square Garden, all the big venues.”

It’s a misnomer to think the refs are just props in Globetrotter vs. Washington Generals games.

“I was with the international team, and it was a young team, and they went up and down and played hard basketball about 75 percent of the time,” Miller said. “They had certain show plays they had to do, so it was different then. Like the weave out front, and so forth. But when they weren’t doing show plays, it was just like a regular basketball game. And if you didn’t call it that way, you’d hear about it!”

It was a grueling travel schedule as well.

“One year, we started out the day after Christmas, and there were no days off until the last day of February,” Miller said. “And that day was spent flying from Portland, Ore., back to Philly.”

Miller resigned from the Globetrotters in 1986 for family reasons. He originally intended to get back into high school officiating, then decided to hang up the whistle.

“I had about 14 games lined up for 1987,” he said, “but then I decided I needed to do things with the kids, and their kids. I said, I’m not going to ref anymore high school ball.”

Miller, 76, is the father of daughter Corbi and two sons, Kerby and Jamie. After his return to Creston he formed BM Sales paper distribution company, and is now retired. He continues to be active in church and various volunteer activities in the community.

But he looks back fondly at his days on the football or softball fields, and the high school gymnasiums.

“I was out there for the kids,” Miller said. “As long as the kids were satisfied with the job I was doing, I was tickled to death.”