PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — David Miller is in his first season as the head baseball coach at Division III Penn State Abington.
Miller already enjoyed a very successful career in coaching, including leading the La Salle Explorers until the program was discontinued. His coaching career follows his playing days where he starred at Chestnut Hill Academy in Philadelphia and then Clemson University.
He was eventually drafted in the first round by the Cleveland Indians in 1995, and reached as high as Triple-A.
Miller spoke with KYW Newsradio's Matt Leon about his life in baseball, his playing career, how he started coaching and why he took the job at PSU Abington. You can listen to the full conversation above, on the KYW Newsradio original podcast "1-on-1 with Matt Leon."
The following is a lightly edited excerpt of the episode.
Matt Leon: So why was this the right job at the right time for you?
David Miller: As crazy as it is, you know, I was a 47-year-old bachelor. And over COVID, we did a zoom call with my grade school class at Norwood-Fontbonne Academy in Chestnut Hill. And on that Zoom call, I met, reconnected with my oldest friend. We went to first grade together. Her name was Dolores Roman. And we started dating through the Zoom call. And six months later, we were married.
So when LaSalle unfortunately closed its doors on the baseball team, and I was getting interviews and you know, trying to find the next fit for me, you know, I just thought it was best, you know, I went from a single guy to a stepfather of four overnight. And I just didn't think the right place for me was to be away from Philadelphia.
So, you know, I've been offered a couple of jobs that I respectfully declined. And then when Penn State Abington came open, you know, it was kind of like divine intervention. My father was a graduate of Penn State Abington back when it was called Ogontz, Penn State Ogontz. And it was just it.
It was almost like a divine calling for me to come to the school, and I get to stay home. And that's what I love. I'm a Philly guy born and bred, and what better place to build a dynasty than the school that my father went to? And, you know, I grew up five minutes down the road.
And you're taking over a team that's got a lot of talent, it seems.
Yeah. Former coach [Josh] Copskey did a fantastic job of getting some very good talented players on campus. I think they were 20-6 last year, and we returned just about everybody, but maybe one or two players. For me, it was just, you know, I always thought I'd want to be a Division I coach. But at the end of the day, it's coaching that I love.
So it really doesn't matter where I coach or who I coach, I just love to coach. But yeah, this team has some very, very talented players on it. And I'm looking forward to seeing what we can do this year.
How does the approach shift or change when you're taking over a program? You know, LaSalle had its struggles when you took it over. And here, you're taking over a program that's enjoyed success. How do you approach it differently, when these groups are in different stages of development?
When I took over LaSalle, I needed to change a culture, a locker room culture, of getting guys to bringing in the right players at the Division I level to be able to play and understand that they're playing for the name on the front of the jersey, more so than the the name on the back.
So it took me a couple of years to establish the right culture at LaSalle, but the one that I wanted. In our last year, we saw much success there. We were just getting started, but here at Penn State there's a culture that has already been established, and I don't want to come in and try to, you know, blow it up, so I'm more so staying in the background.
I got the job in the middle of January, so I literally have a month to get these guys ready for a game. So it's not about me just jumping in the deep end and establishing, doing everything that I want. I need to take what these guys have done, observe, see, manage, control, and let them kind of grow.
You've got a bunch of kids that have seen success, and I don't want to disturb that right now. I put my input in and we coach. But this is a group of kids that we're trying to take where they were, which was in a good place, and elevate it to another level. So it's a whole different thing when you're coming into a winning program than when it was coming into a program that hadn't seen success in quite some time.
For more "1-on-1 with Matt Leon," subscribe on the Audacy app, or wherever you get podcasts.