From the asphalt playgrounds in Louisville, KY to coaching and teaching excellence in Orange County Public Schools, and finally coordinating Florida's largest college football classic, Charles E. Miller has made an indelible impact on sports fans in the state of Florida.
Unlike Mohammed Ali, who also graduated from Central High School, Miller's alma mater, Coach Charles E. Miller is the quiet storm routed in by the late Frank Otey, who was principal of Hungerford High School in the 1950's and 60's.
It all began one summer at the end of Miller's senior year at Indiana State Teachers College (now Indiana State University) in Terre Haute, Indiana. The physical education and industrial art major and a friend had remained on campus to earn extra cash by cleaning floors at the school.
Lucky for Florida that he did, Frank Otey happened to have been visiting in-laws there, when he approached Miller on the tennis court and gave him a convincing story on why he should consider Florida to begin his career.
The thought of palm and orange trees was enough to convince him, because Miller still remembers that as part of Otey's vivid description of Florida.
Leaving his parents and his four older siblings behind, Miller came to Eatonville to teach physical education and coach basketball at Hungerford High School. He soon established a strong reputation by bringing the state championship to Eatonville in 1956. He went undefeated in 1957, but unfortunately lost the championship. The team was runner up in 1958, but it took a few years to get back to the top and regain the championship, which his team did in 1970. Miller says that the things he reveres most about his career at Hungerford High was having won ninety-six games and losing only nine.
When Orange County integrated all of its schools in 1970, Miller was assigned to Oak Ridge High, but continued to coach basketball at Hungerford. In 1971 he went to Edgewater High School, but ended his career in education at Valencia Community College. "That was a very good move for me," Miller said. "I retired from Valencia in 1989 and was offered a job at Florida Citrus Sports." Miller's affiliation with Florida Citrus Sports was the beginning of the classic phenomena in Central Florida.
With an exciting football season ahead, Florida A&M and Bethune-Cookman College alumni, in particular, look forward to the annual match between the Rattlers and the Wildcats - the ever-popular Florida Classic. Said Miller, "About the Florida Classic, I can tell you exactly how the ball got rolling because I was right in the middle of it. A lot of people are not aware of the significant roles that some people played in this. County Commissioner Mable Butler, early on, came down to our office and talked to us about bringing a Black college football game to the Citrus Bowl. She said, 'we need a soul bowl game here.’" At the time, Miller was coordinating a Red Lobster Classic; however, he saw something good in Commissioner Butler's observation and thought it worthwhile to try to make it happen.
Lack of good contacts made the process a very slow one, and one that yielded little results. Letters were sent to various athletic directors, but to no avail. Finally, Miller contacted James Davis, who was working in the president's office at FAMU. Says he, "I called James one day. He said, 'oh yes, I'll help you.' So through James' connection, Executive Director of Florida Citrus Sports Chuck Rowe and I went up to Tallahassee to talk to Dr. Humphries. At that point, we were able to actually buy four games from Florida A&M opponents and bring them here into Orlando. I coordinated those four games."
During those four years, trouble was brewing in Tampa… "with the hotels and something of that nature," said Miller. The unrest left FAMU and Bethune-Cookman College looking for another city to play. Jacksonville and Miami wanted the game. Said Miller, "A&M and Cookman wanted different venues to bid on the games. They wanted something like a million dollars. Of course, requests for bid came directly to me, because I was coordinator. We, Florida Citrus Sports, did not bid on the games. One of the reasons was prior to that, we had lost money with another game I had coordinated. That game was the Dallas Cowboys and Houston, so we were in no position to bid on the Florida Classic.
“Meanwhile, Ken Riley, athletic director at A&M and Len Thompson, kept talking to us about bringing the game here. I sat down with the executive director, Chuck Rowe, my boss. He said, 'tell them if they will take responsibility for the game, take all the income--if there is a loss, they take the loss, we will manage the game for them. We will do everything for them here. They will not have to worry about it; they would pay us a management fee."
The proposal was presented. The two presidents, Dr. Humphries and Dr. Bronson along with Chuck Rowe made the decision to implement the proposal.
The agreement is still in effect today -Florida Citrus Sports manages the game and all of the proceeds from the gate, the battle of the bands, and the step shows all go to the schools. The school pays the city for the rental of the stadium and advertising. Florida Citrus Sports prepares a budget inclusive of all costs to put on the Classic in addition to a scale of the management fee for Florida Citrus Sports. Says Miller, "Seeing the gate receipts from Tampa, in the latter years of the Classic there, versus the gate receipts now, not counting the other events such as the battle of the bands, they are doing very, very well financially--very well. They've had 70,000 people for the last three years."
Well, so what if there is a little bit of negativity--speaking of the post game litter. Says Miller, "When you got a UCF game, which draws an average of 30,000 people; you've got the Citrus Bowl that draws 50,000 people, then you've got the Florida Classic that draws 70,000 people, which one is going to have the most trash? Sure they have a lot of trash, concessions do very well during the Florida Classic. They only thing they don't sell are alcoholic beverages, which is a good thing. There is something else that the Florida Classic doesn't have and other games do, and I know this because I was also in charge of operations for the Classic as well as all the other games that Florida Sports put on. There is no problem with people being intoxicated. We don't have to deal with that during the Florida Classic. Everything went very smoothly."
The biggest problem now coming into play with the Florida Classic is counterfeit tickets. "They are appearing more and more," says Miller. When you have a hot ticket like that, and you sell out, people are going to look for ways to get in, and counterfeit tickets have begun to appear. But this year, some things are being done to counter that. They will probably be able to identify counterfeit tickets at the gate. So I say to ticket buyers, beware of buying tickets from people outside the gate."
Returning to emphasize the success of the Florida Classic, Miller stated, "The Classic has been a successful event, obviously, for the two schools. When we first decided to enter the agreement with the schools, we were thinking that if they drew 30,000 that first year, it would have been great. I believe that the two parties involved would have been satisfied with that, but guess what, that first year, the number was 56,000 and it has grown since then, so my time working with the Classics and working with the two presidents and the athletic directors was very enjoyable. They were very easy to work with--it was a tough job for them, because they don't have the huge staff like the big 10 schools. Both schools do a very good job at putting on those games with the staff they have."
So what's in the future for the Florida Classic? Could it be television? There have been some offers. So fans will just have to wait and see.
Meanwhile, hats off to Charles E. Miller for his role in creating the Florida Classic phenomena.
Miller is married to Dr. Margaret Miller, his college sweetheart. The couple has two adult children--Greg and Jennifer, and three granddaughters--Courtney, Evan and Morgan.
