Senior Spotlight

Taking Her Shot and Making It Count

By Matt Boyer

Michigan midfielder Katie Miler (Courtesy of MGoBlue.com)

Michigan women’s soccer captain Katie Miler seems to know everyone at the Ross Academic Center. With a cell phone in her left hand, and a cup of Panera iced tea in her right, Miler easily engages in conversation with both fellow students and athletic staff. She offers one person a smile and another friendly “Hey, what’s up?” It’s clear Miler is in her element inside this building.

But Katie Miler wasn’t supposed to end up in this position. Unlike many of the athletes in this building, Miler never signed a national letter of intent to play for Michigan. At 5’3” and without a host of national high school soccer honors, Miler was not recruited by college soccer powerhouses. In fact, Michigan wasn’t even her first choice when selecting colleges. “My first choice when choosing a college was the University of Chicago,” says Miler. “But after I visited, I realized I just couldn’t see myself going there. After that, I was really scrambling to find a school.”

Katie’s path differs from most of her fellow athletes at Michigan. And while she has only totaled five goals and three assists in her three years as a midfielder for the Wolverines, you would be hard pressed to find anyone who has made a bigger impact on a team at the university.

“Katie (and co-captain Kristin Thomas) embraced everything we’ve tried to say,” said head Coach Greg Ryan in an interview with MGoBlue.com. “They should’ve earned more than what they’ve gotten because they are still walk-ons, but have been playing key roles for this team for a couple of years.” Not bad for someone who scrambled their way into one of the nation’s most prestigious athletic programs.

Persistence Pays Off

Some might think Miler’s rise from club soccer star to varsity team captain might be her biggest accomplishment. After all, Miler didn’t think she would play varsity soccer after high school. “My family is pretty academically focused,” she says. “We always figured you go to college just to earn your degree. My sister got her Ph.D in political science from Michigan. My brother attended MIT.”

Her freshman season playing on the club soccer team showed her she could balance both school and sports. After averaging around two goals a game and helping her team to a national club championship, Miler decided she had more to prove on the field. After pleading with then-varsity head coach Deb Rademacher, Miler was allowed to try out for the varsity team. But there was a catch.

“After every practice I had to go up and ask Deb if I could come back the next day,” says Miler. “It (the tryout) was intimidating because all the girls had team gear and I didn’t. Even something small like not having team gear made a huge difference because it showed you were different.”

Miler’s persistence paid off. She was given a spot on the team (complete with team gear), and her confidence soared. “I got to play during one of our spring games against Duke, and did pretty well,” she says. “It definitely legitimized that I could play with those girls on that level.”

Her Calling Card

While making the varsity team was great, Miler took her promotion a step further. Hard work and tenacious defense became her calling card. If Taz from Looney Tunes had soccer skills, it would resemble Miler’s style of play. She attacks the ball in tornado-like fashion and her blue-collar play in the midfield earned the respect of teammates and coaches. She was named co-captain for her final season. “I’d never campaign for the spot, but I’ve always been a believer in the thought of lead by example,” she says.

“The best thing about being a co-captain with Katie is that I always knew she had my back and I had hers,” said co-captain midfielder Kristin Thomas in an email interview. “We were always on the same page and knew that we could count on each other for support and backup during difficult situations.”

As for Miler’s senior season:

Being named the captain of the team? Check.

Respect from her teammates? Check.

Scoring the game winning goal against your most hated rival? Check.

In her final college home game, Miler scored her first goal of the season against OSU– a shot that redirected off an Ohio State defender to beat the Buckeye goalie. “I hate losing to the Buckeyes,” she says. “There is no team I like beating more than Ohio State, and I really enjoyed having that be my last game at Michigan.”

Miler spent part of her formative years in Columbus, but never considered herself a Buckeye. “All the kids in middle school and high school wore Ohio State stuff all the time,” says Miler. “I wanted to be different. To like the Buckeyes was to be like everyone else, and that didn’t appeal to me. I rooted for Michigan because of this. Guess you could say it was my rebellious side.”

Defending Her Field

While her accomplishments on the field have been notable, Miler will be remembered most for something she did off the field. Prior to the start of this year’s women’s soccer season, the university’s athletic department had pledged to build a new state-of-the-art soccer complex by August. Alas, September rolled around and the facility was still incomplete. (The women’s team was forced to play its home games at Eastern Michigan’s soccer field at the start of the season.) The situation was addressed by the Michigan Daily in a brief article, but the paper opted to only interview members of the men’s team. Thus, Miler decided to take matters into her own hands. In an editorial for the Michigan Daily titled “A Team Without Its Field,” she criticized the athletic department for its lack of progress on the facility and how the inconvenience had hurt her team. “There is nothing slight about having to explain to my freshmen why they should fight for Michigan when Michigan has not fought for us,” she wrote.

“Playing at Eastern was not a home game for us,” she says today. “We had to take Michigan buses to our “home games” at Eastern.”

Within three weeks after the article was published, Michigan had their new field. “I doubt I had anything to do with it (getting the field built so quickly),” she says. “It was more about my team. They knew the risk I was taking and they knew I would probably get in some trouble.” Miler would take some heat from the athletic department over her article, but says she suffered no serious punishment. No one was more proud of Miler’s commentary than her teammates.

“I can’t even describe the feeling of pride and representation that I felt from [reading] that article,” said freshman forward Clare Stachel. “She represented our team exactly how we would want to be represented and spoke for all of us, not just herself.”

Many scholarship athletes have done great things with their teams at Michigan, and some have gone to fame and fortune at the professional level. But how many of these athletes truly give back to their teammates and university? Michigan might not have given a full ride to Katie Miler for soccer at Michigan, but what she gave to the Michigan soccer program is worth far more than any scholarship.