The Front Row with MARK NELKE Feb. 24, 2013
Everybody shows their school spirit in their own way.
Jim Miller Jr. displays his on his prosthetic leg.
How's that?
Miller, a diabetic, battled an infection in his left foot for more than a year. Last spring the infection returned, and doctors determined they had to amputate his foot.
"He actually had the surgery while I was as the state tournament with my golf teams in Preston," said his son, Simon Miller, who is the boys and girls golf coach at Kellogg High. "It was a very difficult time for our family, but also very inspirational."
Jim and Simon being diehard Idaho Vandal fans, they figured out a way to put a Vandal logo on the socket of the prosthesis (see photos, pages B1 and B2). He gets new sockets occasionally as the residual leg shrinks and adjusts. They take a T-shirt with a Vandal logo on it and wrap it to the carbon fiber socket.
"It's really cool," Simon said.
On an earlier socket was the "I" logo. The current socket has the Vandal face on it and "looks awesome," Simon said. A photo of that one has bounced around the Internet.
Both father and son are University of Idaho grads. Simon recalls his dad taking him to Vandal basketball games in the early 1980s - the teams with Brian Kellerman, Phil Hopson, Gordie Herbert, etc., coached by Don Monson.
"I was only 8-9 years old, but loved every minute of it," Simon said.
Simon then attended Idaho in the early 1990s and remembers watching Doug Nussmeier play and John L. Smith coach football, and recalls standout basketball players like Orlando Lightfoot and Deon Watson.
“We remember fondly — and cling to — the Big Sky days, when Idaho was a force to be reckoned with,” Simon said.
These days, Simon is technology coordinator for the Kellogg School District, and is getting ready for his 19th season coaching Kellogg High golf, and his 10th as head coach.
The story of his dad’s prosthetic leg even has a happy ending.
“Less than a year later, my dad is walking now and back at his job as a teacher’s assistant at Kellogg Middle School,” Simon said.
• Dennis Erickson recently had hip-replacement surgery. But he wasn’t about to hobble into a news conference in Salt Lake City to discuss his most recent coaching job — co-offensive coordinator at the University of Utah.
“I told my wife, ‘I’m not going to the U of U with a cane,’ “ he was quoted as saying by The Associated Press. “I’m not sending that message to those players. If I have to crawl, I’ll crawl.”
Erickson, former coach at Idaho, Washington State, Miami and other places, will share OC duties with Brian Johnson, but Erickson will call the plays and is implementing an up-tempo, no-huddle offense.
He’s mostly ran a one-back offense in his coaching career, with some shotgun.
Since being fired as head coach by Arizona State following the 2011 season, Erickson, 65, and his wife have been living mostly in their home on Lake Coeur d’Alene.
Utah plays host to Arizona State on Nov. 9. Asked if he might have extra motivation heading into that game, Erickson replied, “Do I have to tell the truth?”
Mark Nelke is sports editor of The Press. He can be reached at 664-8176, Ext. 2019, or via email at mnelke@cdapress.com. Follow him on Twitter at CdAPressSports.