Indiana University of Pennsylvania Athletics

If for no other reason than that its football stadium carries his name, that of George P. Miller is no doubt better known in regard to the IUP athletic program than any other.

When the stadium was dedicated 34 years ago (in 1962), Miller was on the platform to accept the honor as a longtime coach, athletic director and chairman of the health and physical education faculty who had retired from the latter post just the year before.

Today, he remains present in the hearts and minds of countless IUP alumni and friends who continue to revere him for the character and personal qualities he brought to a 35- year span beginning in 1926 as head football coach.

In that role until 1947, he directed 17 teams (the sport was not played in World War II) to 79 wins, 42 losses and nine ties, a .611 win percentage.

He is credited with the only two undefeated campaigns in IUP history-in 1934 (6-0) and 1940 (7-0-1, five"'by shutouts). Both were Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference champions; his 1935 and '37 teams won Western Division titles. Running off a string of nine consecutive winnino"' records (111 1929-37), Miller-coached teams found themselves under .500 in just two campaigns separated by 10 years, 1928 and
1938.

But the football lore only begins to tell the story of the LaCrosse State (Wisconsin) graduate who arrived in Indiana after completing a master's degree at Columbia University and before completing graduate work at the University of Illinois, Penn, Northwestern and New York University.

At one time or another, he coached every one of the varsity sports teams of what was then Indiana State Teachers College. For several years he mentored football, basketball and baseball simultaneously. His basketball record reads 98-88.
Considered a founder of the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference, he was its first president, from 1950 to 1957. In 1964, he was inducted into the NAJA national Hall of Fame.

A pioneer in driver and safety education relative not only to IUP's curriculum but in Pennsylvania statewide, Miller is also recalled by thousands of Indiana graduates as one who always took an approach to athletics that emphasized their value as recreational endeavors worthwhile for a lifetime.