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Miller honored by IHSAA for 50 years as official
Many in the Greencastle Community know Mark Miller for the more than three decades he spent as pastor at Greencastle Christian Church or his ongoing pastor role at Staunton Christian Church in Clay County.
For a half century, though, Miller’s face and calm demeanor have been familiar to coaches, players and fans around Indiana (and briefly, Missouri) as a sports official.
On Saturday, the IHSAA honored Miller during the Girls’ Basketball State Finals for his 50 years as a referee.
Near the end of the second game, Miller and fellow official Evelyn Butler were called down to meet with IHSAA Commissioner Paul Neidig and Assistant Commissioner Janie Ulmer. Miller was presented with an IHSAA 50-year pin and honored at midcourt.
Miller was contacted some time back and given the choice of the boys’ or girls’ state finals.
“I really wanted to go to the boys since that’s what I did when I started,” Miller said. “But I had a softball game scheduled that night, so I said, ‘Let’s do the girls.’”
It worked out, though, as he ended up being honored alongside Butler, with whom he’s worked a number of softball games, though never basketball.
“I’ve known her a good, long time‚ we’ve worked softball together,” Miller said. “I’ve worked three softball state finals and she’s done four. I really want to do one more.”
Miller’s officiating career has been wide ranging, including boys’ and girls’ basketball, baseball, softball, volleyball, track, cross country and, more recently, swimming.
He first took an interest in officiating while still in high school at Terre Haute North.
“I was student manager for Howard Sharpe at Terre Haute North, and one of my duties was to take care of the referees,” Miller recalled.
In this role, Miller would take care of the officials and what they needed — water, towels, whatever — both before and during the game.
Afterward he would help them out too, though he tended to split when “Sharpie,” already a legendary coach at that time, came in to chat them up.
“You never knew what he was going to say or do,” Miller said with laugh, recalling the Indiana Basketball Hall of Famer.
Miller also credited coach Herschel Allen, an assistant under Sharpe who went on to coach at Shakamak, for getting him thinking about officiating.
As a freshman at Indiana State University, Miller got his official’s license. Things got off to an inauspicious start, though. Bill Cook, a teaching colleague of Miller’s dad Floyd, hired Miller for his very first game at Otter Creek Junior High School.
“I’ve been around basketball all my life and knew the game, but I was really nervous — I still get nervous,” Miller said. “I made a three-second call and then I go over to the table and he said, ‘Hey, Miller, since when do we call three seconds on the defense?’”
Cook was right, Miller had made the call on the defense, not the offense. The two laughed about it for years.
“Cook went on to become the athletic director at Terre Haute North and every time I did a game, he said, ‘Hey, Miller, no three seconds on the defense tonight, OK?’”
It’s far from the only refereeing memory Miller has made over the years. After one year at Indiana State, he began studying at Ozark Bible College in Joplin, Mo. His officiating license had reciprocity between the two states, so he refereed in Missouri for four years, along with Indiana when he was home on Christmas break.
While in Missouri, he worked a state tournament game in which future Pacers player Steve Stipanovich played.
Other memories abound. One is of a coach who wouldn’t stop hounding the crew to watch for travels by the other team. Then later on when the coach protested what he believed was a foul, Miller retorted, “Coach, I was too busy watching for the travel.”
He didn’t hear much more from that coach the rest of the evening.
He also recalls an overtime girls’ tournament game between highly-ranked foes Winchester and Heritage Christian as one of the best games he ever had.
He also vividly recalls a 1999 game right here in Putnam County between North Putnam and South Putnam.
The IHSAA still had two-person crews back then, and Miller’s partner that night was Scott Weaver. The game went to double overtime but not without a pair of near misses.
At the end of both regulation and the first overtime, there were fouls called. In each case, the clock was at zeros, but neither Miller nor Weaver had heard the horn.
“It was so loud in there you couldn’t hear anything,” Miller recalls of the South Putnam gym that Friday night.
In both cases, though, the player, a Cougar in regulation and an Eagle in overtime, missed his shots and the game continued.
Finally, according to Steve Fields’ account in the Feb. 6, 1999 Banner Graphic, Sam Houser scored on a putback with 3.1 seconds left in the second overtime to give the Cougars a two-point lead. A desperation heave by South Putnam rimmed out, and North Putnam headed home as 52-50 victors.
“We went into the locker room and we probably sat there for 45 minutes before we got dressed,” Miller recalled. “It was just good old, Indiana, Putnam County basketball. That was great.”
More than the memories, though, it’s the people that have made the last 50 years special for Miller. For example, he was pleased to have some of his officiating buddies in tow for the award presentation
“I’ve taken pictures with my buddies who I’ve worked with,” Miller said.
While cleaning out his mother’s house after her death last fall, Miller even found his rule book from 1974-75 and an old metal whistle. He plans to put those on display together.
Mark and wife Lori have made their home in Greencastle since 1982, raising four children here — Lindsey, Leslie, Lorissa and Landon. While he has yet to retire from either the ministry or officiating, Miller recognizes he will need to slow down at some point. For example, he gave up officiating the IHSAA basketball tournament this season.
“Let somebody else do it. I’m still going to officiate for as long as I can,” Miller said. “I confused some people with that. They thought I was giving it up totally, but as long as I can still keep up, I might as well.”
All the same, picking up his swimming license was a step toward the day when he’s not running up and down the court.
“One of these days when I get too old for basketball, I can have something to do in the winter,” Miller said, noting that he worked his first swimming sectional this season.
He wants to keep up softball a little longer too, as he worked the IHSAA State Finals in 2012, 2016 and 2021, and will be eligible again in 2025.
While Miller didn’t expressly put it this way, perhaps the interactions with kids through sports has been a ministry unto itself.
“I’ve been really blessed with who I’ve met, who I know,” he said. “It’s fun for kids to come up and say something like, ‘Hey, do you remember me from Riverton Parke?’”