Less is more for SC's Miller

Boys generally grow into offensive tackles.

But in the case of Scott City senior Austin Miller, he had to downsize to become one.

The 284-pound right tackle has turned back the hand of the scale in his four years at Scott City and earned a starting job on the offensive line for the first time.

It's been an unusual journey for Miller, who sports a beard his senior season and carries his weight comfortably on his 6-foot-5 1/2 inch frame.

It's hard to envision the smooth face of an asthmatic 340-pound freshman reduced more than three inches in height.

Scott City defender Jacob Hester wraps up St. Vincent’s Tyler Unterreiner during last week’s jamboree. (Fred Lynch)

"We've played together since junior high, and he's come a long way from then," Rams senior center Tyler Pate said. "He use to be really limited by his weight, and pretty slow and sluggish, but now he gets off the ball a lot quicker. I feel bad for anybody that goes up against him this season."

It's been quite a transformation for Miller, who basically was a team member as a freshman, didn't play as a sophomore and made late-game cameos on the JV and varsity as a junior.

"I've wanted to get more healthy since freshman year, because freshman year I weighed 340," Miller said. "I was a big guy. Now I'm 284, and I'm feeling great. My breathing is getting better. I have asthma, but it's been doing a lot better since I've lost all this weight."

He's impressed Scott City coach Jim May, who talked to him after last season knowing his team was losing two starting tackles to graduation.

"He could hardly get in and out of his stance," May said about the younger, plumper version of Miller. "So he played very sparingly. He played a little bit on the JV as a junior, and if he got any snaps on the varsity it was mop-up duty only.

"So after the season was over, that's when I sat down with him and we talked about what he was going to have to do to be healthy in life and in order to be able to play. I told him you're wasting your time if you continue on the path you're doing, and I'm not sure if that's what motivated him or it was personal or what, but he started the process immediately that day."

Big and jovial, Art Donovan was named to five Pro Bowls in the 1950s while a member of the Baltimore Colts.

Miller knew he was in need of a makeover on the field and in life.

"I did it for myself really," Miller said about his change in physique. "I mean, football is included, but I mainly did it for myself."

According to Miller, his weight reduction started earlier that season. He said he weighed 315 at the start of his junior season and dropped to 290 by the end.

Whatever the timing process, there's currently about 20 percent less of Austin Miller than there used to be.

And that reduction in weight came with adding muscle, which is heavier than cellulite.

Miller began taking May's weight training class after the season, has worked on his cardio and has been watching what he eats.

He said he runs a mile around his neighborhood every day, and he's participated this summer in camps and the team's weight-lifting sessions three days a week.

He has increased his bench press 100 pounds to 235. He can squat 310.

"He's gotten much, much stronger," May said. "He can play bent, what I call, where you can get hip flexion and bend the knees. Before he couldn't do that because he couldn't handle the body mass he had. He was too weak to handle his own weight."

Senior offensive tackle Dominic Hooper also attests to those changes, and one in attitude on the field as well.

"He's become meaner, too," Hooper said. "His freshman year he was pretty soft and he'd hit a little bit, but now this year he's just really going after people, and putting it on 'em."

May also sees a more aggressive player.

"He was a big softie when he was a freshman," May said. "He didn't say much, and he's got a little bit of an attitude to him now. Some of that is confidence. If you're weak and big and slow and can't bend over, you know that. He has more confidence in his own abilities, which shows in how he is attacking things now, too. And that will help him in the long run as well."

He's turning into a player the Rams desperately need in a rebuilding year. Pate and guard Brandon Griffin are the lone returning starters on the line as junior guard Dalton Goforth likely will be moved to fullback. The rest of the offense is a renovation project with a multitude of holes.

It's a different type of year for the Rams, who have been accustomed to 1,000-yard rushers in May's four seasons at the school. Two elusive, college-bound runners Garett Schaefer (Southeast Missouri State) and Travis Phillips (Lindenwood University) fueled the offense, but not without help in the trenches.

While it's still unclear who will take the baton from Phillips, who rushed for 1,371 yards last season, the Rams will need the likes of Miller to help pave the way.

"It's been a baptism by fire out there right now, but I think our offensive line has a chance to be very good, and the rest of us are going to be really young, and we need them to be really good."

As far Miller, he's happy to be able to help out and with his new physique. He hopes college football is in his future, but he likes the course he's on.

"I'm really proud of myself," Miller said. "I figured I'd still be in the 300s. I'm constantly losing weight, but I'm gaining it back. I'm kind of balancing it out."

He's gone from an imposter on the roster -- one that looks like a behemoth on paper -- into a real player.

"You see the God-given size," May said. "Most coaches will tell you, 'You can make 'em better, but you can't make 'em bigger.' I can't make him 6-5 1/2 no matter what I do. He's that way on his own, but it was a waste of God-given talent, and so he's turned it around. I'm proud of him for that.

"Like I said, Hopefully it leads him to a better life, because if he continued on that path, it would have been a struggle for him, for his health and everything else."

But as for now, May doesn't want Miller to downsize any more.

"He still needs an offensive tackle," Miller noted with a smile.