Southeast Missouri State's Miller back at NCAA Outdoor Championships in different event

~ The Southeast junior follows father's advice, reaches national outdoor meet in the triple jump

After the NCAA Outdoor Track & Field Championships last year, the father of Southeast Missouri State track and field athlete Reggie Miller Jr. expressed to his son that his upcoming junior season would be his year to have increased success in the triple jump.

The words came on the heels of Miller finishing 17th in the high jump at the Outdoor Championships -- one place shy of being a second-team All-American.

Miller will compete in the triple jump at the Outdoor Championships on the campus of the University of Oregon in Eugene, Oregon, this week after he finished 11th -- the top 12 advanced -- in the triple jump at the NCAA West Region Prelims with a jump of 51 feet, 4 1/2 inches on May 31.

Miller and assistant coach Matt Koelling, who left for the meet Monday, turned their focus to the event this season after the advice from Reggie Miller Sr.

"It's just like the man's never wrong," Miller said about his dad.

The reasoning behind the focus on the triple jump was the belief that Miller had more room to improve in the event than in the high jump.

"High jump, it's a lot harder to jump higher, but you can always get faster and jump farther in triple jump," Miller said.

He competed in the triple jump at regionals as a sophomore but did not qualify for nationals in the event.

Koelling considers Miller a student of the sport, joking that he probably watched triple jump videos on Youtube for 10 hours a day to learn.

"Yeah, I spend a lot of time researching the sport, because the more you know about the sport the more effective your training is going to be and the better you'll be in the sport," Miller said. "I talk to people from other countries about triple jump training."

Miller said he's talked to people from countries such as Canada, Sweden and Norway on Facebook, and has learned that athletes have to train differently due to innate abilities.

"I feel like I don't have that much natural ability," Miller said. "I'm good right now because I've been training for this sport for seven years."

Koelling said he researches technique and then brings the findings to Miller to see if it's something he should try.

"If I think it'll help him, we'll put that in the plan," Koelling said. "He always just tries to get better, so anything he can learn outside of what I teach him, he looks to find that information."

The top eight competitors in the triple jump achieve first-team All-American status, while the next eight placers are second-team All-American.

"This year I'm going to compete," Miller said. "Last year I was just happy I made it. I really wasn't trying to, I guess, win or anything like that. This year I feel like I have a better shot of winning or getting top three in the triple jump."

Miller competes at 12:30 p.m. Saturday.

"The focus will be just keeping his speed throughout the jump," Koelling said. "Like I said, he's got really good first two phases, but when he's going into the pit on his last phase he gets a little bit too high, so he loses a little bit too much speed. If he can just keep going out a little bit more and keeping that speed up instead of going up so high on his last one, then I definitely think he's got a chance to place in the top eight."