In working as an assistant athletics director at Columbus East the past 2 1/2 years, David Miller has realized he wanted to eventually come the main AD.
That chance will come next summer for Miller, who has been selected to replace the retiring Pete Huse as the Olympians’ next athletics director. His hiring was approved the the Bartholomew Consolidated School Corp. board at Monday night’s meeting.
“I’ve enjoyed my years in the athletic department the last three years,” Miller said. “Kind of seeing what Pete does on a daily basis is what I thought would be a good next step in my career.”
A Goshen native, Miller played football at Ball State and spent three seasons in the NFL, mostly on the practice squads of the Detroit Lions, Chicago Bears and New York Giants. He has been an assistant football coach at East since 2006, but is giving up that role.
“I’ve told (head football coach) Eddie (Vogel) this was my last season coaching,” Miller said. “There’s definitely things I’m going to miss. I’m going to miss some of the camaraderie with some of the other assistant coaches. Columbus East football has played a big role in our lives. I’m not going to be totally apart from it, but helping Columbus East football in a different role.”
Miller has been a dean of students at East since 2013. Since becoming assistant athletics director, he has worked half day as a dean and half day in the athletic office.
“I’ve known I wanted to get into administration,” Miller said. “After being down in the athletic office, I knew that was something I wanted to continue doing.”
In the coming weeks, Miller plans to meet with all of the Olympians’ head coaches and see what kind of goals they have for their teams.
Huse, who is in his eighth year at East, will continue as athletics director until retiring at the end of the school year. He plans to continue sharing responsibilities with Miller to help ease the transition.
“It won’t be anything more than I’ve seen the last 2 1/2 years,” Miller said. “He’s been great about giving me more and more responsibilities, so I’ll be ready to go.”