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Woodward's Miller isn't your typical wrestler; she's one of the best

By Jenni Carlson
The Oklahoman 2/17/06

WOODWARD - Frank Miller thought he’d found the perfect Christmas present for his sister. Heavyweight lightweights
The 103-pound weight class in Class 4A is full of talent this season. Here’s a look at the weight class that El Reno coach Archie Randall calls the toughest in the 4A:

By Jenni Carlson

Wrestling shoes.

Who cared whether she liked them? They were on sale, and that’s big when you’re a kid shopping for your 6-year-old sister.

Turns out, those shoes couldn’t have been any more perfect for Joey Miller. They allowed her to step onto the wrestling mat and walk into a world inhabited mostly by boys and men.

It was a place she knew she belonged.

Now more than a decade later, Miller still continues to prove she does. Last year as a freshman at Woodward, she became the first girl to qualify for the Oklahoma high school wrestling tournament in its 84-year history. She did more than compete. She placed, finishing fourth at 103 pounds in Class 4A.

Miller has her sights set even higher this season. Ranked fourth at 103, her journey to return to state begins today in El Reno at regionals. The top four finishers at the end of competition Saturday advance.

“No one gives her a break,“ El Reno coach Archie Randall said. “They don’t cut her slack at all. None.

“She just loves the sport.”

Take a walk in her wrestling shoes.

Start with those early days, when little Joey had almost instance success. See how everyone thought she was so cute with her ponytail sticking out of her headgear.

Step onto the mat as Miller got older and better. People didn’t always think she was so cute anymore. Some forfeited, refusing to wrestle her. Others sneered and snickered, saying ugly things under their breath.

Now come into the circle at the Perry Tournament last season. That’s where Miller had a big lead in a wrestle-back match, and rather than lose, her opponent started punching her and got disqualified.

In her shoes Woodward female wrestler Joey Miller laughs as she is carried by teammate John O’Dell as the two joke around before practice on Wednesday. Photo by Bryan Terry

But then, look at this. The national title in the girls’ championships last summer at USA Wrestling Junior Nationals, and the little girls asking for autographs. The junior high girl at Newkirk saying she wrestles because Miller does. The e-mail from a German man pledging $300 because he wanted girls in his village to believe they could do anything, too.

Yet, Miller is not motivated by her gender.

“The girl thing,” her father, Jerry, said, “doesn’t mean anything to her.”

Miller doesn’t think of herself as a girl who wrestles, rather as a wrestler who happens to be a girl.

“I’m just another wrestler,” she said.

Joey Miller began her wrestling journey long before she ever started competing.

Her father, Jerry, helped coach the kids’ wrestling club in Woodward, and her brother wrestled. That meant many Saturdays spent at tournaments. Joey would go along with her mother, Novell, and pass the time playing Barbie dolls.

She never once said, “I want to wrestle.”

Then she got those wrestling shoes for Christmas. She decided she wanted to wrestle right then and there. Never mind that the kids wrestling season was well under way. Forget that she’d never had any formal coaching.

“I think her mama thought, ‘Yeah, she’ll go lose, then we won’t have to do this anymore,’” said Greg Johnson, the coach at Woodward who also runs the kids’ wrestling program in town. “Then she started winning all the tournaments.”

Miller lost her very first match but finished her first tournament with four or five victories.

She won the next tournament and two more before the season ended. She even qualified for state.

“The next year,” her mom said proudly, “she won it.”

Miller’s success has only continued. Boys tournaments. Girls tournaments. State. Nationals. Doesn’t matter. The medals now hang by the dozens from wood pegs at her house and the trophies overflow every space that has ever been cleared for them.

That kind of talent scares off some opponents. At one particular a double dual this season, Miller was forfeited to four times, twice at the 103-pound weight class and twice at 112.

Miller has a message for the guys who dodge her.

“They should play basketball,” she said.

Folks sometimes argue that it’s a no-win situation for the boys to wrestle Miller.

Her father shakes her head at that.

“What are you talking about?” he said. “It’s wrestling.”

“Wrestle.”

Miller is tough to beat. She takes a 33-8 record into regionals, a mark that includes a second-place finish at the prestigious Perry Tournament of Champions.

What makes her so good?

“She’s just squirmy,” Chris Crawford said. “Just puts people in positions they’ve never been in before.“

He would know. A sophomore at El Reno, Crawford wrestled Miller twice during the state tournament a year ago. He pinned her in the opening round, then did the same in the third-place match.

Miller and Crawford also practice during the offseason with the freestyle wrestling club in El Reno.

“You have to do different moves with her,” said Crawford, who now wrestles at 112 pounds. “It’s kind of different.”

Step inside the wrestling room at Woodward. The music thumps. The temperature rises. There is running and drilling, moving and shaking everywhere.

Quick. Where’s Joey?

In the mosh pit of single legs and chicken wings, she is just another wrestler. The headgear. The bulky sweatshirt. The knee pads. Her hair is short, a simple bob. Her face is freckled, no makeup.

There are pats on the shoulder and playful nudges and even an occasional prank by one of the bigger guys.

Then again, what 103-pounder hasn’t been picked up a time or two by a heavyweight?

“Most of them see me as just another wrestler,” Miller said. “Most of the team, I hang out with outside of wrestling.”

Neither of her parents have ever had a problem with her being on the mat with a boy. While Texas and Hawaii have state wrestling championships for girls, most of the 4,300 girls nationally who compete in high school wrestling are doing so against boys.

“Look at co-ed cheerleading,” Novell Miller said. “They touch everywhere.

“And those girls are all dolled up.”

The last time Miller got dolled up for anything was the winter formal, and that took a fairly significant amount of haranguing from her friends. She has no time for that sort of thing with wrestling. It has always been serious business.

Even when she was young, Miller would quiz her coaches about how to get better.

“How do I do this?” she’d ask. “What do I have to do to fix that?”

The reason for all the questions was simple.

“I don’t want to lose.”

That has always driven her. Miller sets goals, then goes after them. She has the example of her parents, hard-working, blue-collar folks. Jerry is a mechanic for UPS, Novell a lunch room worker at the school.

But Miller also has that internal mechanism that drives the exceptional.

She entered regionals last season unseeded. There were women there the first day to weigh her in, but a tournament official told Johnson that the two of them would weigh in Miller the next day.

“Well, you know, if she weighs in,” the official said.

The innuendo was obvious to the coach.

She’s not going to be here the second day. She’s going to lose.

Johnson shook his head.

“You don’t want to tell her that,” he said, pausing a moment. “Well, actually, I want somebody to tell her that because she’s very motivated by stuff like that.

“You tell her she can’t do it, she’s going to prove you wrong.”

She did, of course. After winning her first match, she dropped her second and faced a must-win, wrestle-back match. Lose, and she was finished. Win, and she was going to state.

She won by a fall.

What did she think of the whole thing? Of making history? Of doing something no other girl had done in the first eight decades of high school wrestling in Oklahoma? Of finishing fourth at state and standing on the awards podium?

Miller shrugged.

“I’d rather have done better,” she said.

The climb back onto the awards podium will be steep.

Just getting back to state will be a challenge. Even though Oklahoma Amateur Wrestling ranks Miller fourth at 103, the weight class is stacked.

“She might be able to make the finals in the other classes,” Randall said, referring to 103 pounds in the other classifications, “but she’s going to have a rough time in ours.”

Miller seems unfazed.

“I plan on being there,” she said.

Of course, she’s already done what no other girl had been able to do by making state last season. She’s had success on the national level, too.

One day, she hopes to be an Olympian.

“Joey is one of those where if she continues to improve at her present rate has the potential of that,” said Kent Bailo, director of the United States Girls Wrestling Association. “She’s tough.”

Who knows where her wrestling shoes may take her next?

Joey Miller became the first girl to qualify for the Oklahoma high school wrestling tournament in its 84-year history.

In photo above right, Miller, left, laughs with her fried Leah Radki, 16, during art class.

BY BRYAN TERRY, THE OKLAHOMAN

Joey Miller is 33-8 heading,into regionals, a mark that includes a second-place finish at the prestigious Perry , Tournament of Champions.

BY BRYAN TERRY, THE OKLAHOMAN

Woodward wrestler Joey Miller doesn't think of herself as a girl who wrestles, rather as a wrestler who happens to be a girl. "I'm just another wrestler," she said. "

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