The man behind the headband: Getting to know Brock Miller

What’s the one thing people should know about Utah State redshirt freshman guard Brock Miller? Would it be the time he spent in Argentina on an LDS mission? Or, his family’s impressive basketball resume? Or, maybe it’s his autoimmune disorder? Well, in his eyes, what makes him an individual can’t be limited to one thing, rather a combination of his life experiences.

Growing up in the Salt Lake Valley, he attended Brighton High School in Sandy, Utah. The youngest of four brothers, who were also basketball stars at Brighton, he might be the most accomplished of all of them. Averaging 22.3 points per game as a senior, he attracted the attention of some prolific collegiate basketball programs from across the country. Miller was offered by the likes of Boston College, Harvard, Idaho State and Stanford.

As a senior, he was a three-star recruit and was ranked the third-highest recruit in the state of Utah for his class. Joining Utah State made him the highest-rated recruit the Aggies had ever signed from in state.

Although he had offers from some elite programs, and had the opportunity to follow his brother to Harvard, the choice to go to Utah State was an easy one to make.

“It was Utah State all the way through. I mean I love Utah State, the atmosphere, the school and everything about it,” he said. “I still remember my brother Corbin, who played at Harvard, was being recruited by Utah State and I came up to a game with him in about seventh or eighth grade. And I saw the crowd and how awesome it was and I turned to my dad and I said ‘that’s where I want to play’.”

Compared to most families, being a basketball player in the Miller household is not as extraordinary of an occurrence. In fact, it’s quite common. The third brother in the trio of division one basketball players is Brandon, who graduated as the school’s all-time leading scorer. However, the family tree of athletes doesn’t stop there.

“My dad played at BYU-Hawaii and you know, I had cousins that played at Weber State and BYU and grandpa played football at Texas A&M and then transferred to play basketball at UNLV,” Miller said. “We all just kind of come from a basketball, athletic family, so it’s definitely very competitive in the Miller family when it comes to basketball.”

With so many good basketball players in one family, the question is, who’s the best shooter of them all?

“Well, it depends who you ask, you know, if you ask me I’m going to say myself,” Miller said. “But I think all of us kind of lean towards my brother Corbin who played at Harvard, he’s a really good shooter.”

While he always knew he wanted to be an Aggie, the journey to officially becoming an one has been filled with some challenges and some new experiences. Since signing with the Aggies in 2015, Miller has seen two coaching changes, left the country for two years and has come back from a season-ending foot injury.

From February 2015 to February 2017, he served on an LDS mission in Buenos Aires, Argentina. In his eyes, going on a mission is something that has better prepared him to overcome obstacles in his life.

“I think the experience itself really helps you mature as a man,” he said. “You learn more about yourself and who you are, you learn to go outside of yourself and to kind of forget about yourself and serve others. That’s one of the big benefits of team, of teamwork, is having good teams and unselfishness and working outside of yourself and making yourself better to be able to help other people.”

Even though he was away from the game of basketball for two years, Miller feels that the things he learned while on his mission are things that can translate directly back to the game he loves.

“You know it also teaches you about discipline, hard work and just being around people, interaccting, communicating,” he said. “Definitely for me, it’s been life-changing. Especially being in a foreign country, being in a different culture. I mean you’re really out of your comfort-zone.”

He finds himself on a team that has six other return missionaries on the roster, three of whom also spent time abroad. Besides the seven men who served on missions, there are three players on the team that come from overseas, Portugal and Australia.

In fact, Utah State has two of four total division one basketball players from Portugal on its team, as well as a return missionary from Brazil who speaks Portuguese. This ability to break language barriers is something you don’t see on a lot of other teams and Miller thinks that has helped him and his teammates grow closer.

“And not saying you can’t have good character if you don’t go on a mission, that’s not what I’m saying at all, but I think it’s definitely a benefit that you see us having seven return missionaries on the team,” he said. “All high character guys, and you know it definitely carries over, and it’s cool to relate and talk about stories from overseas when you have tons of players from overseas. You have a lot to relate with and it helps the chemistry of the team, it’s definitely a big beneficial thing.”

As well as being a part of a special group of players off the court, Miller is on a Utah State team that is currently having one of its best seasons over the past decade. With five games left, the team has already won more games than they have in any season since the 2012-13 campaign.

Miller has become an instrumental part of the team’s success, averaging the second most minutes per game as well as being their go-to three-point shooter. Although shooting runs in his family, Miller has a unique style of shooting, a result of countless hours of work that started when he was still a kid.

“It was tough, it took me a full year to be able to shoot the way I shoot at the three-point line,” he said. “You know when I changed my shot, I had like two shots in eighth grade. I would shoot from the top of my head from about 12 feet in and then outside of that I shot from my chin because I wasn’t strong enough to shoot that shot.”

It was originally his dad’s idea to change his shot, to better prepare him for basketball at a higher level. They spent the year between seventh and eighth grade together adjusting his shot and what came of all their work is a shot that allows him to get the ball of quickly and one that has a certain amount of personal ownership to it.

“I have such a high release, and I jump extremely high when I shoot the ball, that’s kind of how my brothers and I are as we grew up,” he said. “I like to watch Klay Thompson’s shot a lot, I think he’s got a great release. I think it could be comparable in some ways, in the sense if just how high it is.”

When you watch him play, his way of shooting the ball makes him stand out on the court and catches your eye. The ability to be unique and himself is something that comes very natural to Brock.

As with his way of playing on the court, his looks also might make him stand out to those who watch him, and is yet another reason why he feels comfortable in his own skin. His autoimmune disorder, Alopecia Totalis, appeared when he was young, and has resulted in total hair loss on his body.

“You know, alopecia, it just came randomly,” Miller said. It’s an autoimmune disorder and you know when I was 10 years old I started losing hair and I got patches on my head, and I wasn’t sure what it was.”

Disorders like alopecia can obviously affect people in different ways, it depends on the individual. But for him, although there were some rough times in middle school as he describes, he sees it as a positive in his life.

“I lost my hair completely when I was about 11-to-12 or so, and I was so young when it happened I think it was good for me,” he said. “Once I started coming into my own it’s definitely helped me have confidence from within, not worrying about receiving my confidence from the outside. I think it’s definitely been something beneficial in my life and you know, it’s been awesome.”

Having such a positive outlook on something that could ordinarily be a traumatizing experience has led him to share that message with others. In the same way a mission acted as a chance to help others, having an autoimmune disease has afforded him the same opportunity.

“Something really cool too, a lady from Pleasant Grove, Utah, she has a daughter who’s 12 years old who has alopecia as well,” he said. “She wants to meet me because she’s wanting to meet people with the same type of disease.”

He was kind enough to get them tickets to see Utah State take on UNLV on Feb. 2.

“It’s really cool because you can reach out to people who are kind of going through the same thing,” he said. “Although it’s a disease, a kind like this you can still find success and be happy. Obviously it’s a lot harder for women, I’m really lucky that I’m a guy going through this. But I definitely enjoy it, I love it, and I actually prefer not having hair even if I could.”

Although having an autoimmune disease is unique to Brock on the basketball team, being bald is, well actually quite common. Utah State is led by first-year head coach Craig Smith, who is bald himself, along with a few other guys on the coaching staff. When you see them on the sidelines, it becomes apparent that a full head of hair isn’t a requirement to be on the team.

“We joke around all the time, bald jokes going around constantly,” Miller said. “We all get after it, I think it’s funny. That’s one of the first things I said, I told coach Smith ‘I like your hairdo’ and instantly we just had a great connection.”

Part of becoming a better basketball player is establishing those kinds of connections with your coaches and your teammates, developing a certain amount of trust in each other. Being a redshirt freshman means there’s the potential to play a few more years for the Aggies, and although he’s already made strides to becoming better, he feels there is still a lot of work left to be done to fill his vision of the player he wants to be.

“I want to be a scorer, in all three levels: at the rim, midrange, and threes,” Miller said. “And then a great defender, a guy that is just looking to win, and willing to do anything to win. I want to have the ability to affect all aspects of the game, that’s what I want to become.”

Twitter: @dren_sports