After spending plenty of his childhood lying on his couch watching the Hoosier basketball team play in Assembly Hall, IU women’s tennis assistant coach Ryan Miller now has an office in the arena he dreamed of being in as a kid.
Miller was named an IU assistant Jan. 20 after former head coach Lin Loring retired after 40 years with the program and his 24-year assistant, Ramiro Azcui, took over as the head coach.
Growing up in Washington, Indiana, Miller lived down the street from former IU basketball star Cody Zeller and his family. Miller’s dad, an IU graduate and IU football season ticket-holder since the mid-1980s, made his son a Hoosier at heart.
Miller started to play tennis during middle school and played in high school with current NBA player Tyler Zeller. He said his late start to picking up tennis was due to a bad knee injury he suffered playing baseball when he was 10.
“I thought I should get into something that’s a little easier on my knees, not knowing tennis is terrible for your knees,” Miller said. “But I ended up falling in love with it.”
After his freshman year of high school, Miller’s parents told him they wanted their son to improve his skills and sent him to the IU tennis camp run by Loring and Azcui. He attended the camp for the next three years.
“It totally changed my game,” Miller said. “Watching these guys and the passion they had for teaching was what really sparked my love for the game.”
IU was the only school Miller applied to for college. When he was admitted, Azcui reached out to him and asked if he was interested to be a student manager for the team. So, as a freshman pursuing a career in journalism, Miller was able to work with his two mentors for another four years.
Along with being the student manager, Miller worked as a part-time teaching pro at the IU Tennis Center.
“The more I taught at the tennis center the more it made me think that this is something I might want to pursue professionally,” Miller said.
After graduating with a bachelor’s degree in journalism in 2011, Miller stayed under the guidance of Loring and Azcui as a volunteer coach for the team.
“They took me on the road with them so I was able to coach some of the players on the courts during matches,” Miller said. “They really immersed me in their program here and I learned a lot.”
In 2014, though, it was eventually time for Miller to part ways with the program. He took a job at Hanover College as head coach of both the men’s and women’s teams. Miller accumulated a 40-12 record with the women’s team in three seasons and a 24-0 conference record. The men’s teams were 19-20 in Miller’s two seasons at the helm.
Miller said he will be forever grateful for that opportunity and said Hanover had no business taking a chance on an unproven 25-year-old.
After Azcui took over as head coach at IU, he called Miller to ask if he’d want the position as his assistant.
“It was the hardest thing to leave Hanover because I felt like we had so much more to do, but I’m happy with what we accomplished there,” Miller said. “When Ramiro called me, it was so abrupt but I didn’t have to think twice about it.”
After 40 years with the same head coach and 24 years of the same assistant coach, the transition had the possibility to be difficult for both coach and players, but Azcui said things have been smooth.
“It has been an awesome adjustment for both of us,” Azcui said. “He has done a terrific job with helping me on everything I needed help with.”
With a team of nine, all recruited by Loring, Miller said he knew it would be a little bit of a challenge.
But Azcui said the players have responded well to his style of coaching.
“I think the transition with Ryan has been really smooth,” senior Kim Schmider said. “He brings a lot of positive energy, and I think he has done a really good job.”
Miller said his close relationship with Ramiro has made the transition a lot easier and added that the team has accepted him as well.
“They have been very open and welcoming to me, and I think we’ve done a pretty good job trying to make the transition easy on the players,” Miller said.
Just like any other coach Miller said the goal is to win, but the fact he is sitting in an office in Simon Skodjt Assembly Hall is still surreal to him.
“I’m here living out my dream,” Miller said. “To think 10 years ago I was taking lessons from Lin and Ramiro, and now I’m sitting in Lin’s office, is crazy. I’m grateful to Ramiro and the administration for taking the chance on me.”
IU is 12-12 on the season and looking to play its way into the Big Ten Tournament this Sunday against Penn State. The Hoosiers are currently 3-6 and in 10th place in the Big Ten, and only the top 10 teams qualify for the conference tournament.
“I think we’ve done a great job with everything we’ve been through this season,” Miller said. “We are looking to achieve and then sustain a great deal of success here and represent Indiana University the way it has been represented in the past.”
