Fred Miller

Sport: Football

Induction Year: 1990

University: LSU

Induction Year: 1990

When LSU football coach Paul Dietzel said, “You can’t play football today with a bunch of iron men,” he obviously wasn’t referring to the Homer High “Iron Men” of 1957.

Four members of the legendary Homer team played college football at LSU. But the most famous member of the quartet preferred Tulane and Texas A&M as a high school senior.

LSU fans recall Fred Miller as an All-American tackle who spent most of his career on the Chinese Bandits at the end of the Dietzel era and Charlie McClendon’s first season as the Tigers’ head coach. Baltimore fans recall him as an All-Pro tackle who helped the Colts beat the Dallas Cowboys in the Super Bowl.

But in the pine cone hills of North Louisiana, Miller is remembered as an All-State tackle for the “Iron Man.”

Glenn Gossett was making his debut as a head football coach at Homer High in 1957. Because of injuries in a preseason scrimmage, only 17 players dressed out for some games. Later in the season, as many as 20 were available. But Gossett never had enough players for a full intra-squad scrimmage.

What Homer’s “Iron Men” lacked in quantity, they made up in quality. Twelve of the 20 players received football scholarships, with four of them playing for Dietzel at LSU. But Miller originally signed with Tulane.

In the 1950s, Claiborne Parish neighbors Homer and Haynesville were paying for their football success during the oil boom days – when their teams had been successful in the top classification of the Louisiana High School Athletic Association. With enrollments dropping under 100 students at both schools, they were eligible for Class B. But both communities had too much pride to drop lower than Class AA.

Homer was in the same district with defending state champion Minden and Bossier, another very strong team. Non-district opponents included perennial powers Ruston and Haynesville, and Class AAA Ouachita. Making only three substitutions when they switched from defense to offense, the Pelicans’ chances to survive that kind of schedule seemed to be very slim.

To say the least, however, it was a unique group of players. Ray Wilkins, who had played linebacker the previous, set a parish record with 1,782 yards rushing. He made the 11-player All-State team, as did Miller and center Ray Weaver.

“I don’t know of another high school team that ever captured the public’s imagination the way that group of kids did,” Gossett recalled 25 years later.

“Fred David was a quiet kid who took care of his business in a very efficient manner,” recalled Donald Johnson, an assistant coach at Homer High in 1957. “He developed a reverse spin move to get outside blockers on end sweeps that was not the technique we were teaching at that time, but we didn’t correct him because he had the physical ability to make it work.”

Homer had won only two games the previous year, but the “Iron Men” upset Ouachita 13-6 in their season opener and played Bossier to a 6-6 tie two weeks later, with Wilkins’ game-winning fourth quarter touchdown run erased by a penalty. A district showdown with Minden featured a matchup of Miller and future LSU teammate Bill Joe Booth. Booth made 18 tackles, while Miller made five stops behind the line of scrimmage and recovered two fumbles in Homer’s 19-6 victory.

The “Iron Men” had to erase a 15-0 third quarter deficit to avenge their only regular-season loss with a 21-15 victory over Ruston in the semifinals, but came up short against Morgan City a week later.

Miller originally signed with Tulane – possibly because of the influence of Homer High principal Hugh Whatley, who played on Bernie Bierman-coached Green Wave teams in 1928-30 and was the hero of the 12-7 victory over LSU in his final game. But Fred had only three English credits at Homer High, and needed four to get into Tulane.

His second choice was Texas A&M, but Paul “Bear” Bryant left the Aggies at the end of the 1957 season and Dietzel persuaded Miller’s mother and sisters that he belonged at LSU.

For both of the seasons that they played on the LSU varsity together, Minden’s Booth was on the starting unit (White team) and Miller was on the Chinese Bandits. But Miller, who had been redshirted, moved up to the White team in 1962 and won All-American honors as the Tigers capped both of his last two seasons with victories in major bowls. They beat Colorado 25-7 in the 1962 Orange Bowl and Texas 13-0 in the Cotton Bowl a year later.

Earning a degree in forestry, Miller didn’t seriously consider pro football until the Baltimore Colts made him a seventh round future pick following his junior season. He could’ve skipped his final year at LSU, but he returned because of McClendon.

“I wanted to stay my senior year to play under him,” he recalled. “Charlie Mac is one of my most favorite people in the whole world. He’s one of the greatest human beings I’ve ever been around.”

Playing with the Colts, with Johnny Unitas at quarterback and Gino Marchetti playing alongside him in the defensive line, was a dream come true for Miller.

A Pro Bowl selection three years in a row (1967 through 1969), Miller experienced both the thrill of victory and agony of defeat in Super Bowls – but not in that order.

In his first Super Bowl, Joe Namath guaranteed a victory for the New York Jets (who were 18-point underdogs) and proceeded to lead the Jets to a 16-7 victory. In Super Bowl V, the Colts beat the Cowboys 16-13 on Jim O’Brien’s field goal in the final seconds. Miller was the captain of the latter team.

“Not too many people remember we beat the Cowboys, but everybody seems to remember Namath predicting the Jets’ win,” Miller recalled after his 11-year pro career.

The “Iron Man” and his wife, Charlene, raised four boys on a 45-acre farm near Baltimore and are now grandparents.