By Skip Myslenski
NUsports.com Special Contributor
There is little linear about this Millers' Tale and so let us begin it with that day the boys met the reigning Druk Gyalpo, the Dragon King of the Kingdom of Bhutan.That South Asia country, located in the Eastern Himalayas, is the homeland of their mother Yeshey, and they were there on a visit some three years ago. The family was at a hotel outside the capital city of Thimphu when their father walked in and said, "I think the king is out there."
"We're like, 'Right,'" recalls Samdup Miller, the Wildcats' first-year defensive end. "Then we go out there and see him."
"You recognize him by these really nice white boots he wears. They're really fancy," adds Alex Miller, his older brother and the 'Cats' defensive tackle. "My dad was walking around and saw this guy standing out there with these nice boots and thought, 'That looks like the king,'"
"So we waited for him," Samdup goes on. "Got a picture with him. Talked for about 15 minutes."
"He's a really nice guy," Alex concludes.
Any football talk between them?
"A little bit," Alex says. "He went to college, actually, in Massachusetts, I think."
Actually that king, Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck, went to prep school in Massachusetts and then attended Wheaton College just west of Chicago. Still, in their family home, there is that framed picture of the boys with him. Alex, though still a junior in high school, is decked out in Northwestern gear.
Greg Miller, the boys' father, is from California. But, in the early '80s, he played football under Chris Ault at the University of Nevada, where he developed into an All-Conference defensive lineman. Just over two decades later Marty Long, the 'Cats' defensive line coach, had that same job with the Wolf Pack, and so he called his old boss while recruiting Alex Miller.
"Coach," he said to Ault, "I got a chance to recruit one of your ex-player's sons. What do you think?"
"Who is he?" Ault asked.
"The name is Miller," Long informed.
"You're kidding," Ault marveled. "He was an awesome player. If those kids are anything like him- - -"
"They're unbelievable players to coach," Long now says, finishing his old coach's thought. "They just play hard all the time. Both are really good football players."
"It is kind of weird that my dad's a football player from California and my mom's from a village in Bhutan who became a flight attendant. So people are always wondering how did they meet," Samdup says.
They met when the dad, then living in Saudi Arabia, played in a softball tournament in Dubai. That is where the mom was living and working for Emirates, an airline based in that city.
Both boys were born in Saudi Arabia and the elder was named Alexander Wangdi Miller. Wangdi—which means "subduer," according to a Tibetan dictionary—was the name of his maternal grandfather, though it is also the name of a city close to his mom's village.
The younger was delivered C section before his parents had settled on his name and so his dad, with his mom asleep, unilaterally decided to call him Eric.
"But when she woke up and heard my name was Eric, she's like, 'No. We're changing his name," says Samdup, which means "fulfillment (of one's wishes)." But it was also the surname of the first translator of important works of Tibetan Buddhism, the Lama Kazi Dawa Samdup.
The family returned to the States shortly after 9/11, when the boys were still pre-school, and settled in Sugar Land, a city just southwest of Houston. But soon enough they were on the move again and in December of 2003 they found themselves in the former Soviet satellite of Azerbaijan, where they would remain for three years. While there, Alex remembers, "I actually signed up for football thinking it was American football. But it was soccer."
He was in the third grade when the family returned to the States for good and two years later, finally, he did begin playing American football.
The foundation of the Bhutanese culture is Buddhism, so we wonder if there was a clash with their mom when they took up their violent game. Neither remembers hearing that this was an issue and then Samdup says, "I don't know how she felt when we started playing, but she got into it with the other moms. She liked the culture with the other moms, cheering and everything."
Alex grew slowly, developed slowly as a player and so, come Christmas of his sophomore year at Houston's Stratford High School, the family purchased an old-fashioned blocking sled. It was stored in the garage, but daily the boys pulled it out, loaded it onto a truck and drove to a middle school field, where they did their work. Initially, remembers Marty Long, their teammates laughed at their ritual and routine. But, he then says, "He (Alex) became a better player, so everyone got in line and hit the sled in the offseason."
The next season, when Alex was a junior and Samdup was a sophomore, the brothers played next to each other for the first time, and now they are doing that for the 'Cats.
"It's cool. I love it. I don't know what else to say," Alex says when asked what it's like to play next to his sib.
"It's funny," Samdup says. "Sometimes we'll yell at each other, get mad at each other. But there's nothing better. It's something other people dream about, and we get to actually do."
They yell at each other?
"Brother stuff," Alex says. "But it's fun. Whenever he makes a play, I get really excited. And I know if someone ever starts messing with Sam or me, we'll stand up for each other."
"Why Northwestern?" Alex says, repeating a question. "Great football. Love Coach Fitz (Pat Fitzgerald). School's great, obviously. But I really loved the atmosphere, the family. It's hard to explain unless you're in the locker room. But we're such a tight-knit group like you don't get anywhere else. We're so close and open with each other. Everyone knows everyone. Especially the older guys— a lot of schools, from my understanding, the older guys won't help out the young guys so much because they're competing for jobs. But when I first got here, the older guys, any question I had, they would answer it. They were great about everything."
And Samdup?
"I kind of knew the whole time," he says.
There was no grand plan last year.
"It wasn't some calculated thing," Samdup avows. "It was kind of random. It was like one day I just told my parents, 'I think I want go early." With that he called Chris Bowers, the 'Cats' director of player personnel, and learned just what he needed to accomplish so he could enroll as a college freshman for the winter quarter. He then met with his high school counsellor and got himself into the necessary classes, and last fall took two in english, two in math and two in social studies so he could graduate before Christmas. Then, on New Year's Eve, he headed north, and soon enough he was a Northwestern student and involved in winter workouts.
"I told him if you want to play early, that's his best shot at doing that," Alex says when asked what advice he offered his brother back then. "I got to play a little bit last year (as a true first year) and the biggest thing for me was just learning the defense. In that short amount of time, that was really hard to do. I got here in June. I told him that extra three or four months in the winter would really help him, especially going through spring ball. It's one thing to study it over the summer and arrive at camp and do it. But to go through it once and then to go through it again, I told him that'll really help you, and it did. He improved a whole lot from the spring."
He improved enough that last Saturday, in the 'Cats' season-opening win over Nevada, Samdup started at one end and was credited with four tackles. Alex, in turn, spelled Tyler Lancaster at defensive tackle and was credited with another.
There is little linear about this Millers' Tale and so let us end where we began, on this family's visit to Bhutan. It is now in the capital city of Thimphu and about to leave for home, but first it must go to a temple and honor a local custom. It involves putting three die in a cup, and then thinking of your goals and aim, and finally making a roll, which will be interpreted for you by an attendant monk. You are sent on your way if that roll is considered good. But if it is not, you are encouraged to stay a bit longer.
"I rolled 11. Eleven's the best number," Samdup says, recalling his good luck.
"He got the best number and I got the second best number. On our first try," Alex says. "We felt bad for this one girl. She's in there rolling, they let her roll three times, and every time she got the worst numbers. I felt really bad for her."
And what did they wish for, aspire to, before their rolls?
"I was thinking of the plane ride back home, that we'd arrive safely," Samdup says.
Next to him Alex smiles slightly, almost sheepishly, and then he says, "I was in the NFL."
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