James Miller

A longtime North Central College faculty member and coach, Jim Miller '86 was named athletic director in May 2005, following a national search.
   
A native of Rantoul, Ill., Miller graduated from North Central with degrees in business management and speech communication/theatre. He earned an M.S. in education from Northern Illinois University in 1995.
   
After working a year as a sales representative for Union Carbide in New York City, Miller returned to the college as an admission counselor and assistant wrestling and football coach. He served as the assistant wrestling coach from 1987-89. Named the associate director of admission and athletic recruiting in 1992, Miller became a full-time instructor and coach in the health and physical education department in 1993. He served as the head wrestling coach from 1989-2005 and as an assistant football coach for 16 years. He advanced to associate professor of health and physical education in 2002 while also serving as the chair for the health and physical education department.
   
Miller, who was a captain in both football and wrestling as a student, is credited with reviving wrestling at North Central and gaining national recognition for the program. As a coach, Miller coached 108 individual wrestling tournament champions, 28 Academic All-Americans, five Scholar All-American teams, and accumulated a program-best dual meet record of 139-84. In 1996-97, the Cardinals won the College Conference of Illinois & Wisconsin (CCIW) team championship. Miller also coached the Cardinals to seven runner-up finishes. Twice named North Central's Coach of the Year, he was selected by fellow coaches as the NCAA Division III historian, a ranking committee member for the National Wrestling Coaches Association (NWCA) and was inducted into the NWCA Hall of Fame on March 12, 2015.
 

During his tenure as athletic director, Miller has overseen a department that has won 120 CCIW team championships, 22 NCAA Division III National Championships and 56 individual national champions, including two relay teams for men’s track and field. Miller has helped expand the athletic department to 26 sports, with the most recent additions including women’s lacrosse (2009), Men’s Volleyball (2016), Women’s Triathlon (2017), Men’s Lacrosse (2017), and Women's Wrestling (2019). 

Miller has also seen the expansion of North Central’s athletic facilities, including the state-of-the-art Residence Hall/Recreation Center, home to the Al B. Carius Indoor Track, in 2008. With the creation of this facility, Miller oversaw the 2013 and 2017 Division III Indoor Track & Field National Championships, hosted by North Central and celebrated the men’s indoor track and field team becoming the first program to win an indoor national title on their home track. Miller has led planning for the updating of locker room facilities for all of the Cardinals' athletic teams and in 2019 played a key role in the planning and installation of the Don Deetjen Memorial Scoreboard at Benedetti-Wehrli Stadium and the Keith H. Zobrist Scoreboard at Al B. Carius Track.
 
The Cardinals have placed in the top ten percent for all 450 NCAA Division III institutions in the Learfield Directors' Cup Standings every year since 2003-04. Among CCIW institutions, North Central has earned six first place Director Cup finishes and has not finished lower than fifth since the Directors' Cup's inception in 1995.
 
Miller’s impact as athletic director goes beyond athletics as North Central has had 43 student-athletes earn College Sports Information Directors Association/College Sports Communicators (CoSIDA/CSC) Academic All-America honors since 2005. North Central student-athletes and teams have also earned 859 nationally recognized academic awards.

In 2010, Miller was honored as the 19th recipient of the Harold and Eva White First Citizen of the College Award, which is given annually to a student, faculty or staff member who exemplifies the best of North Central College.  In 2023, Miller was inducted into the North Central College Athletics Hall of Fame.
   
Miller and his wife, Kristin, also a North Central graduate, live in Naperville with their three children, Kirby '20, Kaylee and Jenae.