UNC fencing athletes reflect on lessons, memories from Ron Miller’s coaching career

Bob Largman returned to his hometown in New Jersey a few years after graduating from UNC, where he was a member of the Tar Heels men’s fencing team (1979-83). There, he learned his high school, Morristown High, was about to cut its fencing program because there was no coach.

So Largman called his college coach, Ron Miller, and asked for advice on how to coach a high school team. The advice was simple, Largman said, do what he thought was right.

“He encouraged me to do what I thought was right, because he trusted my experience at Carolina,” Largman said. “But my education experiences would lead me, so he was a great mentor there.”

Largman said most of his coaching tactics actually came from Miller’s style, that the head coach was adamant on creating a culture that emphasized the beauty of being a family.

It was one story mentioned among many others Largman shared when reflecting on Miller’s life.

USA Fencing announced that Miller, who founded the UNC fencing program and was the head coach for 52 years, died Monday at 78. Miller was the longest tenured coach in all of UNC Athletics, after former men’s basketball Dean Smith retired in 1997. In his 52 years at the helm, he accumulated 1,602 wins.

“He was a great person and a giant in one of the most anonymous sports you’ll likely never see,” Jamie Kritzer, assistant director of communications for the department of transportation and UNC fencing alum, said in an email to The News & Observer.

Over five-plus decades, Miller coached 14 All-Americans, five U.S. National Fencing Team members and two Olympians during his time as head coach. Miller was inducted into the U.S. Fencing Hall of Fame earlier this year as a member of the Class of 2023.

He coached the U.S. Junior World Team in 1981, before given the chance to coach the Senior World Championship Team in 1983 and the Junior Pan American team in 1987.

Miller also enjoyed coaching coaches, and help them better their athletes through different tactics. He served as the director of the USFA’s National Coaches College for 10 years, and was a USFA National Coaching Staff member. Former member Michael Nicholson (1997-2001) said after graduating from UNC, he and Miller went to New Orleans to help coach and show interpretations of different actions, and how to create an individualized coaching style to teach others the sport.

“That was always his philosophy,” Nicholson said. “The parts you don’t want to do, you don’t have to do. “

Nicholson originally met Miller before coming to UNC, and didn’t have intentions to competing in college, but decided to try out eventually anyways. Now, he said learning from Miller had one of the best parts of his four years in college.

“It’s totally altered the course of my life throughout college and get me engaged,” he said. “It’s not ever going to leave me.”

Miller’s own ‘Carolina Way’

Miller came to UNC as a physical education instructor, but had intentions to help take the existing club fencing team and bring it up to the varsity level. He recruited athletes with fliers, through classes and pick-up sports.

That tactic worked particularly well for current Tar Heels coach Matt Jednak, who joined the program with virtually no experience in 2003 and still referred to Miller as “Coach” in his first year at the helm.

UNC officially added fencing as a varsity sport in the ACC for the 1970-71 season. Then, Miller’s men’s team won eight conference titles over 10 years, from 1971 to 1980. Miller was named Collegiate Coach of the Year in 1983 and 1986, along with the USFCA Award for Merit in 2016 for his contributions and achievements in the sports. And in his 52 years, Miller’s team’s never had a GPA lower than 3.0.

Miller originally announced his retirement during the 2017-18 season, but stayed throughout the hiring process and formally left once Jednak was hired in spring 2019.

“I walked on to the program 16 years ago and learned the sport from Coach,” Jednak told The News & Observer for a story in 2019, “and when I say ‘Coach,’ by the way, there’s only one. If it’s ‘Coach,’ it’s Ron Miller.”

Largman echoed that Miller was almost universally known as “Coach” to everyone in the UNC fencing community. Having led the program for so long, it was all anyone could have known him by.

Except, Miller did earn a second nickname during Largman’s years at the program.

To go along with his love of fencing, Miller also had a love for boxing, and joked about how his hand and his fist was. Thus, Largman and his teammates dubbed Miller as “Paw.” While the nickname wasn’t as widely known, it was a fun back-and-forth the Tar Heels had, Largman said.

And even while Largman graduated from UNC in 1983, he made trips to see the fencing team compete and to visit Miller. The coach’s impact stretched long enough where Miller’s wife, Susan, helped him use social media to continue staying in contact with athletes and their families long after they had left the program.

It was the “Carolina way,” or at least, Miller’s version of it.

“He wanted us to be a family, because he felt it helped the team,” Largman said. “We would support each other, the better the teammates we would be and the better the performance was.”

The notion, popularized in Smith’s book, mostly revolves around men’s basketball, and the success that program is known for. But, Largman said, Miller’s version focused on the different ways everyone came together and supported each other.

Fencing, by nature, is an individual sport — it’s one-on-one on the strip. But Miller refused to let any of his athletes believe they were only in it for themselves.

“You hear about the ‘Carolina way’ of doing things and the basketball family,” Largman said, “and it’s interesting because we feel the same way about the fencing team. You know, we had our ‘Carolina way,’ we had the fencing family. And to us, it was just as important, just as big and just as meaningful, as what everybody hears about.”

A love for fencing

Both Largman and Nicholson are still involved in the sport today. Largman became a team leader for four straight Olympics, from 2000 to 2012, and Nicholson continues coaching the sport. The two both took away different life lessons from Miller, particularly during their time in college. Nicholson said his lesson came from a simple warmup exercise, where he had to do a forward roll to another side of an opponent and he couldn’t believe he could do it.

So when he found a way to do the exercise, Nicholson held on to the story, and the lesson he learned, to share with students he now teaches the sport to today.

“Having faith in yourself will lead you to do more than you thought,” Nicholson said.

Largman said after telling his family the news he’d be a team leader in the Olympics, he immediately called Miller. Miller continued coaching athletes of all ages after retiring, and still loved hearing from his former athletes about their successes in and outside of fencing.

“This was my my love that I can trace back to Coach,” Largman said. “What he instilled in us, kind of blossomed when I left him. It blossomed and I was able to create my own experiences again under his image, so to speak.”

Jednak called Miller’s name during the induction ceremony of the U.S. Fencing Hall of Fame, yet another honor Miller received throughout his lengthy career. His desire to continue sharing the sport he loved continued to give back to him through his many awards, but Miller still chose to focus on his athletes.

“This is the joy of my life,” Miller said in his acceptance speech, according to USA Fencing. “To be able to give back to promote our sport, to show how important it is to the daily life of everyone that they can learn to be a better person, learn to be more effective in their communications with others — in their ability to find joy and success in their life.”

UNC Athletics created a story allowing alumni of the fencing program to share some memories of their time with Miller on Tuesday. Stories range from how Miller brought them into the program, to simply taking the opportunity to express heartfelt emotions.

“I don’t think I’ve ever felt as strongly about someone who is not part of my actual family,” Jednak said in a statement through UNC Athletics. “Coach Miller shaped all of us in so many ways, and I’m grateful to have spent so much of my life linked to him in one way or another — as one of his fencers, as one of his assistant coaches, and finally following in his very large shoes as coach of this program. He has left an incredible legacy and will live on in every Tar Heel he mentored, but we will all miss him terribly.”

Former captain Sydney Persing, who competed for UNC from 2015-19, shared photos on social media of herself with the late head coach, along with a video of her father embracing Miller following the 2018 ACC title win.

“Thank you for believing in me and for loving me like a daughter,” Persing said. “Fencing for you was the honor of my life and I will miss you forever.”

Miller never cared about gold, silver or bronze medals, or what trophies he’d collected over the years, Largman said. In fact, the Tar Heels alum said if Miller had kept a trophy case, it would’ve been filled with team photos throughout his 52 years, not furnished wood and stainless steel. It was his Carolina community that he cared about, the bond they all shared and the memories they created together.

“He was about the total person, not just the fencer, but because a fencer you know, couldn’t Excel if they weren’t a complete person,” Largman said. “Just candy shots of people doing other things were just as important to him and he treasured when people had families and children, and to know about them and their successes.”