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Two for one Georgia's Miller twins win Sullivan Award
Posted: Friday April 07, 2000 09:55 AM
NEW YORK (AP) -- Life keeps getting better for Georgia's basketball twins, Kelly and Coco Miller. Minutes after the identical twins won the Sullivan Award as the nation's top amateur athlete for 1999, their mother was talking about a summer in the city -- of Chicago. "It looks like they will be at one of Michael Jordan's basketball camps after school gets out," Kathy Miller, a recently retired kindergarten teacher, said Thursday night following the presentation in Manhattan. "And the great thing about it is they have an older sister who lives in Chicago." What a deal for the 21-year-old guards from Rochester, Minn., who led the Lady Bulldogs to the Final Four in the 1998-99 season and to the final eight this past season. "We can't believe it," Coco Miller said. "To win an award like this, with all the great athletes that won before ... it's hard to believe it's true." The 5-foot-10 juniors became the first athletes in the award's 70-year history to be nominated as a joint entry, and gave women's basketball a second straight Sullivan Award winner. Tennessee's Chamique Holdsclaw won for 1998. The other finalists were Heisman Trophy winner Ron Dayne from Wisconsin; wrestler Stephen Neal from Cal State-Bakersfield; softball player Stacey Nuveman from UCLA; and diver Mark Ruiz from Orlando, Fla. As their youngest daughters posed for pictures holding the 13 1/2-pound bronze trophy of a runner carrying a laurel branch, Marv and Kathy Miller were beaming. "They have always given 150 percent," Kathy Miller said. "They are dedicated, determined and very conscientious -- on and off the court." The Miller sisters don't have fond memories of their last game, though, a 59-51 loss to Rutgers in the West Regional final. "That was one rough game," Kelly Miller said. "They were very physical and we just couldn't get it done." But they sure got it done the past two seasons. In 1998-99, they led Georgia (27-7) within a victory of playing for the national title, losing to Duke 81-69 in the Final Four. The Millers combined to average 37 points per game during the season. This season, the Lady Bulldogs were 32-4, with Kelly being voted the Southeastern Conference player of the year and Coco finishing third. Kelly, selected to the AP All-American team, averaged a team-leading 15.4 points; Coco was at 15.3. Both major in pre-med and were selected as academic All-Americans the past two years. Only three other basketball players have won the Sullivan Award, presented by the Amateur Athletic Union -- Holdsclaw, Bill Walton (1973) and Bill Bradley (1965). Former Sullivan Award winners at Thursday's presentation included Joan Benoit-Samuelsson (1985), Greg Louganis (1984); Mary Decker Slaney (1982); and Frank Shorter (1972). Voting was done by more than 700 people representing the AAU Board of Directors, the U.S. Olympic Committee Board of Directors, the AAU Sullivan Award committee and members of the sports media.
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