Grab a piece of history with Seidler’s Ralph Miller collection
Updated 12/14/2022 8:10 PM.
Editor’s note: Sales have gone quickly. Plenty of books remain, as does the DVD featuring Miller’s practice drills and 1-4 offense. Gone is the DVD with a compilation of his weekly TV shows along with highlights from his Beaver teams. Also gone is the audio book. Sorry about that. If you still want to order the package, it now includes the book and the one DVD for $16.99.
Sometimes, history gets dropped in your lap.
That’s what happened when we came upon a book and DVD set featuring the late, great Ralph Miller.
Miller coached basketball at Oregon State from 1970-89 and was enshrined in the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in 1988. Steve Seidler, who served on Miller’s coaching staff from 1980-87, wrote an instructional book entitled “A System of Game Execution: Observations of Ralph Miller’s Pressure Basketball.” Seidler also filmed and produced a DVD set to go with the book.
Seidler, 69, was a high school star in San Diego who played a season and a half of junior varsity ball at UCLA when John Wooden was the Bruins’ coach. Seidler soon turned to coaching, and after seven years as a Miller aide he bounced around the globe, including two seasons as head coach at Linn-Benton CC in Albany. He finally landed in Phoenix, where he coached and taught high school science for 22 years. Steve and his wife moved to Roseburg in 2019 to care for his parents and live near a brother who lives in Winston.
After Miller retired, Seidler gave him a call and asked if he was going to write a book about his basketball system.
“Hell no,” Miller answered. “I’m too old.”
“Would you care if I did it?” Seidler asked.
“Go ahead, have fun,” Miller said.
Seidler collected materials from his time as a Beaver assistant and, for the next few years, put together the book and DVDs that were completed in 1998, three years before Miller died.
The book covers Miller’s offensive and defensive principles, preseason conditioning drills and information on players who benefitted from Ralph’s tutelage. Seidler goes back to Miller’s early years to provide background in his career as a player and coach. Also included is a great collection of photographs from Miller’s long career, featuring a section on Oregon State. Yes, the book was written years ago, but many of the principles are true for winning basketball today.
Also in the set: A pair of DVDs — “Ralph Miller’s Pressure Basketball: Practice Drills and the 1-4 Offense,” and “A System of Game Execution.”
Featured on the first video is a compilation of Miller’s weekly TV show along with highlights of all the OSU teams from 1980-87, including the 1980-81 “Orange Express” that started the season 26-0 and was ranked No. 1 nationally for eight weeks. There is also a collection of “Ralph Millerisms” that Seidler has fun with. The second video shows drills as employed by former Beaver forward Joe Harge when he was head coach at New Mexico Highlands.
Before the book was published, Seidler sent the manuscript to Miller to proofread. “He didn’t change much,” Seidler says.
Though he was down the bench a few seats from Miller, Seidler formed a good relationship with his gruff mentor.
“Ralph was one of a kind,” Seidler says. “The thing (in which) he most influenced me was being straightforward and to the point. I was young and inexperienced. The seven years I spent with him taught me how to act the rest of my life as far as interactions with people.
“It wasn’t always pleasant with Ralph, but he was a super guy, a great mentor, a tremendous coach. I was fortunate to have spent those seven years with him.”
Seidler got to know Wooden, working his summer camp as a high schooler and having one long private talk with the great Bruin coach during his freshman year at UCLA.
“John and Ralph were similar in many ways,” Seidler says. “The Midwest comes out of them (Miller was born and raised in Kansas, Wooden in Indiana). Both were very good at what they did. Ralph was more blunt, direct and to the point. Coach Wooden had a softer side. Not to say one was better than the other. They each had their own style.
“Kids were sometimes afraid to go in and talk to Ralph. It wasn’t that way with Wooden. There are two ways to handle kids. Both were successful in their own way. Wooden had far better talent than Ralph except the 1980-81 team, whose talent was as good as anybody’s. But it was amazing Ralph did as well as he did.”
Seidler self-published and printed 2,000 copies of the book. He sent the final 100 books to me to disseminate to coaches, basketball fans, members of Beaver Nation and subscribers to kerryeggers.com
Used copies of the book are going for less than $10 on Amazon, but a new copy sells for more than $63. We’re offering brand-new copies of the book plus the DVD pair for $24.99 including postage. These are the last 99 copies in existence. Grab one while you can! You can find the set in my online store here.
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