Miller Arms Himself so He Can Hammer His Way Past Defense

Wide receivers are fast, quick, nimble and maybe even tough, at least the best of them.

But how about strong?

What does a wide receiver need with strength? He wants his legs fast or quick, not strong. And his arms don’t have to be that strong. Their main function is to connect his all-important hands to his shoulders. Gumby can have stronger arms, for all a wide receiver cares.

For most wide receivers, an appointment to lift weights would be more like an appointment to see the dentist. They would probably just as soon go under a drill as under a bench press.

But John Dunn, the Chargers’ weight coach, requires that everyone on the team lift weights twice a week.

“We make appointments,” he said, “just like for a doctor.”

Anthony Miller is unlike most wide receivers. And I’m not talking about catching a football and running with a football. He is unlike most wide receivers in those regards, too. I’m talking about the weight room.

What’s surprising, beyond the fact that he enjoys it at all, is that his focus is more on his arms than it is on his legs. The perception would be that a wide receiver worrying about his arms would be like a linebacker spending time on a manicure.

But Miller is serious.

It dates back to his days at Pasadena Muir High School, where the fact that he had sprinter’s speed was of little interest to major college football recruiters. He stood 5 feet 9 and weighed 160.

“And,” he said, “I wasn’t very good.”

Miller took to the weight room like most teen-agers take to video arcades, except he was interested in inches and pounds rather than Pac-Man kills.

“A lot of things happened when I started lifting weights,” he said. “Mainly, I got bigger and I got more confident.”

Spurned by football, he went to San Diego State on a track scholarship. Concerned, perhaps, that the still fragile Miller might get hurt in football, the coaches told him he would have to limit himself to track.

Thus, San Diego State lost what might have been the best of a long line of marvelous wide receivers. Miller transferred to Pasadena City College and on to Tennessee, where he played so well the Chargers drafted him first in 1988 even though a knee injury cost him most of his senior season.

Miller was a standout as a rookie and a star last year, when he was voted the Chargers’ most valuable player and played in the Pro Bowl. This, after all, was no longer a scrawny kid.

And it’s amazing how much those arms have to do with it.

You look at Anthony Miller’s arms and you wonder if he built them in a weight room or had them chiseled out of mahogany. If he looks as if he could bench-press either A refrigerator or The Refrigerator, it’s because he could.

“We don’t use the bench press as a criteria for strength,” said Dunn, “but he’s benched 370 pounds. I’m not sure what he weighs, but that’s a lot of weight.”

Miller is now 5-11, 185, and has the body fat of a statue.

Dunn, who came to the Chargers from the Raiders, can think of two players it would take to build one Anthony Miller.

“He’s a combination of Mervyn Fernandez and Willie Gault,” Dunn said. “Fernandez is big with good hands and excellent athletic ability, but he doesn’t have the speed of a Willie Gault. Anthony possesses Willie Gault’s speed with Mervyn Fernandez’s hands, strength and athletic ability. If you put those two guys together, you’d have Anthony Miller.”

So what’s with all this strength stuff? Isn’t the idea to get open and catch the ball?

This may be a little idealistic, what with wide receivers encountering cornerbacks or safeties as they work their way down field. In Miller’s case, it would be very idealistic, because he frequently encounters cornerbacks and safeties.

This is where . . . you guessed it . . . arm strength comes into play.

“It helps me a lot when I’m trying to catch the ball,” he said, “because, a lot of times, I get my hands on it and then I end up fighting for it.”

His arms give him one more dimension when catching a pass becomes a wrestling match.

“He can overpower defensive backs,” said Dunn. “He just outmuscles them.”

How many times, to be sure, have you seen Miller come away with a pass reception the same way a Moses Malone would come away with a rebound? He extends the elbows, flexes, yanks and the pass is his.

In Anthony Miller’s case, if anybody--defensive backs included--can get their hands on the ball, he can catch it.