Rising Star Miller Strives to Break Out of a Huge Shadow

A full-time dentist and two-time Olympian, Lennox Miller likes to see his patients open their mouths wide, but he appreciates the attribute considerably less in sprinters, especially his daughter, Inger.

When Lennox Miller won an Olympic silver and bronze in the 100 meters for Jamaica, he left the trash-talking to his rivals.

Inger Miller, 28, hopes to surpass her father’s achievements at this year’s Summer Olympics in Sydney by bringing home several gold medals. Unlike her father, who used to take two-hour breaks from his dental practice to coach her, she doesn’t plan to go quietly to the Games.

Dynamic and vibrant, Inger Miller has in recent years competed in the huge shadow of rival Marion Jones, currently considered the world’s top female sprinter.

Set to compete at the U.S. Olympic trials in Sacramento that began Friday, Inger Miller will not wait for a drum roll to announce her arrival. Jones’ well-publicized goal of winning five gold medals in Sydney conflicts with the goals of Lennox Miller’s daughter, who for the first time last year emerged as a legitimate challenger to Jones in the 100 and 200 sprints.

“She wants five gold medals,” said Miller as she warmed up by walking around the track at UCLA, her training home. “My job is to make sure that doesn’t happen. I want three gold medals in the Olympics this year and two of those are in events she wants gold medals in. That puts pressure on her. There’s no pressure on me.”

Lennox Miller, who competed in the 1968 and ’72 Olympics, prefers a less vocal approach, but understands his daughter’s soaring self-confidence. After all, she won her first individual world title in the 200 in Seville, Spain, last summer with a splendid time. Inger Miller ran into the crowd to embrace her father and mother Avril, a flight attendant. “I always knew you could do it,” Lennox Miller told her then.

“Her confidence has skyrocketed,” Lennox Miller said. “When Marion Jones was on the scene a few years ago, everyone else was running for second place. . . . Finally, at the world championships, (Inger) showed just how talented she is. Finally it came out of her. That’s what I’ve been waiting for all this time.”

Lennox Miller did not push his daughter to compete in track and field. Born just weeks before her father won his second Olympic medal, Inger Miller grew up knowing her father more as a dentist than a sprint champion. He kept his medals in a box. He made so little of his achievements, Inger Miller said, she felt neither the pressure--nor the desire--to follow his path in the sport.

“He never made a big deal about it,” Inger Miller said. “He never talked about it. I always thought, ‘Yeah, my dad was an Olympian. Wasn’t your dad an Olympian?’ ”

Lennox Miller had moved to Los Angeles from Kingston, Jamaica, in 1965, to attend USC. As he prepared for the 1968 Summer Olympics, in which he won the silver in the 100 in 10.04 seconds, he also took a demanding organic chemistry class. To fund his training, he worked part-time on the USC grounds crew, doing gardening and other outdoor work.

After the ’68 Games, Lennox Miller gave up sprinting for most of the next four years to attend dental school. Then, permitted a two-week leave in 1972, he again qualified for the Jamaican Olympic team and won the bronze at the Summer Games in Munich in 10.33.

“During those days, track and field was the sport that most of us competed in in college before we found gainful employment,” Lennox Miller said. “In my mind, it was a way to get an education. . . . It wasn’t a bragging tool.”

Lennox Miller did not presume Inger Miller or her sister, Heather, now 24 and in medical school at USC, would share either his speed or his interest in track.

As a child, Inger Miller played a variety of sports with success. In her preteen years, the track coach saw her play soccer and urged her to try sprinting. At a junior high meet, Lennox Miller saw his daughter win a race with a burst of acceleration. He told his wife Inger could be great one day.

As a senior at Muir High in Pasadena, Inger Miller defeated a freshman at Rio Mesa in Oxnard by the name of Marion Jones at a major state meet and earned a No. 2 ranking among U.S. prep athletes by the Track and Field News.

Injuries, however, interfered. A stress fracture in her foot went undiagnosed until her senior year at USC in 1994. The resulting surgery required months of rehabilitation. She finished dead last in the finals of the 100 at the 1995 national championships.

After that, Inger Miller asked her father to be her coach. It was a job he immediately accepted and grew to love, even though it required skipping lunch and opening a two-hour midday block so he could race from his office to the track, 25 minutes away.

During their first year together, Inger Miller’s results were excellent. At the Olympic trials, she finished third in the 200 and fourth in the 100. She finished fourth in the Olympic 200 meters in 22.41, and won an Olympic gold medal on the 4x100-relay team.

“I have this real great respect for my dad,” Inger Miller said. “I trusted my father. I trusted what he knew. . . . The three years we trained together were a very good time for both of us.”

The following year, 1997, it became clear both to father and daughter that Inger Miller required more than part-time instruction. She moved to the UCLA-based training team HSInternational under coach John Smith.

There she began training full-time with men’s 100-meter world-record holder Maurice Greene and a dozen other elite sprinters. Under Smith’s tutelage, Miller ran several personal-best times last summer.

Still, few considered her a real threat to Jones, who early last year announced her plan of winning a record five Olympic gold medals--the 100, 200, 4x100 relay, 4x400 relay and the long jump. Jones had been dominant in the 100 and 200 since switching from basketball at North Carolina to track, her first love as a child.

However, at last year’s world championships, Miller nearly stole the 100 world title from Jones, posting a career-best 10.79, just nine-hundredths of a second behind Jones’ winning time. When Jones injured her back, forcing her out of the 200, Miller won in 21.77, the world’s best time of the year and a time Jones has topped just twice. To Miller, the exceptional time in the 200 proved she had reached Jones’ level.

“Everyone thought in the women’s 200, ‘Oh, Marion’s out, I guess Inger’s now the favorite,’ ” Miller said. “I knew I could win the race whether she was in it or not.”

Her father, of course, would prefer she keep her burgeoning confidence inside. Her times this year haven’t matched last summer’s, and he fears her performances will fall short of her predictions.

Shortly after her victory lap in Seville, an exultant Inger Miller walked past a group of reporters and shouted:

“You know what, everybody? It’s not a one-woman show anymore.”