Legendary Saskatchewan Roughriders quarterback Kerry Joseph was hit hard by the passing of his former coach, Ken Miller.
“I felt heartbroken, a sense of loss. My wife sent me a screenshot from social media and when I saw that, I sat there for a minute,” Joseph said during an exclusive interview with 620 CKRM’s Countdown to Kickoff show. “I started immediately thinking about what he meant to me as a coach but more importantly, what he meant to me as a man, as a mentor.”
Joseph has become a successful coach in his own right, spending time with four separate NFL teams. This offseason, he was hired by the Chicago Bears to be the team’s quarterbacks coach for Heisman Trophy winner and 2024 first-overall NFL Draft pick Caleb Williams, who is regarded by many as a generational prospect.
While taking Williams under his wing, Joseph realizes how much of his own coaching philosophy can be attributed to the late Miller.
“When I think about coaching, it’s about how can I build that caring, loving relationship so the guys that I am coaching, they know that I’m there for them and for their success, the success of the team and to be able to pour out everything that I have inside of me into them, whether it be football, whether it be how to help them continue to grow as a man,” he explained.
“Those conversations that we had in that meeting room with Ken Miller are the things I share with the guys that I coach, helping them be the best professional athlete they can be to accomplish everything they set out to accomplish.”
Joseph and Miller spent one season together in Saskatchewan, pairing the dual-threat passer and open-minded offensive coordinator made 2007 a memorable one for both men. The Riders went 12-6 in the regular season thanks to a potent offence as the noted “players’ coach” drew a career year out of his then-34-year-old QB.
“We had a game plan, we knew what we wanted to run and how we wanted to attack opposing defences but for him, it was always about: ‘K.J., what do you like?'” Joseph recalled. “It was myself, Darian Durant, and Marcus Crandell in that room but he always gave us the opportunity to speak on what we were comfortable with — what we didn’t like, what we did like. Those are the plays we ran and the plays we didn’t like, he pulled them out. The level of trust, the belief and the confidence we had in each other was remarkable and you see the success we had as a team that year.”
Joseph completed 58 percent of his passes for 4,002 yards with 24 touchdowns and eight interceptions, while rushing for 737 yards and 13 majors on the ground in 2007. It would turn out to be the lone all-star season in his 12-year CFL career and earned him the league’s Most Outstanding Player award. However, he still cherishes the endorsement of his coach more than the accolades.
“It might have been a couple of days before [the 2007 Grey Cup], we were practicing in the SkyDome. I remember him walking up to me in practice and he said: ‘Young man, I will say this here, if they do not select you to be the MOP of this CFL season, time will stop. That’s what I really think about you,'” Joseph smiled. “At that moment, I was like, wow, this is one of my coaches saying that to me, how much he believes in me and how much he believes I deserve that reward. I will never forget those words coming from someone that I have a lot of respect for, highly respected across the CFL.”
The Roughriders beat the Winnipeg Blue Bombers 23-19 in the 95th Grey Cup, securing the third championship in franchise history. Joseph completed 13-of-34 passes for 181 yards with one touchdown and one interception. The calm encouragement from Miller and head coach Kent Austin allowed him to settle in and rush for 101 yards on 10 carries, eventually finding Andy Fantuz for the deciding TD pass in the fourth quarter.
“We get into the game and nothing changed with him. It was: ‘Young man, go be yourself. Go lead us. Go help us bring this Grey Cup back to Saskatchewan.’ That was him, calm demeanour,” Joseph remembered.
“You never saw him raise his voice. Even though he might’ve gotten upset at times, you could never really tell. He was always even-keeled, the same person all the time. He was that coach that wanted to hear from you coming off the field before he even gave you his opinion. You got the smile, the little smirk that he gives, and he wanted to hear from you first before he added any corrections or anything that he needed to add — I won’t forget that.”
Even at the pinnacle of Canadian football achievement, with confetti raining down, Miller reacted only with a smile. According to Joseph, you never needed any more than that to know where you stood with him.
“He had that mild look on his face and he would always look at you and you’d be waiting for him to say something, but he would just smile and you’d get: ‘Good job, kid.’ That’s all you would get,” he explained. “You wouldn’t get a lot, but you knew that deep down inside of him, the love, the care, the nurture that he had for you as a person. You knew that and you felt it from him every time you got the handshake, every time you got the hug. You knew that about Ken Miller, that he was there to be your best partner out there on the field as your coach.”
The Grey Cup game would be the final time Joseph and Miller shared a locker room, as the quarterback was traded to the Toronto Argonauts that offseason. Miller would go on to take over as the Riders head coach, posting a 36-27-1 win-loss-tie record over three-and-a-half seasons and appearing in two more Grey Cups.
Joseph continued to admire his old coach as an opponent and the two kept in touch intermittently after retirement, though time and distance made that more difficult. The 50-year-old Joseph is trying to employ his departed coach’s nurturing philosophy with Williams, who faces intense scrutiny as the face of the Bears’ franchise.
“Coach Miller would always look at me and say: ‘Young man, just be yourself. Just go do what you do. I believe in you. We believe in you. Just go lead us. He would always leave me with that and those are the fond memories that I think about when I think about Ken Miller as a coach and as a person. He wanted you to go play football and, most importantly, enjoy while you’re doing it,” Joseph recalled.
“When I got to Riderville, it was a lot of expectations but the only thing that really mattered was me putting my best foot forward to help the team succeed one play at a time, one game at a time. I tell Caleb, tell the other quarterbacks: ‘Hey, we stay even-keeled.’ We know what we want to get done as a group. We know what we want to get done as an individual. We know what we want to get done as an organization. You quiet the noise on everybody else’s expectations.”
Through Joseph’s coaching, it seems as though a little piece of Miller survives in the Windy City as long as the NFL’s rising star quarterback is slinging the football. The Rider legend may be gone, but he won’t be forgotten.
“He was a ball of wisdom, very knowledgeable when it came to the game of football. Most importantly as a man going through life’s journey, [he taught you] different ways to relate to players, to teammates, the way you live your life as a man away from the game of football. He was another inspiration, another mentor to me that I hold on to dearly,” Joseph said.
“Mrs. Maureen Miller and the Miller family, my prayers, my condolences go out to you. Love you all, love that family. Everything that you meant to the Joseph family, to myself, to the Riders, know that you are in my prayers and I pray that God gives y’all peace and strength as y’all know that Ken Miller will be missed.”
The Bears open the team’s 2024 regular season on Sunday, September 8 in Chicago against the Tennessee Titans.
