Miller High, the scruffy old school with no gym, track, or football field that produced so many great African American athletes – and so many great African Americans – was designated a historic site in 2002. At the request of former WSU basketball All-American Charlie Primas, I was able to get then-DPS CEO Ken Burnley to dedicate DPS dollars to pay for a commemorative marker. So, I was invited to the 2005 Miller picnic for the formal dedication and photographed there beside the huge, eight-foot sign with alumni president Primas, vice president Zeline Richard, Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, and my Pershing coaching colleague Will Robinson, who first worked his mentoring magic at Miller.

My 1956 Penn Relays championship and WSU teammate Cliff Hatcher joined me in the Primas tent on that hot summer day, as he would do for one more Miller picnic before he passed in November 2006. It perhaps is fitting that the eight-foot-high marker is green and gold, since so many old WSU Tartars like Cliff and me have gone to the picnic over the years, even though we didn’t attend Miller. Also, many actual Millerites competed in the Tartars’ green and gold. They included my fellow WSU Athletic Hall of Famers Primas, football/track star Walt Jenkins, Olympian Lorenzo Wright, and world-record sprinter Buddy Coleman. My old friend, Roy Dues, the Trojans’ multi-championship track coach, is also in the WSU Hall.

The sign stands today at the closed building, conjuring departed luminaries who attended or taught there. Dues, Wright, and Coleman come immediately to mind – along with Mayor Coleman Young, old Baltimore Colts’ All-Pro tackle Gene “Big Daddy” Lipscomb, WSU sprinter Jesse Nimmons, my WSU track co-captain Charlie McIntosh, three-sport standout Sammy Gee, world-record shot putter Charlie Fonville, and yet another trackman, Jeddie King Pitts. While stationed in the Army in Manchester, N.H. in 1947, King knocked out future heavyweight champ Rocky Marciano in a preliminary bout but was never credited for it.

Others still very much alive include my fellow Detroit Track Old-Timers Aaron Gordon, Jerry Green and Tom Sledge. Dr. Gordon won the PSL mile and ran on world-record relay teams at the University of Michigan. Green, the PSL’s fastest sprinter in 1954, clocked a 9.5 100-yard dash for Texas Southern and later became a DPS principal. Ofield Dukes, who served on Vice President Hubert Humphries’ staff, is also a Miller alumnus.

Old Trojan basketball star Jocko Hughes asked me to serve on the Selection Committee for the Miller Athletic Hall of Fame – a challenging task since so many merit inclusion. I served, and subsequently participated in, the recent Second Annual Induction Dinner at Tiger Stadium. (I also attended the first – at Sindbad’s last year – where the 95-year-old Robinson, whose health is now failing, was the sole inductee). At the second dinner, I was privileged to make presentations to the families of Fonville and Wright and recount their track and field exploits to the many in attendance.

Although the battered building is boarded-up now, its alumni gather with their friends by its historic marker every summer to celebrate their proud and distinguished heritage.

Dr. John Telford was a world-ranked sprinter at WSU. The Finney track is named for him. E-mail john.telford@detroitk12.org.