Cheryl Miller

Basketball Champion

Birthplace: Riverside, Ca    (11964- )

* In January 1997, Miller was named Head Coach and General Manager of the WNBA's Phoenix Mercury.

* Served as women's basketball analyst for NBC's coverage of the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta.

* Before joining Turner Sports, Miller was head coach at the University of Southern California, her alma mater, from 1993-1995.

* Miller also worked for ABC where she served as a reporter for "Wide World of Sports" and a commentator for the network's college basketball telecasts.

* A four-time all-American and three-time Player-of-the-Year at USC, Miller was a member of the 1984 U.S. Olympic gold medal women's basketball team. In 1986, she led the U.S. team to the Women's World Basketball Championship title in Moscow. Earlier in the year, she led the American women past the Soviet women for the gold medal at the Goodwill Games.

The first USC basketball player - male or female - to have her number retired, she was the MVP of the Final Four tournament in both her freshman and sophomore years as she led USC to the national championship in 1982-83 and 1983-84.

 A recipient of the 1986 YWCA Silver Achievement Award, Miller was the first woman basketball player to be nominated for the Sullivan Award (1985-86). She was also voted the 1984-85 ESPN Woman Athlete of the Year.

 Miller was commissioner for the 1985 Los Angeles Olympic Committee Summer Youth Games and has been a spokesperson for the 1985-86 Los Angeles Literacy Campaign, as well as the American Lung, Diabetes and Cancer Associations and Muscular Dystrophy Association.

After she graduated from college, Miller became a sports announcer for ABC Television. She also began speaking to high students to warn them of the danger of drugs.  In 1988, Tom Bradley, mayor of Los Angeles, declared December 12, 1988, Cheryl Miller Day.  In 1994, Miller was hired to coach the women's basketball team at USC.

A member of the basketball Hall of Fame, Miller joined Turner Sports in September 1995 as an analyst and reporter for coverage of the NBA on TNT and TBS. In November, 1996, she became the first female analyst to call a nationally televised NBA game

Image courtesy of University of Southern California