The floor is yours
- Updated: January 5, 2023
Talladega High School officials will formally dedicate the refurbished floor in The Round Palace to former coach Chucky Miller
By Al Muskewitz
East Alabama Sports Today
Chucky Miller retired from coaching in 2020, just a couple weeks before “the whole world shut down there for a while,” and never got the retirement party due a man who put in more than 40 years in his chosen profession.
He’ll get that party Friday night. Three years after he retired from the game and four years removed from his only state championship, the Tigers will give their beloved former basketball coach one more tribute when it formally dedicates the refurbished floor “Chucky Miller Court” in Chuck Miller Arena.
“It’s a great honor to have my name go onto the gym floor at my dad’s arena,” Miller, 66, said from his home in Saks. “That’s unbelievable.”
The coach’s signature appears on the floor right in front of the Talladega bench. His dad’s name is on the far side of the floor across from the visitors bench.
The Tigers have been playing on the floor since the season began, but have only two home games left, so they were running out of time to get the dedication done this year. Miller knew the school was doing the floor and figured “something was going on” with the court related to him when someone from the school called last summer to ask for his signature.
The family has always been linked with the building, one of the more unique high school gyms in the country.
The story goes the school superintendent told Chuck Sr. he was going to build him the basketball gym of his dreams exactly where he wanted it to be and then built the school around it.
“We were always unique on our gym, that’s what the best part of it is,” Miller said.
The Millers are the winningest father-son basketball coaching combination in the state with both winning more than 700 games. Chucky retired with 785. He won the state title in 2019, played for it again in 2020, then retired a short time later, right before COVID-19 changed the world.
He’s only been back to The Round Palace once since his retirement, purposely staying away while his former players were still on the active roster, and he has seen the new floor once, but only from the concourse. He’ll get the up-close-and-personal view Friday night before the Tigers take on Anniston. Many of his former players are expected to be on hand. His son, Trey, is driving back from business in Memphis that day to be there.
“I spent most of my life in Talladega, went to school there, coaching there for 21 years,” Chucky said. “It’s an honor to be honored in this way.”
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