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2008
By BRIAN GOLDEN
Valley Press Staff Writer
He'll think of it as a bigger Rancho Vista Plaza.
And all those thousands of people behind him?
Well, that's how the Valley feels about its athletes.
Especially the only one ever to compete in three Olympic Games.
"I've had lots of people contact me that I had relationships there with," Millar was saying by phone from Beijing early Thursday morning (Palmdale time), after the U.S. Olympic Men's practice session. "Just hearing them pledge their support and knowing they're rooting for us here means so much to me.
"It's great to know that the people where you're from are behind you. It's cool to know that people still remember your past."
Palmdale and Highland High School have had to share their favorite son with the world since he ignited a volleyball fever many say is still growing the game in the Valley today.
Twenty years ago, the Millar family moved to Palmdale from Glendora just in time for Ryan, then 10, to watch Karch Kiraly lead the United States to a second straight Olympic volleyball gold medal.
Eight years and one astonishing growth spurt later, Millar was a 6-foot-7 phenomenon hurling thunderbolts across the CIF landscape that put Highland on the volleyball map and placed himself squarely in the middle of the game nationally.
Millar went on to win a national championship at BYU, and honors as USA Volleyball's 2007 indoor player of the year.
But even 12 years removed from HHS and on his third attempt at Volleyball's Olympus, Millar still cherishes the place that served up this remarkable life.
"I feel great that kids around the Valley are looking at me as a role model," Millar said. "It's an honor, really, that they can look up to me and say, 'Hey, it would be cool to be that guy. He's done some great things, been some great places and played some good volleyball'.
"Knowing that I'm from the Valley, that that's where I grew up and went to junior high and high school, I'm proud to represent the AV and that growing volleyball community out there."
After previously competing in the Summer Games at Sydney, Australia in 2000 and Athens, Greece in 2004, Millar will make Valley sports history this weekend.
In a Valley that has produced World Series baseball players in Bill Taylor, Jim Slaton and Kevin Appier, a Super Bowl player in Gerald Small and Rose Bowl heroes in "Antelope" Al Krueger, Jermaine Lewis and Tommie Smith, Millar goes to the top of the mountain as the only Valley resident ever to compete in three straight Olympic Games.
The 1999 national championship at Brigham Young University has endeared Millar to that Utah community.
He returned to his alma mater as an assistant coach, and might indeed be the head coach there now had he not withdrawn his name from consideration in order to return to the U.S. National Team for the Beijing Olympiad.
Millar and his wife, Suzanne, built a new house in Provo, Utah last year. They had to, after the arrival of their first child, Max.
"We just celebrated his second birthday," Millar said, the joy plain even on a 12,000-mile telephone connection. "He's definitely been a blessing. He's changed our lives for the better.
"He's a little too young to come to something like this. So he's got me shooting for 2012 (in London), seeing how my body feels. By that time he'll be old enough to come and watch Daddy play."
It wouldn't just be a bad pun to say Daddy's taken it to the Max since becoming a father.
Millar hammered together a dominating player of the year season in 2007.
This year, as Team USA has won the World League and the NORCECA Olympic qualifying tournament, Millar has both times been voted the outstanding middle blocker.
He's also emerged as a reliable scorer, averaging nearly three points per set.
"We've got a great feeling going into this tournament," Millar said. "That last (NORCECA) tournament we won, we played some great volleyball, and it instilled some confidence that we can compete with anybody in the world."
A loss to Russia in the medal round left the USA with a fourth-place finish four years ago at Athens.
To many observers of the Olympic movement, Beijing 2008 could be as much about redemption for American volleyball as American basketball.
Millar still remembers that last American volleyball gold in 1988, when going to the mall was about the most ambitious social undertaking in his new neighborhood.
And should redemption arrive on a Millar block or kill?
Palmdale will rejoice.
History will change.
But Palmdale's beloved favorite son won't.
"I believe you are who you are growing up," America's middle blocker said. "It's a tribute to your parents, to your family, to the values you grew up with and learned about.
"I have no desire to change who I am because of the things I've accomplished. I'll always be who I am, and I don't think that will ever change."
