The story of Kevin Millar and Lamar University is one of love at first sight. It began in the fall of 1991 when Lamar baseball coach Jim Gilligan made a recruiting trip to Los Angeles where Millar had played for LA City Junior College.
“I was taking ground balls when Coach Gilligan came up and offered me a recruiting trip to Lamar,” said Millar. “I had never heard of Lamar or Beaumont. I went home and told my dad (Chuck) about it, and he, too, knew nothing about Lamar or Beaumont. We flew to Beaumont, though, and, after about 10 minutes, I was thinking, ‘I don’t know about this place.’ It kind of stunk with the smell from the petrochemical plants.
“Five minutes later, though, I was loving it. We were in Bennigan’s, and the people there were so friendly. I loved the accents of the girls.
“That night, we went to a basketball game in the Montagne Center. The whole friendly atmosphere of Texas and Beaumont just made me fall in love with it. I grew up in the fast lane in LA, but I decided that night that it was time for me to become a big fish in a small pond instead of being a small fish in a big pond.”
Millar and Lamar.
These rhymers will always go hand in hand.
For two glorious seasons, Millar was a key part of Lamar’s return to prominence in collegiate baseball. In 1992, Lamar went 32-21, posting the NCAA’s biggest turnaround with a 14-victory improvement over the 1991 season. Millar led the Cardinals that season in runs (41), hits (56), home runs (13) and runs batted in (50), and he earned All-Sun Belt Conference honors.
The next season, Millar helped lead the Cardinals to a 44-18 record, to the SBC regular-season and tournament championships and to a berth in the NCAA’s Central 1 Regional in College Station.
“I had some fabulous, special and exciting moments while I was at Lamar,” said Millar, now a member of the Boston Red Sox team that “Reversed the Curse” by winning the 2004 World Series.
Winning the conference in 1993, then going to Jacksonville (Fla.) and beating Jacksonville State (6-3) to win the conference tournament are the memories that stand out the most. We were a scrappy group of guys.”
After leaving Lamar, Millar served a four-year apprenticeship in the minor leagues before earning a ticket to “the bigs” with the Florida Marlins in 1998. He hit his major-league highs of .314 and 39 doubles for the Marlins in 2001.
Millar joined the Red Sox in 2003 and promptly recorded his major-league best of 25 homers and 96 RBI. This past October, he ignited the Red Sox’s resurgence from a 3-0 deficit to the New York Yankees in the American League championship series, and the team went on to sweep the St. Louis Cardinals in the World Series.
While the 2004 season was Millar’s most eventful, so, too, was his off season. In early December, he was honored by having his Lamar jersey No. 15 retired during halftime ceremonies of a basketball game in the Montagne Center, and, in early February, he became one of seven new inductees to the Cardinal Hall of Honor. In between, City Council proclaimed Kevin Millar Day in Beaumont.
In helping present Millar at the Hall of Honor banquet in the Mary and John Gray Library, former Cardinal teammate Kyle Green said, “This accomplishes one thing. It gets Kevin Millar into the library for the first time.”
Millar disputed that in his acceptance speech. “This is my second trip to the library,” he deadpanned. “The first time was when Coach Gilligan brought me here on my recruiting trip.”
Gilligan says Millar made a lasting impression on him in his very first at-bat for the Cardinals. “I already knew that Kevin had taken a liking to Texas women, and it was apparent that the girls were also enamored by him,” said Gilligan.
“In our season opener that year, Kevin stepped into the on-deck circle, and, all of a sudden, from different directions, I heard four or five female voices saying, ‘Kevin, you promised me a hit,’ or ‘Kevin, get a hit for me.’
“Kevin went to the plate and immediately drilled a double. I turned to David Hall (then one of the Cardinals’ assistant coaches) and said, ‘Now, that’s hitting under pressure.’”
Another vivid memory Gilligan has of Millar is from a game in which the third baseman wasn’t so successful with the bat. “We were down at Texas-Pan American (in 1993), and, in the final game of the series, we set a team record for hits (with 21, but since exceeded several times),” said Gilligan. “Everyone on the team got at least one hit, except for Kevin, who went 0-for-a-lot.
“To this day, I enjoy kidding him about that. I tell him that hey, even the bus driver got a couple of hits in that game.”
Millar collected many hits in his two-season stay at Lamar, and he remains a hit today by making his off-season home in Beaumont, where he met his wife, the
former Jeana Chance, in 1995. They are expecting twins (their firstborns) in May.
“I have never regretted coming to Lamar,” said Millar, who now plays first base. “It’s the best decision I ever made.
“Jim Gilligan is a tremendous teacher of baseball. He teaches without an ego, and he teaches in a manner that is easy to understand. He could be a tremendous major-league pitching coach. He cares about his players, and he cares about what he does.”
Millar says he’s also appreciative of what he learned from Al Vincent, the late professional coach and manager who served many years as a volunteer assistant to the Cardinals after his retirement from baseball.
“Just being around Al and soaking in his knowledge was tremendous,” said Millar. “I was determined to be a good player, and sitting and listening to Al helped me become the player I am today. He told me one day that I would hit for power – he believed it before I believed it.
“Being tough mentally is what it takes in the major leagues. Most pro baseball players have the physical ability, but they don’t all have the mental toughness. Jim Gilligan prepares young players for the mental side of the game. He teaches them how to deal with failure, and failure is a big part of baseball. If you bat .300, which is considered good for a hitter, you’re failing seven times out of 10.
“Jim is the guy who got me on track as far as realizing that if I’m going to do this (play baseball) for a living, I had better be tough.
“If a high school or junior college baseball player were to ask me today, I would tell him that Beaumont is a great city, that there are great people there and that Lamar has a tremendous coach. There’s not a better one in college baseball. Jim and I are now best friends, and Beaumont and Lamar are very fortunate to have him.
“I would tell a recruit that Lamar is underrated and that it’s not nationally publicized like other programs, but that he will be a much better player when he leaves Lamar.”
In the aftermath of the Red Sox’s World Series triumph, Millar attracted national attention by referring to himself and his teammates as “a bunch of idiots having fun.”
That is so far from the truth, says Gilligan. “Kevin has a lot of the intangibles that other players don’t have,” said Gilligan. “He’s been a leader in every clubhouse he’s been in. You can’t really rate how important that quality is, but he has it.
“I witnessed it once when I was in the Marlins’ clubhouse after a game in Florida. I won’t mention the pitcher’s name or the infielder’s, but a certain pitcher came into the clubhouse complaining about how that infielder had played.
“Kevin immediately backed that pitcher into the wall and let him know that in no uncertain terms he had better not ever again hear him complain about a teammate. Kevin carries that attitude with him every day of the week.
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“I’m so proud of what Kevin has accomplished, but there’s more to see. It’s going to be very difficult for him and the Red Sox to top what they did this past season, but there’s plenty of baseball left in Kevin. I also believe he’ll be a great major league manager one of these days.”
