By Robert Seltzer, INQUIRER STAFF WRITER
Posted: November 17, 1994
LAS VEGAS — As a youngster, Bill Miller grew up listening to Rachmaninoff, Debussy and Chopin. He has strayed far from his classical roots.
"My father was a pianist, and he wanted me to become one, too," Miller said.
Instead, the boy learned how to pound people, not pianos. And he says he would never look back.
"I guess you could say I scandalized my parents," he said.
Miller is 74 now, but the scandal continues. He trains James Toney, who will defend his super-middleweight title against Roy Jones Jr. in a scheduled 12-round bout tomorrow night at the MGM Grand here.
Among boxing aficionados, this match is one of the most eagerly anticipated in years, a confrontation between undefeated fighters with reputations as pristine as their records.
"All the so-called experts think I'm going to lose," said Toney, who holds the International Boxing Federation version of the title. "Even my camp is getting panicky. . . . Everybody but Mr. Miller. Everybody but Pops."
"Pops" Miller is tall and husky, with a hoarse voice that adds authority to his statements. He calls himself a teacher, not a trainer.
And he knows how to reach Toney, a man so moody and profane that he seems to view the world as one big back alley. The trainer calls the champion a ''big overgrown kid."
"James sees me as the father he never had," Miller said. "He doesn't mean any harm. He's misunderstood. A lot of his tantrums and displays are just an act; he needs to get himself pysched up.
"Sometimes, people come up to me and say: 'Miller, why don't you get him to settle down?' But if I took away his spirit, he wouldn't be James Toney anymore."
When the two men hooked up, about four years ago, the trainer tested the fighter, making him work harder than his other boxers.
"I could see he had ability, but I wanted to find out what kind of heart he had," Miller said. "He rebelled at first. But he stopped complaining when he saw the benefits of the regimen. Right then, I knew the kid had character. And character is more important than skill."
Today, the champion strafes opponents with his left jab, a quick, sneaky punch that was not always part of his arsenal.
"James used to throw the punch across his body instead of shooting it straight out," Miller said. "Well, when you do that, you can't hook off the jab because it's the hook that's supposed to go across, not the jab. So what I did was I tied his right hand and made him hit the heavy bag with his left, round after round after round."
Miller grew up in Cincinnati, the oldest of three children whose father played the piano, both classical and jazz, in supper clubs throughout the city.
"My father made good money, and he saved enough for a four-bedroom house," said Miller, who now lives in Detroit. "My father was a family man, and my mother was a housewife. I had a wonderful childhood."
But how did that atmosphere, so removed from the grinding poverty that is the stereotypical background for young fighters, produce a boy who would fall in love with boxing?
"My three uncles were all prizefighters," Miller said. "They were my heroes, and they took me everywhere with them."
Miller was 6 when he picked up boxing, barely as tall as the stool in his corner.
"I loved it from the start," he said. "Learning in the gym and executing in the ring, it was a thrill. My parents didn't like it. Ohhhhh, no, they didn't like it. But after about a year, they finally stopped worrying because they saw I was so dedicated."
He fought in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Indiana, sometimes boxing in ''bootleg" tournaments, competitions in which second-rate promoters paid boys who were not licensed to fight professionally.
"I guess you could say they were like cockfights, only with people," Miller said. "I got $25 for my first one, and I thought: 'Jeez, you can get paid for fighting. Money's better than trophies. I'm going to turn pro.' "
At 17, with an amateur record of 37-3, the welterweight did turn pro.
"I fought everywhere: Ohio, Kentucky, Illinois, New York."
And everywhere he went, the gym was his classroom and the professors crusty veterans who delivered lectures as colorful as their names: Tiny Lambert, Pee Wee Bill, Soldier Jones.
"All day long, they would talk fight talk," Miller said. "If you had half a brain, you would listen . . . and learn."
He retired in 1948, about 10 years after his pro debut, never having reached the level that his greatest fighter, Toney, would achieve about 40 years later.
"I was about 45-5 as a pro, but I knew I had to get on with the rest of my life," Miller said.
So he moved to Detroit and got a job in quality control with Chrysler.
"It's funny," Miller said. "I guess quality control is what I'm doing now with James."
Two years after moving to Detroit, Miller began training fighters, a sidelight that seemed so insecure that he held on to his job with Chrysler - for 30 years.
"I worked during the day, and I trained kids at night," he said.
A disciplinarian who cannot tolerate slackers - he once kicked his own son out of the gym for failing to take the sport seriously - Miller dumped junior welterweight Joe Louis Manley and super middleweight Lindell Holmes, though both held world titles at the time.
"They didn't have it here," Miller said, tapping his left breast. ''Heart."
They also lacked something else Toney has, he said: character.
"Toney is a throwback," he said. "He'll fight anyone, and he'll do whatever it takes to win."
And should James Toney win tomorrow night, Pops Miller said, he will have earned the mythical title of "greatest fighter in the world, pound for pound."
