By Gary Nager
I have known Joel Miller (photo) since he and my older son Jared played youth football together on the New Tampa Wildcats at age 12 or 13. Now 26, following an outstanding high school football career at New Tampa’s Paul R. Wharton High, Miller’s college football career — and his life — took an unexpected nosedive while he was a walk-on at the University of South Florida.
Yes, Miller is, unfortunately, “that kid,” the player who was on the receiving end of one of the strangest and most controversial physical confrontations between coach and player in college football history. It was on November 21, 2009, when the longtime New Tampa resident was a redshirt, walk-on sophomore playing primarily special teams for the program Jim Leavitt first began building from the ground up in 1997. And, although Leavitt’s Bulls led 17-16 at halftime, the Cardinals rallied from down 14-0 to grab a 16-14 first-half lead until USF kicker Eric Schwartz kicked a 22-yard field goal with no time on the clock.
Apparently incensed over how his team had given up its early advantage, Leavitt launched into a physical tirade that he focused on not only Miller, but also on another former Wharton star, Ladre Watkins.
To this day, however, Miller says it was another Bulls player — former Seminole High star Colby Erskin — who ultimately leaked the story to the local media (by calling SportsRadio 620 WDAE-AM). Even so, Miller was the one cast into the role of the media-attention-seeking whistleblower who ultimately caused Leavitt to be fired with cause — even though the discredited coach ended up winning his unlawful termination lawsuit against the school — and the Bulls football team has never been the same since. But, of course, Leavitt landed on his feet, first with the NFL’s San Francisco 49ers, but now, he is back in college coaching at the University of Colorado.
Although Joel did earn a B.S. in Communications from USF (in 2012), his life hasn’t gone the way he planned. I believe that Joel himself always believed he would make it in football, even after he walked away from his scholarship at The Citadel (the Military College of South Carolina, in Charleston). But, although he says he did get plenty of playing time under Skip Holtz (the also-fired coach who took over for Leavitt in 2010), Joel says he never felt the same about USF, football, or any possible career after football, after being cast as the villain in the Leavitt saga.
He admits that what happened to him at age 20 caused him to “fall into a rabbit hole” and while he tried not to let it affect him too much, whether at job interviews or in any bar in the Tampa Bay area, Joel says he was never allowed to forget that he was “that kid.”
Joel first started telling me that he wanted me to be the one to finally tell his story a few years ago. “I promise you, Mr. Nager,” he told me in 2011 or 2012 after he had hired an attorney, “I want you to be the person who gets to tell it for me. I know you’ll be fair.”
His attorney then was Barry Cohen, the high-profile defense attorney who has been involved in cases such as the dividing up of former Tampa Bay Bucs owner Hugh Culverhouse’s multi-million-dollar estate, to the Sabrina Aisenberg case, to the killing of a key Boston Marathon bombing witness and others.
But, while Cohen may not have seen a big-bucks settlement worth sticking around for, Joel’s story still has never been told publicly, so on this page and pages 3 & 20, he finally gets to tell his story in his own words. (Note-the full audio interview that provided the basis for this story, plus our video interview, will be available at NTNeighborhoodNews.com).
And, speaking of those words, please note that all of the quotes used here are direct, with curse words (but those words have been censored and some quotes have been combined for print). The interview segments on our website also will “bleep out” the curses.
Joel says the one thing no one else but me has ever asked him to do was to actually reenact the scene in the locker room at halftime of that Louisville game.
So, although this isn’t the order in which Joel and I recorded the interviews, I felt that his reenactment of that volatile locker room scene was the right place to start.
NOTE: All of the clips from the video and audio interviews with Joel Miller, plus an interview with a former USF player will be made available next week.
Gary: “So, USF leads Louisville 17-16 at halftime on November 21, 2009. You’re sitting in your locker and Coach Leavitt comes into the locker room. What happened next?”
Joel: He comes in (around a bend), screaming, and sees me and grabs me (by the jersey with both hands) and shoves me back (into the locker) and screams, ‘What the f— is the matter with you?’ Then, he brings me back to him and throws me back again and then, one (Leavitt throws a right hand to his face), two (throws another roundhouse right to the face), three (yet another roundhouse right). Then, he throws me back into the locker again and yells, ‘You f—ing idiot. You f—ing got a penalty.’ Then, he walks over to Ladre (Watkins), grabs him the same way, head-butts him, ‘Bam,’ and he (Leavitt) falls to the ground…his nose is all busted…and then Leavitt yells, ‘Please, fight for me. Fight for me, Jesus!’
Gary: When it happened, did you already have a problem with Leavitt?
Joel: Like I said, he’s very intense…and passionate…about the game. And that’s fine. I don’t care. He can be however intense he wants to be…whatever makes him tick…I don’t give a sh-t. But, he gets all nuts, he gets crazy…and everything just explodes. And I was just the person…it’s almost like an abuse case. Who do you always see…when they come up on TV…who do they always pick on? The person that’s as big as them? The person who has something they can lose from? No, they find the one person that can’t do anything, so if they do something to them, nothing’s going to happen. And that was me. But, I bet there were 25 or 30 players who had (similar) problems with him.
(He explained that he appreciated that Leavitt helped him transfer to USF, but t the coach knew Joel didn’t want his family to have to pay for college for him, so he really needed to get on scholarship to stay at the school. He had to sit out the 2008 season due to NCAA rules about transfers, and played for Leavitt in 2009 as a non-scholarship walk-on.)
Joel: So many people hated him. Big stars, like Mike Ford (one of Leavitt’s starting running backs in 2009) hated him. When he hit me, Mike said, ‘Joel, I’m going to go stand up there with you,’ but people were afraid of him (Leavitt) because they didn’t want to have to go back to where they came from, they told me. They’d say, ‘Joel, I want to say something. I want to go against him. I hate him. We all hate him. But, I have to have this (my scholarship).’
Gary: In other words, leading up to this, you already had a problem with him, he was already giving you a hard time. Can you give me an example of what it was like?
Joel: OK. We had a scrimmage and I had like one penalty in the scrimmage the whole time (in 15 or 20 plays) and he made me run up and down, because of the penalty, but nobody else (had to)…while the scrimmage was still going on, by the way. And then, he comes back and then he goes, ‘Everybody, I just want to say that you all had a great scrimmage, except for Joel’ I was the only one…(with him) screaming at me, I had to run back and forth to the fence and back, to the fence and back, five or six times. People said, ‘Oh he’s trying to make you better’ and I understand that, but I was the only one.
Gary: Did he ever tell you you had an attitude problem before the incident?
Joel: I never said anything to him…never one word to him back…I never said anything to anybody because I wanted my scholarship. I deserved it…and people thought I deserved it. People like Tyrone McKenzie, who’s in the NFL, Kion Wilson, who’s in the NFL…they were like, ‘Joel, you should have a scholarship before some of these running backs.’ And after two years, all the coaches and players said that I needed to have a scholarship, that it was ridiculous if I didn’t (get one).
Joel: There was another incident after the Louisville game. It was that Sunday night and we were practicing and something happened on the sideline and like five people got tackled and Leavitt thought it was my fault, so he…pushed me in the back. I was walking away…and he just runs at me and pushes me in the back….for no f—ing reason.
Joel: I remember I texted (former USF running backs coach) Carl Franks after that and told him, ‘If he ever pushes me…or touches me…again, I’m going to beat the f— out of him.’ So, then Carl Franks calls me in (to his office) the next day and says, ‘Joel, this is way out of control.’ And, he knew he (Leavitt) did something wrong. He even said, ‘He’s wrong. But, if this gets out, we’re all going to get fired.’ And I said, ‘No, I don’t want that to happen. You’ve taught me a lot, you’ve supported me a lot and I don’t want that to happen, you guys don’t deserve that, you’re all good guys…and good coaches. That shouldn’t happen because of one dipsh–t. You know, one dipsh–t f—s everything up and that’s stupid.’
Gary: How long after it happened…after the Louisville game…before it came out?
Joel: Well, I think it was when the next week, he (Leavitt) had an equipment manager throw (former USF wide receiver) Colby Erskin’s stuff out into the rain…on a really rainy day like today…and he (Leavitt) said, told a guy to, ‘Throw his s— out into the rain…his whole locker.’ And, he did.
Gary: And that incident had nothing to do with you?
Joel: Nothing to do with me. He just did it to him. He did that to Colby Erskin, who was a scholarship player, but they had had fights before, and he (Erskin) said, ‘OK, f— you.’ And he called 620 (WDAE-AM) and said what happened and then, BAM! There goes the story.
Gary: Colby Erskin said what happened to him or what happened to you?
Joel: OK, he said, ‘Leavitt threw all of my s— in the rain, my whole locker,’ and he goes, ‘but let me tell you, he struck a player…Joel Miller…and hit him right in the face’…and then, that was it. Then, Colby Erskin called me and I was like, ‘Oh s—.’ And now, I’ve got everybody on my ass.
Leavitt was on the phone, calling my dad…and you can look up the phone records…20 times…telling him what to say. And then, calling him another 15 times….and telling me what to say…and saying, ‘Oh Joel, you know I love you…and you know I would never….You’re such a great guy, blah, blah, blah’…and I knew it was a bunch of s—.
Gary: OK, but what did you tell me you did directly after the incident?
Joel: Right after I got out (of the locker room), after the game, my parents knew something was wrong and my dad asked me what happened and I said, ‘Leavitt just punched me in the face…three times.’ And, he was like, ‘What?’ And, my dad actually went to the building…to confront him…let’s say confront him…but (Leavitt) wasn’t there.
I also called Coach (Craig) Rainey, from Wharton (as well as the New Tampa Wildcats youth program before that), and I tell him the whole story. I was like, ‘Oh my God, this guy was like f—ing hitting me in the face.’ And Coach Rainey said, ‘Joel, you have to talk to someone…Talk to (running backs coach) Carl Franks.’ He goes, ‘Joel, that’s crazy, I don’t know’…he was kind of shocked in a way, like, ‘Why did this happen? What the hell? Go try to talk to some coaches and figure it out.’
Gary: What happened after it broke?
Joel: I would go to class and these kids would say, you know, ‘F— this coach…f— this player. He’s a p—y…he probably just wants money…he doesn’t even have a scholarship,’ because you know, that looks worse, because it looks like I want money…and I’d just keep my head down and not say anything and act like I wasn’t even there.
Joel: I would go to different bars or clubs and people wanted to fight me…I even got hit with a brick in the back of the head. I have a huge scar in the back of my head from it. I played in a game, for Skip Holtz, at Syracuse, after it…and they covered it up, like with bandages and a pad on it and they wrapped my head like they had done surgery on it. I probably got in 15 or 20 fights over this. And I never threw the first punch.
Joel: You know, the (reporter) from (CBSSportsline.com) asked me, “How come you changed your story? Why did you change from saying he hit you in the pads to he hit you in the face?” And I said, “Because he (Leavitt) told me to say that and I said, ‘Fine, we can do that…we can squash it, whatever.’”
And then, Leavitt didn’t do anything to me anymore…from that point…Nothing…I still practiced hard, I did what I had to do and he just didn’t do anything. And then, he would come out and talk to me like I was his buddy…and people would be like, ‘Wow.’
Gary: Like, that it was weird?
Joel: Yeah, because he’s not like that. He didn’t talk to anybody and he was (now) like (to me), ‘Wow, you’ve worked so hard this year…you’re a great player…I’m just so glad that you’re on this team. You’ve really helped us. Wow. You’re great.’
Gary: Obviously, someone had a talk with him. Who do you think it was, (former USF athletic director) Doug Woolard?
Joel: Yeah, maybe. Doug Woolard is a snake in the grass. I heard (USF president) Judy Genshaft and Woolard went into his (Leavitt’s) office when I was out of the building and they said, ‘Just tell us that you hit him and you can keep your job.’ And he (Leavitt) said, ‘No I did not hit him…at all.’ So, they had to fire him.
And, neither Doug Woolard or Judy Genshaft ever came up to me and said one word. Not one word. Ever. And Woolard and Genshaft knew the whole thing….but they never said one word to me….Woolard even walked past me at a bar (Linkster’s Tap Room on BBD)…and didn’t even acknowledge me. And, I was like, ‘F— you!’
Joel: And then, Leavitt got an attorney, so I said, ‘Well, if he’s getting an attorney, I’m getting an attorney, so that if there was something I said that his attorney could use against me…and I’d look like an idiot’…I got an attorney, in case he tried to ‘swindle the crowd’….just in case, like in the O.J. Simpson case. I didn’t want any of that, ‘If the glove doesn’t fit, you have to acquit’ s–t happening.
Joel: Steve Bird (who was a graduate assistant offensive coach in 2009 who stayed on with Holtz in 2010) came and said to me my senior year (2012), “I want to tell you something that nobody else knows. We all had a meeting after that game…all the coaches…and Carl Franks stood up and asked…’Hey, are you going to confront Joel…are you going to say anything? Are you going to do anything?’” And he (Leavitt) said, ‘I don’t need to say anything…do anything. I can do whatever I want to do. I don’t care…I can do what I want.’
Joel knows there will be naysayers about re-opening an old wound, but he says he waited until he at least started to turn his life around:
“With God’s protection, I know he’ll lead me down the right path to my ultimate goal.”
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