West Hills product Miller boots for SUU

By David Dickens
Updated: September 1, 2017

RASHAAN MILLER

2017 EAST COUNTY FOUR-YEAR COLLEGE FOOTBALL STANDOUTS

By DAVE DICKENS

EastCountySports.com

CEDAR CITY, Utah (8-29-2017) – I actually had the pleasure of meeting this young man’s father, SHERMAN MILLER at a West Hills-Steele Canyon football game in late 2013. The young man on the field, RASHAAN MILLER, was quite impressive in his 4 years at West Hills.

His position at quarterback started improving from 2011 until 2013, his final year as the signal-caller for the Wolf Pack.

His senior year, wearing No. 9, as he did for three fantastic years, he was a very tall young athlete at 6’ 5”, pretty thin at only 190 lbs.

Miller

Rashaan comes from a good size family with great values and expectations, and he and his siblings, sister Sherika, and brothers, Joshua Lauifi, and Akeem Miller, who is currently coaching football at Monte Vista.

His personal statement to colleges recruiters read, “Going to college and playing sports is very important to me, but studying and achieving a degree is top priority.”

Top priority? That statement right there should have led colleges straight to the USPS or online to send Emails with invitations to attend their colleges, but also based on his spectacular academic performance in the classroom as well as on the football field. Some pretty vital numbers were also included in my search.

This young quarterback had lightning speed, elusiveness and a 40 yd. dash time of 4.7, bench press max of 200 lbs., 10 pounds over his weight. Not only quick, but strong legs as he was squatting at a maximum of 300 lbs.

Rashaan Miller graduated from West Hills High in 2013, he had a phenomenal senior year behind center.

He led his Wolf Pack to a 7-5 record that year, which landed them into the playoffs for the first time in 4 years.

“After a great 2013 season, my last year, I only had a limited amount of Division 2 offers,” said Miller. “I decided to forgo the limited offers and attend a prep school in New York from 2013-2014, to seek more offers.”

The name of the prep school was Trinity-Pawling, in which Rashaan only played there for a year, which was basically a repeat of his senior year, which is referred to as a post-graduate.

“I did have a successful 1 year at this small prep school as the starting quarterback,” said Miller.

Rashaan was hoping after a successful year at Trinity he would finally receive some offers worth taking

But still nothing that stood out to this young, talented athlete.

On to the next phase of his hopeful road to success, Rashaan signed with Western New Mexico, where he played for former West Hills high alum, ADAM CLARK, who is still currently the head coach there.

“I went there primarily to play quarterback, but then ended up converting to a wide receiver,” said Miller.

“I decided to play wide receiver because I believed I had the ability all along but I was looking for playing time as I wasn’t receiving much playing at the quarterback position,” Miller said.

When questioned about why he never played both ways as a defender and quarterback or receiver, especially in college is that it was too tough to play both at this level of play.

“Play at the receiver position was definitely a different look, you see the game much different than from behind the center,” Miller said.

Rashaan finally decided in the spring of 2015 that he was going to convert to a wide receiver and leave his QB years behind.

He would make this change while playing for Western New Mexico in 2015.

Once again, this nomad Miller, decided it was time to leave Western New Mexico and head back to Cali.

He found his landing spot at a community college, Fresno City College for his 2015-16 football campaign.

Rashaan redshirted at Western New Mexico and when he got to Fresno City College his eligibility clock officially started ticking. He was now a freshman at Fresno City and this would be his first official year at the wide receiver position and also the punting duties.

“I punted all through high school but I was taking it very seriously once I started to at Fresno City, as I thought I had a chance to take this ability to a university,” Miller said.

When questioned about why he didn’t attend any of the great community colleges in his hometown like Grossmont College, Rashaan said, “I wanted to be independent and living on my own away from home and also I had a family relative connected to Fresno City.”

After a lot of playing at different positions, Rashaan was now receiving game reps for punting and at wide receiver in which he became very successful, his QB days were now ancient history.

“After that year I was looking into recruitment already and was looking to leave Fresno City after the season ended,” he said. “I had completed all my general education classes up to this point, so I could technically leave and get into a four-year university.”

Rashaan was now reaching out to the many coaches he had met throughout his football years. He would end up reuniting with his old receivers coach at Western New Mexico, ANTHONY ARCENEAUX, who happens to be the current special teams coordinator at Southern Utah.

“We made it work and I got out to Cedar City, Utah, that following summer after finishing at Fresno City College,” said Miller.

The 2016 season at Southern Utah would be utilized to acclimate and develop Rashaan’s mind and body to how this program worked, “I went through a lot of learning and understanding of all the different ways to play receiver and punting as a backup,” said Miller.

In the spring of 2017, once the punting position opened up after the senior, all-American graduated, Rashaan took the position and he has been training hard ever since, and is playing as a full-time punter at Southern Utah, happy as can be as a punter, Rashaan has transformed from his early days of high school at West Hills as one of the top-tiered quarterbacks and his short stint as a wide receiver. Rashaan Miller is a true athlete and a true scholar as another success story that was born in the east county of San Diego.