Flathead senior Tali Miller closing out an underrated career

Tali Miller was a solid three-sport athlete for the Flathead Bravettes — volleyball, basketball and track and field — before flag football came along last fall.

To which she said, “Heck, yes.”

“I was so excited about it,” the senior said Tuesday. “Right away, I wanted to do it. It was something different.”

So it was that she and several friends and fellow athletes — Peyton Walker, Akilah Kubi and Harlie Roth, to name three — got together on the gridiron. As it happened the team needed a quarterback, and coach Lisa Koehler perhaps not surprisingly settled on a javelin thrower: Miller.

The Bravettes and Glacier Wolfpack made up two-thirds of the first flag football league in the state, and met for the title, in which Glacier avenged a couple earlier losses.

“It was fun all the way around,” Miller said.

And before you knew it the Bravettes were playing basketball, and playing it well, Miller included. State-title berths don’t grow on trees, but in the span of six months Miller played in two.

Asked about her full name — Taliana — Miller replied, “I think my parents found it at a coffee shop.”

Then she looked over at her mother, Stephanie, and smiled. “Am I wrong?” she asked.

She wasn’t.

“The word was ‘Italiano,” and we didn’t see the I, and I read it as Taliana,” Stephanie Miller said. “And I thought it was very pretty.” Which it is.

Most of the time she goes by Tali. It’s understated compared to her full name, and that is one descriptive you can use for her athletic career.

“She knew her role was rebounding and defending,” said her basketball coach, Sam Tudor. “And she was a great player to coach and watch.”

“She kind of flies under the radar,” said Bravettes track and field coach Kaylee Fox, who also is on the basketball staff. “She doesn’t draw a lot of attention to herself, but does things right.”

The prime example came on March 10. Defending champion Billings Skyview was up 29-23 at halftime in the semifinals of the State AA girls basketball tournament. Falcons wunderkind Breanna Williams had hit four 3-pointers and scored 20 of their total.

Flathead came out the second half in a box-and-one, and Miller was tasked with guarding a Pac-12 recruit for 16 minutes.

“Tali didn’t come off the court,” Tudor said. “She was getting screened and screened and screened, and was just working through.

“There was a timeout with about seven minutes left and I looked at her, and she just said, ‘No. Don’t take me out.’”

Flathead won the game 51-43, and while the Bravettes lost in the title game to Billings West the next evening, well, championships don’t happen every year either. Two years before that Flathead had won two basketball games.

This past season they won 19. Miller averaged 2.2 points, trading stats for intangibles and a selfless role.

“It was super cool to work our way up to it, and get there,” she said.

Miller’s dad Fred is a 1989 Flathead graduate who was good enough at football to try it in college (D-III Concordia, Minn.). He marvels at how the youngest of three kids rises at 5:30 each morning for workouts and maintains straight As.

“I never worked that hard,” he said, though he takes blame for his daughter’s quiet nature:

“She came by that honestly.”

All three of Fred and Stephanie Miller’s kids, two girls and one boy, competed nationally in Taekwondo; daughter Meg was a national champion in 2012.

Tuesday Tali was back on the javelin track, throwing 116 feet, 6 inches through a pretty strong side wind.

“Javelin is my best event,” said the owner of the fifth-best throw (122-9) in Class AA. “I actually throw the shot put too. I dabble in the discus.”

The Bravettes’ track and field program is on the upswing. A 100-44 win in the Crosstown meet with Glacier was impressive; moreso was a third-place finish at the MCPS Invitational, in which only two Western AA teams didn’t compete: Glacier and Butte.

“We have a lot of runners, distance and jumps,” Miller said. She wants to throw javelin in college; she’s also interested in engineering. Carroll College and Montana State are two leading candidates.

“She’s a great student, and a leader,” Fox said. “Not a real outspoken leader, but does things right at practice and school.”

How many five-sport athletes — we’re counting Taekwondo, absolutely — do you know? It’s at least one now: Tali Miller, defensive stopper, javelin thrower and, in quite the prime-time twist, quarterback.

“I was all for that,” Fred Miller said of flag football. “All that girl wants to do is compete.”