The Tribune

By BRENT STUBBS

Senior Sports Reporter

bstubbs@tribunemedia.net

After completing her collegiate freshman year as the indoor champion and outdoor runner-up, quarter-miler Shaunae Miller has decided to skip the rest of her eligibility as a Bulldog at the University of Georgia and will now be competing as a professional athlete.

Miller, who was the runner-up in the women’s 200 metres at the Bahamas Association of Athletic Associations Nationals, was offered a deal with the Adidas shoe company that her father, Shaun Miller, said was just “too good and too big to turn down.” The deal calls for Miller to complete her studies in Business and Management at UG, but not as a student-athlete.

“She was on the collegiate scene and we were planning on leaving her in there, but some of the shoe companies were really interested in her and when Adidas made the offer to make the adjustments to keep her in school and still allow her to compete on the pro circuit, we decided to go with that,” Miller said.

The 6-foot, 1-inch 19-year-old 2012 graduate of St Augustine’s College will remain at UG where she will still be guided by her Bahamian assistant coach George Cleare. She leaves the Bulldogs as the SEC Women’s Freshman Runner of the Year, UG’s 400m record holder and the second fastest ever in the 200m.

Her times this year of 22.45 seconds in the 200m and 50.70 in the 400m are both recorded as national junior records.

“I was very proud of her,” said her father, who coached her prior to leaving for Auburn. “I was very pleased to see how many shoe companies were interested in her and what they were offering. It was very impressive. She’s still young, as far as going on the circuit. But she has an agent and her coach will travel with her whenever necessary.

There is also provisions in her contract for her parents, Shaun and Mabelene Miller, to also travel to some of her meets overseas.

“We’re really excited about it,” Shaun Miller said.

Miller, who made her debut at the Olympic Games in London, England, in August after winning back-to-back 2011 World Youth Championship and 2010 World Junior Championship 400m titles, is currently enrolled in summer school at UG where she is also preparing for her initial appearance at the IAAF World Championships in Moscow, Russia, in August.

Cleare said the goal is to get the Austin Sealy winner for the most outstanding athlete at the 2012 BTC Carifta Games at the new Thomas A Robinson Track and Field Stadium ready for the Worlds. She has qualified with the A standard in both the 400 and 200, the latter coming with a second place finish behind another first year pro, Anthonique Strachan, at the BAAA Nationals in Grand Bahama.

“We’re just focusing on putting in a lot of work right now on the World Championships and being able to run the (qualifying) rounds,” Cleare said. “But she’s in great spirit, she’s healthy and we’re looking at getting her through the preparation to be ready to run.”

With a little over a month left before the start of the biggest global event for the year, Cleare said they don’t anticipate running Miller in any other meet before she gets to Moscow.

“We got a lot of time training based on the NCAA schedule. She had conference, a week and-a-half off, then she had regionals and another week and-a-half off before she had the nationals,” Cleare said. “So in that time, she was just basically resting and making sure that she was fresh. So we lost a lot of our training time, so it’s good to be able to get back into some quality training so that we can really prepare her to have a good showing in a couple of weeks in Moscow.”

After having to stop competing coming off the first curve in her Olympic debut after she experienced some pain in her left leg, Cleare said the Worlds will present a new challenge for Miller, but he’s confident that she will be ready.

“We’re putting in some step by step goals for her this year,” Cleare said. “The first thing is we want to be able to make it to the final. That’s the immediate goal. Once we get there, the objective is to try and win it all. The worst case scenario is to come out with a medal. But realistically, we’re doing all we can to make sure that she gets to the final and once you get there, anything could happen.”

Cleare said they are still mindful that Miller is a student first and an athlete second. So he said the goal is to ensure that she is successful both in the classroom and on the track.