Miller was named HCAC player of the week this past Fall for his athletic achievement on the MU men’s tennis team.
Photo from MU Athletics
Senior Isaac Miller Named HCAC Player of the Week
Jarred Hubbard
Isaac Miller, a member of the men’s tennis team was named HCAC player of the week.
“It’s very exciting,” Miller said. “It’s nice to earn some recognition for the four years of hard work and improving my game.” A 5th year senior, Miller is majoring in accounting, but he is earning both his bachelor’s and master’s degrees. He will be graduating this upcoming May. He has deep ties to the game of tennis, and he has an enduring love for the sport. “My parents, specifically my mom, taught me how to play tennis growing up,” he said. “I didn’t start to take the game seriously until my freshman year of high school.”
Miller’s love for tennis and hard work in high school led him from Millersburg, Ind., to Manchester University. “It’s awesome to play tennis at the next level,” he said. “Division III sports are so fun because they are competitive but there is also a healthy understanding of what it means to be a student athlete. It is a huge bonus that I get to go out and play tennis every day on top of going to class here at MU.
“Playing tennis here was just a bonus,” he continued. “I was more interested in the accounting program and the College of Business. When I met a future teammate and learned more about the program, I decided to join the team and have never regretted that decision.”
Indeed, Manchester’s men’s tennis team is ready to compete and win, with Miller as the team captain. “It’s really exciting to see my teammates get better each year,” he said. “I have much more of an appreciation for that now that I’m older and have been through it for four years now. It has also been a great learning experience working with the women’s team captain and various coaches to organize practices and make sure the program is running smoothly.” Miller says his team’s chances against any team are good if they do all the right things leading up to the matches. “We are so close to a win,” he said. “We just need a few matches to flip our way and we’ll come out on top. We are competing well at all spots in the lineup, so I am excited about every match, you just never know what could happen on a given day.
"The expectations for the team have changed a bit since the pandemic,” he continued, “but the ultimate goal is to win as much as possible and to also grow not just as tennis players but also as people off the court. The team has a 2-6 record right now, but they still have 7 more games to go for the year to turn their record around.”
And he has goals for the team—to place fourth in conference. “That would mean knocking off Franklin and Anderson this year,” Miller said. “Both are very winnable matches for us as long as we compete well.”
He has some personal goals too. “For myself, I would like to win some doubles matches,” he said. “My partner and I have been close to a win every match, but we can’t quite finish the job.”
This spring marks Miller’s final competitive season in DIII before he enters the workforce and become a productive member of society. He plans to spend this summer and fall studying and sitting for the CPA exam, and will start his full-time position as a staff tax accountant at Crowe, LLP in Fort Wayne, Ind., in January 2022.