Feb 19, 2016 4 min read

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Heath Miller retiring on Friday pretty much caught everyone by surprise.

I had the opportunity to do a big story – which would turn out to be the final one – on Miller this year for the Steelers Game Day magazine.

It came midway through the season and we talked a lot about the length of his career, what he’d accomplished and so on. Actually, it was me doing the talking. Miller, as was typically the case, brushed off most of those questions, saying mostly that he would think about the things he’d accomplished when it was all said and done.

Well, it’s all be said and done – officially.

That’s a shame. For 11 seasons, Miller was one of the best teammates, players and people in Steelers’ history.

He was class personified.

Midway through the 2014 season, the Steelers made a change in their open locker room period on Wednesdays, the first day that the entire team is available during the week. Instead of players being made available after lunch and then after practice, they would be available from 9:30 to 10 a.m. and then again after practice.

It was a minor change for the players, but a major change for those of us in the media. If you wanted to have something to work on for Wednesday, you had to get something out of that early locker room session.

And often times, since the players had meetings at 10 a.m., getting breakfast or a snack was something that was more pressing to them as opposed to talking to the media.

There would always be a sprinkling of guys in the locker room, mostly practice squad players or end-of-the-roster guys. And Heath Miller.

Miller was always there. And though he’d give you that look – he would often joke about how boring he was – he was there. And as one of the team’s elder statesmen, he wasn’t nearly as boring as he thought.

But for the program piece that I wrote on him, I had learned from Antonio Brown that Miller had called him aside and kindly dressed him down for showing up young quarterback Landry Jones on the field.

That had, in fact, come from Brown.

I asked Miller about it. He made a face and brushed it off, saying he’d like to keep what was said between himself and Brown. It wasn’t a big deal, according to Miller.

But to Brown it was. Miller didn’t do things like that often. So when he did, it carried a lot of weight.

Everything Miller did carried a lot of weight with his teammates, because in an era of “Look at me” athletes, he was a throwback in every way.

The Steelers will miss that quiet leadership for sure.

Because of the way the tight end position has changed, with most of today’s players at the position being nothing more than bulked up receivers, Miller will never get the national recognition he deserves.

But he’s in the top 10 all-time in both catches and receiving yardage among NFL tight ends. And unlike many of his peers, he also blocked and did the dirty work.

It’s surprising that Miller didn’t choose to come back one more season to perhaps make another run at a Super Bowl. But if you know the man – and I’d like to feel as if I know him at least a little bit – walking away from the game now is very much a Heath Miller-type move.

It was done quietly and with dignity. It wasn’t done on Twitter. There was no press conference – though maybe something will come down the line if the Steelers twist his arm. He just informed the team he was done.

He wasn’t going to come back for one more season of glory. He didn’t play the game for the glory. He played the game because he loved it. Period.

And now it’s time to be a husband and a father to his young sons. Here’s hoping he enjoys that time. He deserves it.