Picture Perfect

From soccer pitch to the hardwood to the track, St. Michael's senior Jordan miller has one thing her mind: win

Lee Yobbi | The New Mexican

1/25/2008 - 5/31/08

She would like someday to be behind the lens, maybe spend as much time there as she has spent in front of it.

She would like to capture moments, pause life, and condense it into the boundaries of a frame that will later conjure memories.

Jordan Miller's room is filled with pictures, there are landscapes and people, and fragments of time that have caught her eye. Then there sits one that stands alone. It is simple, but perfect: It is of her parents, Socorro and Loren Miller, on a boat on Lake Conchas — smiles mixing with sunshine.

"Um, it's probably my favorite," says Jordan, who snapped it a couple summers ago. "I have millions of pictures framed everywhere. I love taking pictures. I love photography."

It is part of what she will study when she officially calls Regis University and Denver home this fall. Regis has a minor in the field, and someday Jordan would like to shoot professionally.

But first things first. She's not at Regis because she is necessarily the next Ansel Adams. She's there to continue being Jordan — and that means excelling athletically and particularly in soccer. The recent St. Michael's graduate and The New Mexican's Female Athlete of the Year signed a National Letter of Intent with the Rangers in early February. It was the natural progression for a girl who holds the unofficial state records in career goals scored (173) and assists (105).

Oh yeah, and that's regardless of gender.

Her athletic career began as soon as she could properly fill out a uniform, and it dominated her life henceforth. By choice. Hers.

"I can't remember when I didn't," the now 5-foot-8 Jordan says of being involved in one sport or another.

Even as she says that she's restless, having just come back from a Memorial Day vacation, she's feeling like there should be a workout to attend or a game to travel to.

The lines between where Jordan's life begins and where sports integrates have long been blurred together. She grew up competing with her older brother, Adam Miller, in backyard football games and soccer matches, and whatever else could be thrown, kicked or hit. It's why she can take an elbow on the pitch without a second thought. It's why she can set screens in basketball without so much as a grimace.

Adam, a 2005 St. Michael's graduate, grew up to be a 6-foot-2, 224-pound punter at The University of New Mexico. Jordan went on to earn just about everything she ever set out to individually: Two-time Class A-AAA Soccer Player of the Year, four times first-team All-State, first-team All-State in basketball, two-time individual high-point winner in Class AAA track, multiple individual titles in hurdles and jumps.

She's even been featured in Sports Illustrated's Faces in the Crowd. Her legs have carried her ambitions.

"One thing is that Jordan is really faster than everybody," says St. Michael's head girls soccer coach Ed Velie, who began coaching Jordan as an eighth-grader.

Jordan's speed sets her apart. It puts her in a position to shine.

In a lot of ways, Jordan embodies what sports are about. Her three seasons as a senior reflect as much.

Redemption

For as many accolades as Jordan earned as a soccer player, her seasons always ended in disappointment with a loss in her team's final match of the season. Three times from her first varsity start until her junior year, Jordan watched from the pitch as the championship trophy was presented to another school, and twice it was given to cross-town rival Santa Fe Preparatory. Jordan led the class in scoring each year since she was a freshman, but had never scored in her team's final match of the season.

Then came her senior campaign and her last chance. Again, she was the state's top goal-scorer with 59 entering the A-AAA state championship. Albuquerque Sandia Preparatory, the opponent across the grass with three state titles in five seasons, not surprisingly took a 1-0 lead 37 minutes into the scheduled 80-minute match.

That lead held for 29 minutes, and the tension grew on the St. Michael's bench. Everyone wondered if this would be another second place.

Jordan took a pass down the right flank and found herself alone with the Lady Sun Devils' goalkeeper. It was hardly a contest. The ball flew into the twine to knot the championship at 1-1 in the 66th minute.

The match then went into a first overtime. And a second. And a third.

The pressure mounted. So did Jordan's resolve.

"She kept saying in breaks and between the overtimes, 'We're not going to lose this,' " said Velie, the 13th-year skipper. "It was almost like she was saying, 'We won't lose or you'll have to deal with me.' "

It would take 104 minutes of soccer before Jamie Palermo scored to send Jordan and her teammates off the pitch as champions. It was vindication for Jordan, who scored a record 60 goals on the season, including eight in four matches in the postseason.

"The way it ended was so sweet," Jordan says, "after everything that happened."

Agonizingly close

Ask Jordan about something she can't do with ease, and she's very frank about it. It's basketball. She picked up the sport late in her career. The majority of her life was spent kicking a ball, not shooting one.

In fact, Jordan's most personally disappointing moment came on the hardwood inside the state's largest venue, the 18,018-seat University Arena in Albuquerque. It came in a semifinal of the 2007 Class AAA Girls State Basketball Tournament. The Lady Horsemen were the darlings of the 16-team tourney as the No. 12 seed. They stormed to the Final Four and were within 32-31 of top-seeded Portales with 9.3 seconds left in the fourth quarter and with possession. The ball was inbounded to Jordan near her own basket. She struggled to find an outlet as the Lady Rams converged. She couldn't get a shot off, either. Jordan turned the ball over, and Portales ran out the final seconds.

Jordan would again find herself in a semifinal of the state tournament in 2008. She would again be tested against the final seconds.

Jordan toed the free-throw line, this time against Lovington. This time, 18.1 seconds remained in the fourth. She drained both foul shots to give St. Michael's a 47-43 lead and an eventual trip to the finals, where the Lady Horsemen lost to Pojoaque 46-39.

"I really wanted that basketball championship," says Jordan.

The fact is, she probably did everything she could have to get it.

"Her effort in that championship game was great, she was encouraging her teammates," St. Michael's second-year head girls basketball coach, Martin Romero, says. "From a competitor's standpoint, she was absolutely a leader during the year."

And a pretty much self-made player. She ended up averaging 4.4 steals per game, 5.4 points, 7.5 rebounds and 2.1 assists. She also led the team in deflections with six per contest.

"She has great instincts for the game," Romero says, "very quick hands, and she's fast."

Jordan wasn't going to score 20 or even 15 points per game, but she was going to find a way to make a difference.

"She absolutely did the dirty work for us," says Romero. "But she absolutely, I believe, could have gotten a college scholarship in basketball had she played longer."

Going out with a bang

Jordan started the track and field season after most everyone else because of basketball, but she wasn't late to the party. No girl in AAA was better on the track and in the pits in the state meet. Miller accounted for 26 of her team's 65 total points.

Why?

Dan Yarborough.

"He's so down to earth, he taught me more than anybody ever could," Jordan says of her track coach and personal trainer since her sophomore year. "He taught me how people should be. He just cared so much."

Yarborough guided Jordan in the 100 and 300 hurdles, and the long and triple jumps. She won state in both hurdles. She was second in the long jump this season.

Jordan was expected to win the shorter of the two hurdles as the top seed, but she upset Ruidoso's Angela Gardner to win the 300, coming from the second seed.

"I was just like, 'Do it and you never have to do it again,' " Jordan says of the grind of track season. "I wanted to run the best I could because it was my last race."

The Lady Horsemen fell one point short (66-65) of defending their AAA team title, which they had held the previous four seasons.

Jordan could have laid claim to being hands down the fastest girl in the class earlier in the day, too. But she lost the 100-meter dash by .06 to Pojoaque freshman Kim Babicke, who crossed in 12.50 seconds.

"I wanted that bad," Jordan says, "but Kim ran a great race. I guess you can't win everything, but that's my approach. Some people are happy with second or third. That's just not me."

Contact Lee Yobbi at 986-3041 or lyobbi@sfnewmexican.com.