Line Drives to Leadership Development: Shelby Miller

Shelby Miller is responsible for assisting with leadership development programming and training for student-athletes, as well as the leadership study abroad course in the Dominican Republic. Shelby is the co-advisor to the Student-Athlete Advisory Committee in addition to assisting in the overall planning of New Student-Athlete Orientation, Athletic Director’s Honors Breakfast, Reading Day Luncheons, and The Gobblers, the athletics department’s year-end awards show. 

Miller was a three-year starter on the Huskies softball team, and following her senior season, she earned the Nan Harvey Sportswoman of the Year Award as handed out by the Mid-American Conference. She started 174 games in her career, including every game her final two seasons.

Many of us can relate to a feeling of excitement when we start our journey into college athletics. Shelby Miller has a much different memory of those first moments. Coming onto campus for the first time, Miller was moving 8 hours from Kansas to Illinois and beginning recovery of a torn ALC and meniscus that had occurred during her last softball tournament of her high school career. Tearing her meniscus lead into a 3 month recovery, beginning with 6 weeks of not being able to walk.  

For most people, not excluding Miller, an injury can lead to many other problems. Being injured and not being able to practice with the team during those important pre-season months lead to a feeling of exclusion, ultimately resulting in abnormal eating patterns and an overall feeling of detachment and disinterest. Throughout her freshman year, Miller was unable to fully recover from her injury, was not able to fully take control of the mental side of her injury, and was not able to travel with the team.

By the end of her first year, she finally took advantage of that free time outside of softball and began volunteering and getting involved in her community. Slowly, through these efforts and from being around her teammates more, she came to the realization that it was only one year, one year of her career, and that it wasn’t going to determine the rest of your future. From there, she was able to get back in the game for her sophomore season.

Miller was able to completely turn herself around and by her senior year she was a starting short stop and a captain of her team. She was a Communications major and really enjoyed what she was studying, but too late she realized the program was not giving her enough tangible skills. Her solution was to add a business minor, so she was able to add a few classes that would help with building her skill set, and she also sat down with the NIU life skills staff within the athletic department. In this meeting, they offered her an interning roll working in the life skills department and helping plan new student-athlete orientations and community service events.

Through this internship, Miller was able to really use her passions for working with people, planning events, and athletics all in one place. She was offered a full time position post grad, where she transformed the program and worked to help other athletes discover and take advantage of their talents outside of their sport. “I was close with girls on my team who had recently graduated” Miller explains, “and was starting to see this trend of them really not being able to figure out life after athletics.” This cycle came full circle for Miller and really solidified that her skills and her passions were meant to be in a life skills department; helping others grow as leaders, gain experience to add to their resumes, and help learn how to use their skills in a future career.

On a daily basis, us athletes are tending to our injuries, whether those be physical or mental, big or small. It is that constant cycle of repair that we are working to prefect so that we can perform to our highest abilities. Shelby Miller is great example on how to turn a setback, like an injury, into an opportunity for self-growth and to gain experiences that will help with future endeavors outside of the game, for herself and others.

Connect with Shelby on LinkedIn here.