DANVILLE – Danville will have a new face overseeing the athletic department for the first time in eight years, but it will be a familiar face.
Robert “BJ” Miller was approved by the Danville Board of Education as the new athletic director and dean of students, taking over the athletic program from Matt Moore.
Moore resigned as athletic director at the end of the school year after eight years handling the role to free up time to spend with his family. Moore and his wife just had their third child.
“I’m very appreciative to Danville for giving me the chance to be athletic director,” Moore said. “I was 26 years old and I wasn’t even a teacher (when I started). My first year as athletic director I also did my student teaching.
“I’m going to miss (being an athletic director), yes; but at the same time, it’s going to be nice to spend time with family. My wife does a lot so that I can coach (basketball), and she makes a lot of sacrifices. It’s time for me to be home a little bit.”
“He’s deep into raising his kids right now,” Danville superintendent Jason Snively said. “He’s a family man of good moral and ethical character. I think that’s important. He served the district well over the years.”
Moore isn’t leaving the school. He’ll continue as an intervention specialist as well as boys basketball coach.
“There’s going to be less stress, and I get to focus on coaching,” Moore said. “I can be home on the weekends. I think we have some upperclassmen that want (to) work and want to get better. We have a lot of freshmen that have been in the gym a lot this summer that have also worked very hard. So I look for the program to start climbing back up.”
Miller came to Danville as a math teacher. He’s well-versed in the Danville community. He graduated from the high school in 1999, and his parents owned and operated Miller’s True Value Hardware.
“I’ve always wanted to be an administrator, and I’ve always wanted to work with student-athletes,” Miller said. “This is a really good opportunity. I spent 10 years at Fredericktown and had an opportunity to come back to Danville and couldn’t turn it down. I grew up in Danville, and my parents had a business in Danville for 36 years. So it was a no-brainer to come back and serve my community — hopefully for the rest of my career.”
Holding two administrative jobs should help alleviate the time crunch that plagued Moore as an in-class instructor during his tenure.
“At Danville, (athletic director) has just been a supplemental position over the years,” Snively said. “He had about one period per day to fulfill the athletic director responsibilities, so a lot of that took extra time in the evenings as well.”
Miller has already helped out in an administrative capacity within the school district — even as an assistant athletic director.
“It’s hard to give anybody one title at Danville,” Snively said. “When you’re an administrator ... basically whatever needs to be done is in your job description.
“We feel like (combining the two positions as dean of students and athletic director) he’ll have some flexibility during the day to deal with athletic issues that come up and hopefully be able to communicate with people on a more regular basis.”
Miller’s goal is to take the baton from Moore and his predecessors and continue the success of Danville athletics.
“Danville’s always had a really good reputation and tradition of turning out really good student-athletes,” he said. “I don’t plan on doing anything different.”
