On 21 May 2014, the Herald Sun in Melbourne published a story about a gifted young man with a fascinating family heritage. Born in Melbourne to an African-American father and an Australian mother of Jamaican and English descent, he was a marketing student at Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology.
Having played senior football and cricket at 15, he’d celebrated his 18th birthday just three months earlier but already he had his future sorted out. He was going to be an AFL footballer.
It was an unlikely path for a young man from suburban Ascot Vale whose father Wylie was an Ohio-born frontman-singer in the legendary soul band Grand WaZoo and a bass guitar soloist, and mother Ruth was a veteran marathon runner and triathlete.
But Touk Miller was a young man as driven and focused as any. Set to play his 200th AFL game against Hawthorn in Darwin on Thursday night, he was football, football and more football.
“You take each week as it comes from a football perspective, but if people ask I’ll tell them,” Miller told the Herald Sun’s Tim Michell almost exactly 11 years ago. “It’s what I aspire to and I’m not scared to tell them what I want to do at the end of the year and what my aspirations are.”
To an outsider it might have looked like a tough choice. He was an immensely talented wicket-keeper and in the summer of 2011-12 had become the second-youngest player in the history of North Melbourne Cricket Club with his Premier Cricket debut.
But, as he said at the time, he remembered little of the two-day fixture against Prahran.
Yet, it was an entirely different story when he was asked about his debut for Maribyrnong Park against the Doutta Stars in the Essendon District Football League club.
Sitting on the bench in the first quarter, he recounted nerves shooting through his body as the Maribyrnong Park coach, former Collingwood and Fremantle star Brodie Holland, tagged him into the match.
“It was very daunting, one of the biggest games I’ve ever played,” Miller said. “When I had to come on the ground for the first interchange I was swapping with Brodie, it was something different.”
The Herald Sun story was published a week after Miller, the Calder Cannons captain in his fourth year in the then TAC Cup Under 18 competition, had been named Vic Metro for the upcoming Under 18 National Championships.
Coach Holland described Miller as “a fast, skinny, highly-skilled player with a natural ability to win the footy and a lot of pace” and identified two standout characteristics – his mental strength and his defence.
“At Maribyrnong we put the pressure side of our game in high esteem and he (Miller) was one of the top pressure players as a 16-year-old. It’s a real hallmark of his game ... it’s a natural part of his game.”
Miller, who had grown up in Moonee Valley, was a life-long Essendon supporter after his father suggested he pick a side based on his favourite colours while at kindergarten. He went red and black.
In the lead-up to the 2014 National Draft, Miller was linked to Essendon after AFL website draft expert Cal Twomey likened him to then SUNS midfielder Dion Prestia and said the pint-sized on-baller was the same off the field as he is on it … bubbly, in-your-face, energetic and clean-cut.
Twomey suggested Miller’s ferocity, ability to collect a high number of disposals, win the contested ball, kick goals and do so all at a high efficiency would stand him in good stead AFL recruiters. His leadership, too, was a big plus.
But Twomey noted that Miller was “by no means fleet-footed”, and while he had enough power in his legs to burst through congestion, he didn’t have the sustained speed of other smalls. Also, his height could see him overlooked for a similar type who is fractionally taller.
Still, Twomey summarised Miller as “a prospect with all the midfield essentials plus a couple of tricks” and in his now famous ‘Phantom Draft’ he had him going to Essendon at #20.
He got 18 of the top 20 right, with the Geelong Falcons’ Hugh Goddard, nominated at #7, sliding to St Kilda at Pick 21. And Miller sliding to the SUNS at Pick 29.
In their place in the top 20 were the Northern Knights’ Kyle Langford, who went at Pick 17 to Essendon, and Carlton surprised when they took Swans Districts’ Blaine Boekhorst at Pick 19.
In what is always a fascinating exercise, the top 20 picks in the 2014 National Draft were:
- Paddy McCartin (StK)
- Christian Petracca (Melb)
- Angus Brayshaw (Melb)
- Jarrod Pickett (GWS)
- Jordan de Goey (Coll)
- Caleb Marchbank (GWS)
- Paul Ahern (GWS)
- Peter Wright (GC)
- Darcy Moore (Coll)
- Nakia Cockatoo (Geel)
- Luke Duggan (WC)
- Corey Ellis (Rich)
- Lachie Weller (Frem)
- Jake Lever (Adel)
- Jarrod Garlett (GC)
- Sam Durdin (NM)
- Kyle Langford (Ess)
- Isaac Heeney (Syd)
- Blaine Boekhorst (Carl)
- Jayden Laverde (Ess)
Ahead of Miller at Pick 29 were Goddard (21, Essendon), Daniel McKenzie (22, St Kilda), Pat McKenna (23, GWS), Jack Steele (24, GWS), Daniel Nielson (25, North Melbourne), Toby McLean (26, Western Bulldogs), Lukas Webb (27, Western Bulldogs) and Dillon Viojo-Rainbow (28, Carlton). And immediately after Miller at Pick 30 was Brayden Maynard to Collingwood.
Eleven years on, 10 of the top 20 picks are out of the AFL system – McCartin (63 games) and Brayshaw (167) were forced into retirement due to concussion issues, while Pickett (17), Marchbank (63), Ahern (24), Cockatoo (49), Ellis (31), Garlett (30), Durdin (24) and Boekhorst (25) have been delisted.
But the numbers say Miller, who will join David Swallow in the SUNS’ 200-Game Club, was a five-star choice. Value-plus-plus.
Among 101 first-time draftees in 2014, he ranks sixth on a games list headed by Brisbane co-captain Harris Andrews, who was another bargain-plus choice at #61. He’s played 221 games to head Maynard (217), Isaac Heeney (210), Adam Saad (204) and Caleb Daniel (201).
Next are Petracca (198), rookie pick #1 Jack Sinclair (196), Pick #25 Jack Steele (188), Duggan (188), #40 Alex Neal-Bullen (185) and rookie #11 Jayden Short (184).
But the numbers are misleading because Miller has not played a final. Andrews has played 16, Maynard 14, Heeney 17, Saad five and Daniel 12. So on home-and-away games only Andrews (205) and Maynard (203) are ahead of Miller and fellow 199-gamer Adam Saad, who debuted with Miller in Round 1 2015.
Yet still Miller is the #1 possession-winner from the Class of 2014. He has 4,706 to head Petracca (4638), Daniel (4410), Steele (4337) and Sinclair (4170).
And despite Miller’s 36.1% win ratio from a 61-2-136 win/loss record his 66 Brownlow Medal votes is fewer than only Petracca (114), Steele (88) and Heeney (74).
In 10 completed years with the SUNS, Miller has finished Top 10 in the Club Champion nine times, missing only in 2023 when he played only 13 games due to injury. He won the club’s top award in 2021 and 2022, was runner-up in 2018 and 2020 and has a chronological record of 4th, 7th, 8th, 2nd, 6th, 2nd, 1st, 1st, outside the top 10, 9th.
Of the Class of 2014, only Andrews has as many top 10 finishes, and his 2023 win is his only top three finish. Maynard has eight top 10 finishes but no wins and only two in the top five, Daniel has eight top 10’s but only one top four finish, and Saad eight top 10’s but only three top fours.
Having shared the SUNS captaincy with Jarrod Witts from 2022 to 2024. Miller sits alongside Collingwood’s Darcy Moore, Andrews, Steele and West Coast’s Duggan as 2014 draftees to skipper their clubs, while his 2021-22 All-Australian selections is the equal of Andrews, Steele, Moore and Sinclair and bettered only by Petracca’s four.
Having done his schooling at St Kevin’s College in Melbourne, which also boasts current AFL coaches Chris and Brad Scott, tennis legend Neale Fraser AO MBE, NBA superstar Josh Giddey and dozens of top-flight AFL players among his alumni, Miller will be the 688th 200-gamer among 13,226 AFL players all-time.
But there is one thing the ever-combative 29-year-old has all to himself – he is the only ‘Touk’ to play in the AFL.
Indeed, he’s one of a kind. A google search couldn’t find another prominent ‘Touk’, with the closest thing a British-Turkish Cypriot fashion retail entrepreneur, investor, and reality television personality named Touker Suleyman.
In 2015, The Sunday Times in Britain listed the now 71-year Suleyman at #637 on the English Rich List, estimating his fortune to be more than £200 million, or about $411.9m. But don’t tell the SUNS #11, he’ll want to beat it.
