Older, Wiser, Calmer: Kids Make Former Viking Menace Grow Up

ST. PAUL, Minn. - Years ago, when he still was an all-pro defensive tackle for the Minnesota Vikings, Keith Millard had a run-in with a cop. He told the cop, "My arms are more powerful than your gun."

That's not the case anymore.

"The power is more in my mind now than in my body," said Millard, a onetime Washington State Cougar who had a breif stint with the Seattle Seahawks near the end of his NFL career.

These days, Millard is easy-going and much more cerebral than he used to be.

He's not the menace he once was. On the field or off.

Millard had a hair-trigger temper, one that even his coaches didn't want to mess with. During Millard's rookie year season with the Vikings, a veteran player was assigned to stick close to him. To basically baby-sit him.

Other members of the team had an 11 p.m. curfew. Millard and the veteran got in when they got in. The veteran just had to make sure Millard was conscious for the next day's practice.

During Millard's seven seasons as a Viking, Millard got into fights. He challenged cops. He once even threatened to kill a reporter who asked for an interview. Maybe he was kidding, but back then it was best not to push your luck with Keith Millard.

He's older now. Wiser. Calmer. The one-time rebel with a cause, which was to enjoy life to its fullest whatever the consequences, has settled down.

He's the proud father of three boys and a girl. He decided when his first son, Dustin, was born that he had better grow up before his children did.

"It was time to get serious and get rid of the wild hair," Millard said. "I had to act like an adult, like a father and husband should. I had to settle down and calm down."

It was a calmer, gentler Keith Millard on the phone the other day from his home in Pleasanton, Calif.

A clarification is in order: He was calmer and gentler until he started talking about football and the intricacies and nuances of the over-under defense he learned as a Viking and will teach now that he is a coach.

Millard still can work himself into a lather, but now it's just about X's and O's, and no one has to fear for his life.

He is beginning his first season as the defensive coordinator at Menlo College, a small Division III school that's practically next door to Stanford University . He got the job because a college friend of his, Rich Moran, who used to play for the Packers, recommended him. Moran sells scoreboards, and while visiting Menlo to peddle a new scoreboard he heard the school needed a defensive coordinator. He pushed his old buddy from Washington State, Keith Millard.

Millard coached the defensive line at Fort Lewis College in Colorado last season, but wanted to get closer to home and become a coordinator. Menlo, within easy driving distance of Pleasanton, had an opening. It was a perfect fit.

"Keith has been more than I expected," said Ken Margerum, Menlo's head coach. "All the players have taken to him. We'll be very fortunate to keep him more than one year. I have a feeling our defense will do real well and a bigger college will want to snap him up."

Margerum, once a receiver with the Chicago Bears, didn't know Millard. But he sure knew of him. He knew about his reputation. On and off the field.

After meeting with Millard and talking to folks who knew him, Margerum was convinced Millard was the right guy to be his defensive coordinator.

"Everyone goes through stages in their life, and Keith got that (wild man behavior) out of his system," he said. "He seems very together and organized. The kids have responded tremendously to him."

And vice versa.

"As a player, I was really high-strung and had a hot temper," Millard said. "As a coach, I'm not like that. I have too many responsibilities. If players see you getting spastic and out of hand with a temper tantrum, it'll lessen their confidence level. If I stay calm, cool and collected, they'll stay calm, cool and collected. I've got to keep my cool so they keep their cool."

Millard, 35, loves working with kids, something he realized in 1994 when he was the defensive coordinator at Cactus Shadows High School in Cave Creek, Ariz. Millard owns a small ranch near Cactus Shadows, and some school officials asked him to coach. He decided, what the heck, why not?

"I love it every bit as much as playing, if not more," said Millard, whose pro career ended after the 1993 season, which he spent with the Philadelphia Eagles.

Millard was at his best as a player in 1989, when he had 17 sacks and was named NFL defensive player of the year. Three years later, his knee was in bad shape. Denny Green had just become the Vikings' coach, and one of the first things he did was trade Millard to Seattle.

"Things just didn't work out," Millard said. The Seahawks released him, and he joined the Packers for the remainder of the '92 season. Then he went to Philadelphia.

"I felt the injury plague, and I retired," he said.

He spent the 1994 season on his ranch, not knowing if he ever would be involved in football again.

"When I retired, I didn't know if I wanted to get into coaching," he said. "I just knew I wanted to get out of football."

Then he got the offer from Cactus Shadows. And he knew how he wanted to spend his life.

"I'm having a blast," he said. "I love it. I feel if you give me an offense, I'll find a way to defend it."

He once took apart offenses with arms more powerful than a gun. Now he does it with his mind.

Keith Millard really has changed.