Pa. State Police chief to head NFL security

HARRISBURG - Nobody used to want a ticket from Col. Jeffrey B. Miller, the high-profile, 24-year veteran of the state police. Now, everyone is hounding him for tickets - to NFL ballgames.

The National Football League has given gave the career trooper, who rose to head Pennsylvania's State Police, the dream job of every cop who loves to Sunday-afternoon quarterback: Miller will become the NFL'S director of strategic security.

In his new position, announced today, Miller will police everything from fan behavior to stadium security to teams cheating on each other. Think the New England Patriots' signal-stealing scandal of last season.

As soon as word spread about his new job, which he starts next month, the requests for football tickets began pouring in.

"If I had a nickel for every person that has been trying to hit me up for tickets, I'd be a rich man, I wouldn't have to work anymore," Miller, 45, joked. ". . . And this just since this morning."

Miller, a Harrisburg native best known for his handling of the 2006 Amish schoolhouse shooting, said he heard about the NFL job through a federal law enforcement friend. The friend told him the League had some "employment opportunities," and that its officials were interested in talking to him about them.

"It thought, it wouldn't hurt to talk to them, and so I did, and one thing led to another," said Miller, who was tapped by Gov. Rendell in 2003 to head up the state police.

According to NFL spokesman Greg Aiello, Miller was one of 22 people interviewed for the strategic security director job. The league, said Aiello, was impressed with his background, which includes a number of training courses with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Drug Enforcement Agency.

Miller has a bachelor's degree in criminal justice from Elizabethtown College and a master's degree in public administration from Pennsylvania State University. He enlisted with the state police when he was 21, and came up through the ranks to head the 4,275-member force.

Miller's new job is related to the scandal that unfolded last season, when the Patriots taped the New York Jets' defensive signals during the opening game. Patriots Coach Bill Belichick was fined $500,000 and the team was fined $250,000 and forfeited a first-round draft pick.

Part of the description for the newly created position is to police the "use of electronic equipment by the league and clubs during games," according to the NFL.

"I think it's safe to say that the League is obviously sensitive to any issue which could affect the integrity of the product that they put out on the field," Miller said yesterday. "Obviously, I wasn't in the room when they worked this all out, but it is a new security director position and it's going to cross over a number of different areas."

"I'm excited at the opportunity," he added.

While overseeing the state police, Miller became best known for his handling of the investigation into the Amish schoolhouse shooting in 2006 that left five girls dead.

He was widely praised for deftly balancing the public's - and the media's - need for details against the Amish community's desire for privacy.

In an interview with The Patriot News of Harrisburg at the time, he said he tried to release as many facts as he could about the gunman and the shooting in the hope that reporters would not go knocking on doors in a community already wary of outsiders and trying to deal with tragedy.

"It's still something I think about regularly," Miller, the father of two girls, said yesterday of the shooting. "I think about the families . . . I'll never forget that. It's probably one of the most impactful things I've ever experienced."

Also under Miller's supervision, state police investigators filed perjury charges against Poconos casino owner Louis A. DeNaples. DeNaples was charged with lying to state gaming investigators about alleged ties to organized crime in order to land a casino license. He has denied the charges.

"I will miss it," Miller said of his state police career. ". . . And I'm going to miss the people that I work with."

Rendell now gets to name Miller's replacement. The administration has not yet made a decision on who that person will be.

Miller hopes it is someone, who like himself, rose from within the ranks.

"It's advantageous to first look within because we have the kind of talent that can do the job, and number two, it's hard to learn the culture of an organization quickly," he said. "It's always good to have someone from within who has worked their way up and knows the people and can quickly take the reins and run with it."

As for Miller, he will focus on moving his family north for the NFL job in New York.

He would not say yesterday how much he will get paid - he wouldn't even say whether he would get more than his current $129,313 salary.

As for the NFL, they too were keeping that information private.

Pressed about it, Aiello, the NFL spokesman, would only say: "Less than Donovan McNabb's."