Forged by FAU - Alex Miller
Wajih AlBaroudi
6/28/2020
#ForgedbyFAU
This series focuses on highlighting former student-athletes in an effort to share how their time, education and experience at FAU prepared them to be successful, and to bring those principles and ideas into the world every day.
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I had a very positive experience both on and off the field. I was able to accomplish everything I wanted to being a softball player and being in the nursing program."
After a dominant career at Oviedo's Hagerty High, which included one Second Team and two First Team All-State selections, softball standout Alex Miller wanted to play collegiately. Under one condition, that is: Admittance to the prospective university's nursing program.
Miller says it was "really rare" for universities to allow student-athletes into nursing. Florida Atlantic University, however, did, making her college choice clear.
"It was just a culmination of such hard work and dedication throughout high school," said Miller, who joined the Owls ahead of the 2015 season. "To see it come to fruition was really rewarding for me."
The addition of Miller was equally rewarding for FAU. As a freshman, the catcher earned Conference USA All-Tournament honors and notched the game-winning run against Hofstra in the 2015 NCAA Regional.
FAU and Miller reached stratospheric levels the following year. In 2016, the Owls went a program-best 51-9 and 22-2 in Conference USA play en route to a regular season championship, C-USA Tournament championship, and a second consecutive NCAA Tournament appearance. Miller called pitches for the nation's leader in ERA and helped FAU's pitching staff post the third best ERA nationally.
Miller became a full-time starter in 2017 and flourished with the increased workload. She notched career highs in batting average (.280), hits (44), triples (four), RBI (24) and slugging percentage (.350). As a senior, Miller started a career-high 53 games for an FAU squad that won Conference USA's regular season championship.
That success translated to the classroom. FAU named Miller the 2017-18 Female Student Athlete of the Year at its annual Honors Convocation, a ceremony honoring the university's most outstanding students and faculty members. The nursing major had a 3.84 GPA that fall.
"I had a very positive experience both on and off the field," said Miller, whose .991 fielding percentage and 1,083 putouts rank in the top five in program history. "I was able to accomplish everything I wanted to being a softball player and being in the nursing program."
That accomplish-everything trend continued into Miller's professional career. Shortly after her 2018 graduation, Miller got a job at Fort Lauderdale's Broward Health Medical Center. She works in the progressive cardiac care unit.
In her unit, Miller says she works with "a lot of patients that are more critical and very sick." Miller admits that made her a "nervous wreck" her first day. But while the stakes remained high, she's now comfortable working under them. She did the same during her many pressure-packed softball games at FAU.
"We have a lot of emergency situations where there's kind of that adrenaline rush as well that snaps you into focus of, 'OK, we need to figure out what's going on,'" Miller said. "It's nice because everyone comes together and does whatever we can to help that patient."
Miller broke into her dream field immediately after college but is eyeing an even brighter future. She is enrolled in FAU's Doctor of Nursing Practice program and hopes to graduate in December of 2021. Within the next two years, Miller wants to become a nurse practitioner and work in a family practice, where she'll be "connecting with my patients a little more personally than in the hospital."
FAU and FAU Athletics gave Miller the foundation she needed to save lives and better her community. That's why she advocates for the Paradise Club, which helps support the athletic department's mission.
"FAU was such a turning point for me in my life," Miller said, "and it really helped to be a student-athlete and to have the funds and capabilities to compete and be on the field."
The university helped her compete off the field, too.
"It was really a turning point that allowed me to accomplish everything that I had set out to do in college and really just set me up for the future," she said.
Gallery: Alex Miller Gallery
