James W. 'Jim' Miller was named University of New Orleans Director of Intercollegiate Athletics on Jan. 10, 2003 after a four-month nationwide search. Miller is the fifth athletics director in school history.

In his six years at UNO, he has guided the Privateer Athletics Department through arguably the worst natural disaster in American history (Hurricane Katrina in 2005) and now has the program back following a successful 2006-07 .

In the past year, Miller oversaw a departmental strategic plan to revive and restructure the program through a collaborative effort with Carr Sports Associates, Inc.

The end result was a plan titled “Committed to Excellence,” which will aggressively get the Athletics Department back to full throttle as a member of the Sun Belt Conference.

The Privateers have already seen the excellence on the field, as evidenced by the baseball team's 2007 Sun Belt Tournament championship along with a nice run in the NCAA Wichita Regional.

Off the field, under Miller's leadership, the Privateers have begun to restore their Athletics Department with the resources needed to compete in Division I athletics through corporate partnerships, fundraising, academic support and facility improvements.

The native Kentuckian came to UNO with more than 20 years of athletic administration experience in the National Football League, which followed an 11-year career in journalism.

NFL Hall of Famer and former New Orleans Saints president Jim Finks brought Miller to New Orleans in 1986 as the Saints’ Vice President of Administration where his primary duty was the negotiation of player contracts. Prior to joining the Saints, Miller worked from 1981-86 at the NFL Management council and was the owners' spokesperson during the 1982 player's strike. Miller also served as the liaison between the NFL office and the member clubs on matters of collective bargaining.

After Finks’ death in 1994, Miller served as Executive Vice-President of the club until 1996. He moved to the Buffalo Bills in 1997 as Vice President of Administration and then to the Chicago Bears in 1999 as Director of Business Operations and player contracts negotiator.

During his NFL career, Miller lectured on contract negotiations and sports economics at several venues, including Tulane University, the University of Notre Dame, and the Lake Forest (IL) College Graduate School of Management.

He returned to New Orleans in 2002 as Business Development consultant for SMG, the company that manages the Louisiana Superdome and New Orleans Arena.

Miller, 59, graduated from the University of Kentucky in 1970 with a journalism degree. He worked as a reporter for 11 years with stops at the Louisville Courier-Journal and the Baltimore Evening Sun. While in Baltimore, he covered the NFL's Colts and earned a master's degree in journalism from the University of Maryland in 1981. Miller still writes and is an occasional contributor to the Times-Picayune op-ed page.

An avid runner, Miller has run five marathons with a personal best time of 2:58.

A member of the Privateer Athletic Foundation, Miller and his wife, Jean - a native New Orleanian and UNO graduate (1982) - have three children, Lindsay, Layne and Charles-Connor.