Gunner Miller was 6 years old and full of energy when his youth league baseball coach, Mike Long, told the youngster he might enjoy watching professional wrestling on Monday nights.
“My mother wasn’t wild about it,” the former University of Tennessee at Chattanooga linebacker recalled Thursday morning. “But I loved it. I watched it all the time.”
Eighteen years later, Brenda Miller laughingly pleads guilty as charged.
“Oh, I hated it,” she said. “I’ve never forgiven Mike for turning Gunner on to wrestling. I had to buy all those wrestling action figures. Back then, if wrestling put it out, we bought it.”
UTC strength coach Scott Brincks, right, talks to Gunner Miller (11) on the sidelines.Miller bought into all of it. After all, this was the 1990s, when pro wrestling was about to become very big business. The heroes and villains from that time are the stuff of legend: Stone Cold Steve Austin, Goldberg, Hulk Hogan, Rowdy Roddy Piper, the Ultimate Warrior, The Rock, to name but six.