Former Trail Blazers President Larry Miller Says He Killed A Man

BEAVERTON, OR — It's not a story that anyone would have expected to hear from Larry Miller, the head of Nike's Jordan Brand and the former president of the Trail Blazers. In 1965, Miller, a self-described "gangbanger," shot and killed a man. Why? A friend of Miller's was stabbed to death. Was the man he shot involved with the stabbing? Miller said he has no idea.

“That's what makes it even more difficult for me, because it was for no reason at all,” Miller told Sports Illustrated reporter Howard Beck. “I mean, there was no valid reason for this to happen.

“And that's the thing that I really struggle with and that's—you know, it’s the thing that I think about every day. It’s like, I did this, and to someone who—it was no reason to do it. And that’s the part that really bothers me.”

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Miller talked to Beck ahead of his autobiography, which comes out next year.

In it, he wrote about his life on the streets, which started when he was 13 years old, the murder of his friend, and how it led to killing someone he didn't even know.

Miller told Sports Illustrated about his time in prison, how he earned an accounting degree, and how it led to a business career that led him to the Blazers and then, since 2012, as the head of the Jordan Brand for Nike.

Miller, who is 72, said that he spent much of his life trying to keep that part of his past a secret.

“It was eating me up inside,” he told Sports Illustrated, adding that he is telling his story because he wants to help people and hopes that he can be a lesson.

“It's really about making sure that people understand that formerly incarcerated people can make a contribution,” he said. “And that a person's mistake, or the worst mistake that they made in their life, shouldn’t control what happens with the rest of your life.”