By Andy Lohman

"I've had an almost five-decade association with this university and I tell people all the time it's been a 50-year love affair," David Miller said before the Dec. 5 SMU men's basketball game against TCU.

At halftime of that game, SMU officially named the Moody Coliseum court after Miller, a basketball alumnus and vice-chair of the SMU Board of Trustees. The move cemented Miller's legacy as a generous and important pillar of the SMU basketball family.

Growing up, it was always Miller's dream to attend and play basketball at SMU, which was a dominant force in the Southwest Conference in the 1960s.

"The day Bob Prewitt and Doc Hayes came into my high school gym in 1968 and offered me a scholarship, other than the birth of my children and my grandchildren and my marriage, was the biggest day of my life," Miller said. "That dream came true that day."

The Mustangs had won eight of the previous 13 Southwest Conference championships, but what Miller remembers of Prewitt and Hayes' recruiting pitch wasn't SMU's on-court success.

"They didn't talk about championships," Miller said. "What they did was around the room they had photos of former players and what they talked about was the great education that those gentlemen had gotten and what they had gone on to do. Lawyers, doctors, the mayor of the City of Dallas, Bob Folsom. People that had gone out into the world and achieved a great deal of success because of the education they got when they were here. And that's what they sold."

Miller took advantage of his education at SMU, earning both a bachelor's and master's degree in business administration from the Cox School of Business. He is a co-founder and partner of EnCap Investments L.P., a private equity firm based in Houston and Dallas.

The center was successful on the court as well, starting for three years and helping SMU to a share of the 1971-72 Southwest Conference Championship.

"I felt like my basketball scholarship and the education I received at undergraduate school was a gift," Miller said. "All I had to do was run up and down a basketball court and play basketball, which is what I love to do, in return for that scholarship and that education."

Grateful for the opportunity, Miller knew that he wanted to give back when he got the chance.

"The bottom line is I went to school here for five years plus and never paid a dime," Miller said. "I walked off this campus consciously thinking…if I'm ever in a position to give something back, I want to do that. I hope I'll be able to do that."

Miller has done that and more. Since 2011, he and his wife Carolyn have given $20 million toward the expansion and renovation of Moody Coliseum as well as the construction of the Miller Event Center. That generosity has been key to elevating SMU basketball to a high standard.

"Get it back to a place where we're winning championships and it's nationally prominent and something we can all be proud of," Miller said of the purpose of his gifts. "Moody [renovation] was huge, prior to that was the practice facility. The hiring of coaches like a Larry Brown, like a Tim Jankovich, what we've done in terms of academic support for our athletes, all that fits together. It's part of an overall plan to become competitive at the very highest level and it's worked."