Giants

When Corey Miller retired from professional football in 2001, the nine years he’d played for the New York Giants and Minnesota Vikings segued smoothly into a successful radio and television career. By 2003, however, he was “beset by financial failure, depression, addiction, marital discord, and ultimately thoughts of suicide.” That’s when Miller says God intervened, and today, remarried and reunited with his grown children, “The Pastor of Pain” lives in Columbia as founder of an evangelical ministry “on fire to make student athletes Giants for Jesus Christ.”

But there was a problem.

Prior to this month, the ministry he’d christened Giants 4 Christ and carried to schools and colleges throughout the Southeast had neither brand nor marketing materials to complement Miller’s formidable presence. And while that presence is, indeed, formidable, having no clear corporate identity is a millstone around the neck of any 501c3 trying to raise money. It also makes whatever the enterprise does to some extent less memorable and effective than it might be otherwise.

Fortunately, Miller and I have a mutual friend, so the rough places are getting plainer. A new brand has been developed and a website launched, and next month, a photo shoot, “elevator pitch” video session, palm cards and branded apparel should follow. The usual package.

But not the usual client by any definition. In this and future episodes, Miller and I will be introducing our own interpretation of The Lion and the Mouse. Miller will play the lion, of course, and Mr. Mole, my hermetic alter ego, will be pleased to play the mouse.