Winston County remembers Malik Miller

WINSTON COUNTY, Miss (WCBI)- Less than 500 people live in Noxapater.

So, when a young life is taken it impacts the entire community.

Wednesday, we talked with two men that coached Malik Miller.

Miller was shot to death Tuesday in Winston County.

Malik’s coaches said he touched everyone around him and the community has been silenced.

Now, both coaches are in disbelief.

After the shooting death of 18-year-old Katavis Malik Miller, two of his former coaches at Noxapater High School are keeping his spirit alive.

“Deeply it hurts, it hurts very bad like I said I don’t know what to feel. It’s just trying to be strong for the people that surround Noxapater and our children that we have to this day that had a big impact and you know to be honest with you we lost someone that was very very important to us,” said head basketball couch Jerrick Porter.

“These kids all loved him. Malik was loved by his teammates by the community. I’d tell him I love him, tell him we’re going to miss him and just how proud of what he ever come what he had when he had made his mind up to become,” said head football coach Casey Orr.

Miller was attending East Central Community College for a welding degree.

The men that coached him on the field and on the court said Miller made plays in the game and in class. He was on the dean’s list for East Central.

“I got to watch him grow up from a young skinny kid to a man, you know, and that’s one of things I will always remember about Malik as a transformation he made the growth that he made,” said Coach Orr.

Never settling for less than average, Miller stayed late at practices, worked hard, and lit up the games with his smile.

“He was just the one that you can count on anytime you need to rally of the team he was the one that bought it to us,” said Coach Porter.

WCBI has reached out to Miller’s family, but they are understandably still processing his death at this time.