Dale McMillen

Dale Edward McMillen -- "The Voice of Northern Kentucky Sports", 74, of Villa Hills, KY died on July 23, 2017 at University Hospital in Cincinnati, OH. Services will be held Friday, July 28, 2017 at Floral Hills Cemetery in Taylor Mill, KY with visitation from 4-6pm and service immediately following at 6pm.
Dale was preceded in death by his parents, Homer "Mac" McMillen and Elberta Smith McMillen and his beloved dog, Albert McMillen. He is survived by his wife, Eileen McMillen, his children, Carole McMillen Jones and Jeff McMillen, his step-daughter, Kim McCoy Brown, brothers Larry McMillen and John McMillen and 5 grandchildren and 3 step-grandchildren.
Dale attended Dixie Heights High School where he was an athlete in football and track. He then went on to achieve great success as a sportscaster, well known in the Northern Kentucky and Greater Cincinnati area in the 70's and 80's. His trademark line was, "Write it down and circle it and put a star by it." For years after retiring from broadcasting, he could still remember every kid's name and every kid's number. He got his start broadcasting high school sports, Thomas Moore College and Northern Kentucky University at WHKK in Erlanger, KY and then went on to call UC football and basketball and Xavier University basketball on WLW. He is on record for broadcasting the longest game in NCAA history with seven OT's and called over 4000 games on the air. In some circles, he has been called a "broadcast legend". He was also featured on ESPN as a color commentator for several world-wide events. In addition, Dale was a noted sports journalist, a member of the Northern Kentucky Sports Hall of Fame and the Northern Kentucky Athletic Director's Hall of Fame and spent time as Sports Director for Northern Kentucky University.
Upon retiring from sportscasting, Dale went on to become a consultant with the GMP Institute, a medical device training company, where he had opportunity to travel the world and nearly all 50 states but regretted never making it to Alaska. He absolutely hated flying which put a damper on that portion of his career but he loved seeing the world and learning about other cultures.
His true passion remained with high school and college athletes and he found his niche in coaching girl's softball. Coaching was his true calling in life. He and his son, Jeff, led two teams to three world championships. He coached and mentored countless athletes and remained in contact with nearly all of them up until the time of his death. He would tell you that coaching gave him more joy than anything else in his life, aside from his children and grandchildren.
What the public didn't see, was his true and utter devotion to his wife and children and theirs to him. He was the greatest father and friend to his own kids and loved Kim as his own. Nearly everyday, each of his kids would get a phone call saying, "Give me a full report." Sometimes he drove them bonkers with all his phone calls but it was what he did and who he was...a loving family man, always a phone call away. He remained extremely close to his brothers, Larry and John but above all was his beautiful and devoted wife, Eileen, who cared for him tirelessly around the clock, made hundreds of trips to UC and remained consistently steady and upbeat. Eileen never wavered even though Dale required an enormous amount of care. She was his constant companion and he loved her dearly. Dale always referred to Eileen as his "angel". She was the one he was most concerned about and didn't want to leave. Dale had a wicked sense of humor, a stellar quick wit and also had a way of putting everyone he met at ease. He had so many friends and so many admirers and he cherished each and every one of those friendships until the very end.

Dale's health declined eight years ago when as a diabetic, his liver and kidney began to fail. He received the gift of life from a generous organ donor and went on to have eight happy and fulfilled years. He always remained completely grateful to his organ donor and became a champion for organ donation. He fought valiantly to live all these years with complication after complication. He never gave up and never complained even while having to endure some of the toughest procedures and over 30 additional surgeries. His greatest worry was leaving his family behind. His family assured him that everything would be ok and that he would be loved forever.
We would be remiss in this writing if we didn't acknowledge the doctors and especially the nurses at UC and St. Elizabeth Hospital. In his final Facebook post, Dale said, "I never met a nurse I didn't like and really cared for as they poured their hearts into helping me."
Dale didn't depart this world alone. He took a piece of each of those who knew and loved him with him.