He worked odd jobs that "taught me what I didn't want to do." He worked in a book bindery. Framed houses. Carried and mixed mortar. Drove delivery trucks. Picked strawberries. "When we were dating, he wasn't interested in doing anything with himself," says Gail. The best thing that happened to him was getting laid off a construction job when he was 19.

A recreational drag racer in his spare time, he had come to know the owners of a small auto parts store. They were looking for someone with experience to work the counter. He had no experience, but he told them, "I'm a fast learner. If you hire me, you'd feel good about it." He swept floors, stocked shelves, made deliveries, answered the phone, and soon he was working 96 hours a week — every hour the store was open. Within a year he was doing the hiring, firing, scheduling and ordering of parts.

"The reason I stayed with it is because it only took me a few days to realize I liked it," he said. "It was not about cars but the numbers. Remembering the numbers."

Miller's ability to recall numbers is legendary among acquaintances. During nearly six hours of interviews with a reporter, when discussing certain events in his life, he casually mentioned not only the dates of certain events in his life but sometimes the day of the week. He'll tell you he had a meeting about the purchase of the Jazz "on Tuesday, March 12." He moved to Denver when he was "26 1/2 years old — a Monday morning, Nov. 16, 1970." He bought his first dealership on "April 6, 1979," and took possession on "Tuesday, May 1." His first date with his future wife was "Jan. 30, 1959." He can tell you that three decades ago his parts store increased its sales "576 percent the first year, then 202 percent, then 200, then 201."

"Larry has something that borders on a photographic memory," says Dennis Haslam, a lifelong friend who serves as president of Miller's sports entertainment business. "Ask him what the part number is for a generator for a 1974 Toyota, and he could recite the seven numbers."

Only another counter man can fully appreciate this gift of recall for numbers. It makes him fast and efficient. A customer could ask for a part and most of the time Miller would know the seven-digit part number and the price — wholesale and retail — without opening a book.

"How do you do that?" people would ask him.

For five years he served as a counter man at various auto parts stores while playing top-level softball competition as well. Then he was recruited by a softball team in Denver with the promise of a job as a Toyota parts manager. Miller and his wife made the move, leaving Utah for the first time on that Monday morning, Nov. 16, 1970.

An epiphany