Miller was sitting at his desk on a recent morning — Wednesday, May 14, 2001, 8 a.m. — at the top of the Jordan Commons office building. His chair commands a view of the Salt Lake Valley in three directions. From here, he can survey his kingdom and sphere of influence — car dealerships lining State Street, his theaters and mall, the campus he is building at Salt Lake Community College. He has literally risen above his humble beginnings, whether eating breakfast in his mansion high above the north end of the valley or sitting in his office, high above the south end of the valley.

Miller, dressed in his uniform of sneakers, jeans and a golf shirt with the Jazz logo, is deep in thought, searching for words. At times like this, he tends to close his eyes and place a hand on his forehead, as if palming his head will crystallize his thoughts. He is nothing if not a passionate, introspective man, and given the deep circles under his eyes, he appears to do more thinking than sleeping. He is of course famously emotional. As the conversation moves seamlessly from family to patriotism to art to religion to career, he daubs at his eyes with a handkerchief, which he had placed on his desk. He knew it would come to this. The eyes are great, bottomless wells.

"There were trade-offs," he begins, leaning back in his chair, palming his forehead. "If there is one thing I'd do different — only one — it's to have been there at the Little League games and for the scraped knees and the dance recitals and the back-to-school nights. Would we have been as accomplished? There's no way to know. Ten years ago I would have said no. Today I think I would say I probably could still do it. Instead of working 90-hour weeks and missing all that stuff, I'd work a more balanced schedule, 55 or 60 hours, and the important things would still get done."

He can remember precisely the moment of his life-altering epiphany. It was March 1971, and he had just taken a 21-line Corolla crash parts order over the phone from a body shop. He was checking to see what parts he had in stock when "like a bucket of cold water it hit me. Here I am, soon to be 27, with two children and one on the way, with the responsibility of raising and supporting those children, for food and diapers and college and preparing for our old age and retirement, and I have nothing to fall back on, like a college education, except what I have inside me, my talent and energy. It scared the heck out of me. It hit me so abruptly. That's when I started my 90-hour weeks. I decided I had to be good at something, and the thing I was best at is being a Toyota parts manager."

From that moment on, he began working from 7:30 in the morning until 9, 10 or 11 at night, six days a week, for the next 16 years.