By TODD TRAUB
Leader sports editor
Former Sylvan Hills quarterback and baseball player Hunter Miller was one of two Arkansas Razorbacks football players arrested on misdemeanor drug possession charges on the University of Arkansas campus Monday.
Miller, 6-2, 185 pounds, is a 2008 Sylvan Hills graduate.
Miller, 20, and David Gordon, 19, were arrested Monday night when a campus police officer noticed them sitting in a parked car.
The arrest report said Miller, sitting on the driver’s side, kept raising his head to see if the officer would walk away while the two were lying back in their seats and, apparently, trying to hide.
Smoke drifted from the car after Miller was asked to open his door and, police said, a “green leafy substance” was sitting in plain view in the car. The officer also reported “a very strong smell of burnt marijuana.”
A Washington County Sheriff’s Office spokesman said the players were booked on possession of a controlled substance and released on individual $660 bonds.
The two players are listed as sophomore defensive backs. Both are scheduled for a court appearance May 24.
Gordon gave his name as David D. Lopez in the police report. He is also listed by that name in the Arkansas student directory.
It is not clear why Gordon used that name.
In a statement released by the university, Arkansas coach Bobby Petrino said he was aware of the arrests and was “handling it.”
Miller was a quarterback and safety/rover at Sylvan Hills and is a walk-on defensive back at Arkansas who was recruited by former Arkansas coach Houston Nutt to Ole Miss.
But Nutt, as some schools do in the current era, had over recruited and Miller later had his scholarship removed and was told he could “grayshirt” or transfer.
Grayshirting is a new practice in which a recruited player can count against a future scholarship cap. If a coach recruits 50 players and has only 25 scholarships, the other 25 would be distributed over future seasons.
Miller instead asked to be released from his NCAA letter of intent so he could walk on at Arkansas.