When I was a business reporter, I remember beginning a profile on Larry Miller. Figuring he was a rich, hard-driving guy, I didn't expect to like him.

We spent most of the afternoon talking about his No. 1 passion. It wasn't the Utah Jazz. It wasn't business. It was Shelby Cobra automobiles.

When we got around to talking about his sprawling business empire, I liked him even more. Miller was to business what Einstein is to physics. Even when I asked his opinion of other people's mega-deals, Larry could reel off the capitol sources, investments, government bond interest rates, payoffs and chances of success.* It wasn't greed for him, it was the deal as art or, at least, a grand puzzle. The calculations came as a visual, kinetic thing — Miller seemed to dance with the numbers in a mental ballet.

Anyone with that much passion and genius about anything earns my admiration.

Then Miller got tangled up in the Brokeback Mountain thing — he refused to screen a film about gay love in his theaters. But after meeting with gay and lesbian leaders, Miller told the Trib's Lya Wodraska he had been wrong to ban the movie. Miller showed (Chris Buttars, take note) that he could grow as a human:

[The meeting] was good for me in a couple of ways. I learned a lot about them [gays and lesbians] with some open and honest dialogue. It didn't change my way of thinking or theirs, but we all realized after talking with each other we have a better understanding of each other. I'm still outspoken on issues, but I know I have to look at people's feelings and lives. I'd like to say I'm more understanding now. To say I'm tolerant would be less accurate, but I am more understanding.

Because of a beat change, I never wrote the profile (or took the drive in a Shelby that he had offered). And that's probably a good thing, because I don't think I could have done justice to a complicated man like Miller.

*At that time, at least, he thought a soccer stadium in Sandy was a bad idea.