ON HIS CLAPPING Miles explained the evolution of his distinctive manner of clapping, which often involves his being hunched over as he smacks his palms together with his fingers spread wide. As it turns out, it is all about preventing injury. “You can’t be soft-handed; it has to be an aggressive clap,” he said before a demonstration. “You keep your fingers out so that you don’t get them caught in between, you know what I’m saying? If you get them in between here” — he gestured to the area between his fingers — “it can be an ineffective clap and you can get hurt. Injuries can occur if you don’t keep your fingers spread.”

ON HIS HATS Miles, who has become so identified with his hats that his nickname is the Mad Hatter, said that the hats he wore while playing baseball as a child “always had a nice little bend to them — they had some simple structure,” but that today’s hats are made to be worn differently, and the way they fit his head when pulled down snugly is “not the look for me.” So instead, he chooses to keep some space between his skull and the top of his hat, which he said was the way the coaches he played for and worked for early in his career wore their hats.

He also talked about wanting to have a good “dress hat,” the one he will wear on the sideline this year.

“I think I have me a dress ball cap for games that looks appropriate,” Miles said. He then went into his closet to retrieve the dress hat for this season. He emerged beaming like a child who had just unwrapped a toy.

ON L.S.U. FANS Miles insisted that despite the mixed feelings about him among fans, he is never confronted by unhappy Tigers supporters in public. “If they have something bad to say to me, they keep it; they don’t say it to me,” Miles said. “The people of this state and the community that represents this school have been so kind to my wife and my family. I love them.”

ON FOOD When Miles was asked about his favorite places to eat, he insisted that he seldom dined out or deviated from his daily regimen of Cobb salads and fish. But he was more creative when asked what he would want for a last meal.

“I’m going to have a New York strip; I’m going to have it medium,” he said. “I’m going to have it with all the Cajun spice and salt and heavy, heavy pepper. And it’s going to be about an inch and a half to two inches thick. It’s not going to be real, real, real red. It’s going to be pink. I’m going to have corn.”

Corn on the cob?

“No, cream corn. I’m also going to have a little mashed potatoes, but not much. A salad, a light salad. Diet Coke. And then I’m going to have some ice cream — Blue Bell ice cream, Cookies ’n Cream — if it’s my last meal. If it’s not my last one and I’ve got a couple of years to live, I’m going to go with a little frozen yogurt.”