Community rallies around North Port athletic director Tony Miller after fire damages his home
NORTH PORT ― The burn on Tony Miller’s finger will heal. The athletic director and assistant track coach at North Port High School didn’t have time to consider the consequences of grabbing a hot spigot connected to a hose in his backyard.
And Miller knew it was hot.
“The spigot was melted down,” he said.
In those frantic moments overnight Monday, the 49-year-old also stubbed a toe, almost expected when roused from a deep sleep by shouts from his wife.
“Our house is on fire!’’
The damage to their home can and will be repaired. Tony Miller knows how much worse it could have been.
“We’re lucky to be alive,” he said. “We were told talking to the battalion chief that we were minutes away from it going from bad to worse.”
Miller and his wife, Leighann, who live with twin 17-year-old daughters, Allie and Alexis, were in bed around 10:30 p.m. Monday when Leighann was awoken by a loud noise. Their two dogs began barking, but looking out her bedroom window, she saw nothing. No more than five minutes later, another “boom,” this one the sound of Miller’s propane tank exploding.
“My wife looked out the window and looked back to the right side of the house and could see a glow,” he said.
“She opened up the bedroom door and looked into the kitchen/living area and saw our lanai on fire.”
Miller and Leighann got their daughters from their bedroom and went into the laundry room. But without power, the garage door leading outside didn’t open.
Allie and Alexis grabbed the family’s dogs, and Tony went around to the back of the house, where the lanai was burning. He then ran back into the house to retrieve the keys to move his car as one of his daughters called 911.
“By the time we were working our way back out,” he said, “the fire was in the living room.”
Fire crews arrived on the scene within 10 minutes, but by then, the lanai was engulfed in flames, as was the kitchen, and it had spread to the attic. The majority of the damage was in the family’s kitchen/living room area.
“There was water damage from the hoses,” he said, “fire and smoke damage. The preliminary plan is the roof will come off, then strip every drywall down to the studs, then inspect the concrete block. The worst-case scenario, everything gets taken down to just the concrete block walls.
“Best-case scenario, they can salvage trusses and framing on the inside. But they won’t know until they get the sheetrock off the wall where the damage is. But everything in the house, they told us to treat it like we’re never going to be able to keep it.”
Miller said the fire started around the gas grill he had used that evening to cook. He had turned it off but said it might have continued to burn.
Because the family ran outside in their night clothes without time to grab anything, their clothes suffered severe smoke damage. Miller said the clothes will undergo a two-week deep clean in an attempt to “pull the smoke out.”
Leighann bought scrubs for her job in the dental field, while Tony purchased two pairs of shorts and two Polo shirts to wear on Thursday and Friday to work.
Miller, who arrived at North Port High 21 years ago from DeSoto High to coach football and track and later became the school’s AD, said the community has rallied around his family.
People sent money to his daughters for them to buy clothes. A friend had beds delivered to the home the Millers will rent, courtesy of another friend, until their home is repaired. Another friend sent over a living room set.
Charlotte and Port Charlotte high schools will give the family the gate receipts from an athletic event. Miller received calls from athletic directors around Sarasota. The people who work with him know why,
“He’s very well-liked,” said North Port track coach Phu Nguyen, who arrived at North Port with Miller 21 years ago. “Their (Charlotte and Port Charlotte) track coaches have reached out because he’s well-liked over there as well.”
“Coach has been a staple at North Port High School for years,” said head football coach Garon Belser, who played football for Miller at North Port and was hired by him in 2021. “He invests an unreal amount of time into our athletic teams and athletes. Doing all this with a family of his own makes it that much more meaningful. They deserve all the help that the community can give.”
North Port assistant principal of administration Agnes Pelopida agrees. She helped set up an account on mybooster.com for people to donate to the family’s recovery effort.
“He’s a pillar of our community,” she said. ‘He’s a pillar in our athletic community, and as a result of that, I knew that people would be generous and surround him with the support he needs.”
With a goal of $25,000, $17,600 had been pledged as of Wednesday evening.
“It’s just crazy,” Miller said, “the amount of support from the community, whether it’s the coaching community, the AD community. The education community, friends and family, people have poured in support. It sucks that it happened, but all the pieces have fallen into place.
“We’re safe and we’re healthy and God is good and we’ll get through this and we don’t have anything to worry about.”
Interested in helping out Tony Miller and his family? Click here the link to Booster.com.
This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Fire damages home of North Port AD Tony Miller, community steps forward to help
