Estimated read time: 4-5 minutes
ST. GEORGE — Southern Utah is rallying around a grieving family and making their dream come true at this weekend's hot air balloon festival.
Mike Fox, the 41-year old freshman football coach of Crimson Cliffs High School in Washington, unexpectedly collapsed on the morning of Thanksgiving. His wife, Melanie Fox, and paramedics attempted, unsuccessfully, to revive him, and his cause of death is believed to be a sudden heart event.
The beloved coach, involved father and community leader's loss impacted not only Melanie Fox and the couple's three children — Coco, Charlie and Cambry — but the southern Utah community as a whole.
I believe this will help them when it gets lonely at night.
–Wayne Alofipo
"He would always make people just feel so special and important," Melanie Fox said of her late husband. "He could remember everybody's name. He could remember every conversation the next time he saw you."
"He was an amazing football coach. He did very well with the teenagers and could joke and laugh with them and just always make them feel like feel good about what they were doing. ... And he really lifted them up, too, and he was an amazing dad," she said between tears.
"He loved — he loves our kids so much and just always gave them so much attention, spent so much time with them and was just amazing."
Crimson Cliffs High School came together Nov. 27 on the field where Mike Fox coached for a celebration in his honor with food trucks, a bake sale and a silent auction to help raise funds for his family. Mike Fox had recently coached Charlie's third-grade football team to a championship win, so the high school had Charlie's team take over its field for a tag football game.
Charlie led his team through a lineup of Crimson Cliff's clapping football players and staff, and Coco and Cambry got their faces painted and waved pompoms as cheerleaders alongside the high school's squad on the sideline.
The young boy hopes to follow in his dad's footsteps and continue playing football.
The event raised $15,000, which will help give the family time to grieve and Melanie Fox time to transition from life as a stay-at-home-mom to a single-parent breadwinner. A GoFundMe* for the family is available online, and has collected more than $80,000 of its $90,000 goal.
"I believe this will help them when it gets lonely at night. I think this will be a reminder for Mel and her kids how much this community cares about them and loves them and will support them," Crimson Cliffs' head football coach Wayne Alofipo said in a video about the event.
But the community support didn't stop there.
As the third annual Up and Away Hot Air Balloon and Music Festival in Washington County approaches this Friday and Saturday, sponsor TDS Telecommunications decided to gift a ride in a hot air balloon to the Fox family.
"We thought that this would be cool to call it the Coach Mike Fox Memorial Flight and just send his family up to be closer to him on this special day," said Wendi Bulkley, TDS' associate manager for field marketing in Utah and Nevada.
TDS also sponsors the Crimson Cliffs High School football team and Bulkley's son was coached by Mike Fox, so offering his family the flight felt natural.
"We always see the hot air balloons walking down to school, and so my kids have always wanted to go on one," Bulkley said. "I'm actually terrified of heights, so I'm really scared about it, but they are super excited."
"It just means so much that I have so many people in the community that just love and care about us," Melanie Fox told KSL.com. "It just means a lot that people are reaching out and showing love to my family right now."
She said many people in her community have brought meals, texted to say they're thinking of them, and helped and served them in so many ways in the past few months.
The Fox family will take to the skies on their hot air balloon ride on Friday at 7:15 a.m., Bulkley said, as part of the kickoff festivities for the Friday and Saturday balloon festival at Staheli Family Farm, located at 3400 S. Washington Fields Road, in Washington.
The festival will include over 25 hot air balloons, a car show, ax-throwing, food trucks and a nighttime balloon glow with stained-glass Tiffany lamps, said Ed Tracey, president and CEO at the Washington Area Chamber of Commerce, which facilitates the event.
"It's so beautiful to see them all take off in the morning," he said. "It's fantastic to see them light up the sky at night. You don't want to miss it."
*KSL.com does not assure that the money deposited to the account will be applied for the benefit of the persons named as beneficiaries. If you are considering a deposit to the account, you should consult your own advisers and otherwise proceed at your own risk.
