Connie Stamos was cooking dinner when the evacuation order came down. 

Get out of Altadena. 

She grabbed her laptop and the family cat, Socks, as a fire birthed Tuesday in nearby Eaton Canyon and spread on powerful winds, threatening the cozy town tucked between Pasadena and the San Gabriel Mountains.

Chris Stamos got a call the following morning from his mom, who came back to a forever-changed Altadena. The former Tennessee baseball pitcher heard his mom tell him they lost the house.

“I was like, ‘What do you mean we lost the house? Where did you put it?’ ” Stamos said. “She was like, ‘No, the fires unexpectedly blew the wrong way.’ ”

The Stamos family house was destroyed by the Eaton Fire, one of the fires that is ravaging Los Angeles County. They likely lost everything in it, including Stamos’ cherished baseball keepsakes from his career with a final stop at Tennessee.

Why the Altadena house meant so much to the Stamos family

Stamos received a video from Connie earlier Tuesday. It showed planters outside blown over and broken by the winds. She laughed and told him he wouldn’t have to worry about those when he helps with the gardening.

Hours later, the fire had started and the winds were no laughing matter. Connie fled the home.

“It was a beautiful home and a beautiful project,” Stamos said. “We had everything we wanted.”

The little house on Callecita Drive stood as a picture of a fresh chapter.

STAMOS: Chris Stamos’ best outing for Tennessee baseball gives Vols reset they needed at SEC Tournament

Connie was an empty nester by 2019. Her sons, Alex and Chris, were playing baseball at Principia College, a Division III school in Illinois. She was widowed in 2016 when Nick, her husband and the boys’ father, died. She had retired after decades working Disney and started a real estate business.

The fixer-upper a few roads away from their longtime home was perfect.

Connie planned a total remodel to make the house special, but the COVID pandemic shuttered them. She could not get permits nor builders to work on the house. The boys were home in the two-bedroom house so she converted the garage into a space for Chris.

“It was miserable,” Stamos said. “But as miserable as it was, you look back on it now and it was such a unique time in our lives. You can only sit back and laugh about how terrible every circumstance was.”

The family hunkered down together. They wasted time watching television in the back room. They played video games with cousins that lived nearby. 

The house became a home, then it became what Connie wanted: She redid the whole house, doubling the size and redesigning it to fit her vision. The project was completed in fall 2022.

Stamos remembers Connie’s joy when she pulled a turkey out of the new oven in the finished home on Thanksgiving that year. 

“We got our money’s worth with it in terms of memories and in terms of laughs,” said Stamos, who is living in Austin and working in sales.

Replacing baseball memorabilia on Chris Stamos’ mind

Connie didn’t pack clothes or belongings when she fled. She headed an hour north to Acton to stay with her boyfriend, Steve, planning to come back to evacuate bigger items in the morning.

“That morning, the neighborhood was on fire,” Stamos said.

Stamos got the call from his mom that morning. He stepped out of a quarterly evaluation with one of his bosses, heeding horrible news over the phone like he did when he was 16 and his father died.

Cherished keepsakes from his dad and childhood are gone. He thinks family pictures can be replaced. 

Many of the most irreplaceable possessions are from his baseball journey.

Stamos had the jersey he wore when Tennessee won the national title in his bedroom. He had his senior day gift from UT, a watercolor painting of him pitching. He displayed framed jerseys and every glove he used in college.

“It is hard to lose little stuff like that,” Stamos said. “A glove is a piece of leather but it has a story.”

Stamos kept countless baseball items because they spoke to hard work and a crazy path.

He had hats and clothing that reminded him of walking through snow at 4 a.m. to work out at Principia. He had the first glove he got at Cal when he landed in Berkeley for the 2023 season. He had College World Series pieces and Tennessee history, which he helped make as an essential member of the pitching staff.

PITCHING: How Tennessee baseball reinvented pitching staff to get back to College World Series

 It was all a reminder of 20 years of work put into baseball.

“That stuff was earned,” said Stamos, who was 3-1 with a 4.50 ERA in 22 games for Tennessee.

What is next for the Stamos family after the Eaton fire

Connie returned to Callecita Drive on Thursday with her brother. They got by the yellow tape and beheld the devastation.

“They got to see what was left, which turned out to be not a house,” Stamos said.

The Eaton fire has destroyed or damaged approximately 7,000 structures and killed five as of Saturday afternoon, according to Cal Fire. 

The Stamoses are navigating their next steps. Connie had to buy daily staples like clothing, shoes and toiletries. They have insurance that they expect will provide aid. Recreating a life and a community will take longer.

“I have told everyone that if there is someone that is built for obstacles, it is Connie Stamos,” Stamos said. “She is a freaking rockstar. It breaks my heart because she doesn’t deserve something like this.”

The family set up a GoFundMe on Friday with a goal of raising $15,000 to provide temporary housing and replace essentials. It eclipsed $50,000 on Saturday with a push from Knoxville, Vols fans and many Tennessee baseball players and their families.

FALL: 10 final impressions from Tennessee baseball fall world series under Tony Vitello

Stamos has talked with Vols coach Tony Vitello about getting replacements for some of the items lost. He tears up thinking about the support he feels from those he met in his one year at Tennessee, calling it a “blank-check relationship” that is “filling the hole of uncertainty.” 

“They watched a kid throw a baseball and now they are doing whatever they can to help the kid’s mom,” Stamos said.

The experience of loss has been unexpected, leading to tear-filled phone calls.

Stamos knows California is no stranger to fires and such disasters happen. The leap from it could happen to it happened to you is large and it happened so quickly.

It’s surreal, Stamos said, but everyone is safe and the Stamoses are moving forward as best as they can after losing the drafty little house they made a home.

Mike Wilson covers University of Tennessee athletics. Email him at michael.wilson@knoxnews.com and follow him on X @ByMikeWilson or Bluesky @bymikewilson.bsky.social. If you enjoy Mike’s coverage, consider a digital subscription that will allow you access to all of it.

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (WVLT) – The East Tennessee region saw 118 crashes from midnight Friday into Saturday morning, according to the Tennessee Department of Transportation’s Mark Nagi.

Ice and snow bought to the area by an early year winter storm caused many of those crashes. The storm created conditions that Nagi said are still dangerous for drivers.

Previous Coverage: THP, TDOT warns of possibility of treacherous conditions after winter storm hits East Tennessee

“People just need to understand that for the next few days, they’re certainly going to see patches of snow and ice on a lot of our roads,” Nagi said Saturday morning.

He said his department pretreated state roads, but cold temperatures could create problems for the next few days.

“Yeah, our crews pretreated roadways all day Thursday, and they have been on the job since the early morning hours yesterday,“ Nagi said. ”The challenges you run into is that there’s going to be a lot of refreezing, more than likely on our interstates and state routes.”

Previous Coverage: TDOT snowplow overturns on snowy TN highway

With that in mind, Nagi said, staying off the roads isn’t just about keeping drivers safe; Nagi said crews need the space too.

“It’s extremely dangerous work that our crews do each and every day, and especially during a winter weather event. Over in Smith County, there was a semi that hit one of our trucks,” Nagi said, adding that no one was hurt. “That’s why if folks can stay at home, please do. But if you do have to be on the roads, please give our crews the extra room that they need to to do their jobs.”

The Tennessee Highway Patrol gave their own stats Saturday morning. According to THP, the agency received 850 phone calls Friday and Saturday. Responses broke down like this from 6 a.m. Friday to 6 a.m. Saturday:

• Calls: 382
• Crashes with injuries: 12
• Crashes with no injuries: 51
• Motor assist: 140
• Abandoned vehicles: 21
• Obstruction in roadway: 3
• Disabled vehicle: 1

Copyright 2025 WVLT. All rights reserved.

Tennessee lost its first game of the season at Florida in blowout fashion, but will turn around to face Texas, who is in the midst of a grueling part of its first SEC schedule. 

There are few easy games in the SEC, and Texas is learning that quickly, losing its first two games of league play to Texas A&M and Auburn. Now, the team faces the elite defense of Tennessee, who is looking to bounce back off a loss on the road? 

Can the Vols take care of business in Austin, or will a battle tested Texas team keep up and pull an upset? 

Here’s our betting preview. 

Spread

Moneyline

Total: 132.5 (Over -115/Under -105)

Odds courtesy of FanDuel Sportsbook

Tennessee

Chaz Lanier: The North Florida transfer continues to provide sound floor spacing for the Vols, shooting 44% from beyond the arc as the team’s primary shot taker. However, with a high 3-point rate comes some stinkers, like the one against Florida in which he made only one of his nine 3-point attempts. The Texas defense is stout at limiting three-point attempts as Lanier will need to put together a complete performance on the road. 

Texas

Arthuer Kaluma: The Kansas State transfer had his best game of the season in a tight loss to Auburn, scoring 34 points on 12-for-16 shooting from the field, grabbing eight rebounds in the process. The forward has been shooting lights out from the perimeter this season – 52% – as he looks to guide Texas to a signature win.

I like Texas to hang around in this one with the team’s ability to break down the Tennessee offense in isolation situations and also have several capable three-point shooters on the floor. 

The Vols compact defense forces teams to shoot from the perimeter at a high rate, the Vols are 341st in opponent 3-point rate as opponents hoist nearly 47% of shots from beyond the arc. While Texas likes to get its offense on the interior with players like Kaluma, Tre Johnson and Jordan Pope creating their own shot, the team is shooting 40% from deep this season. 

Meanwhile, it’s the opposite for the other side of the floor, as Texas funnels teams inside to the rim and denies the perimeter. Tennessee’s offense is based around its off ball cutting and ball movement, but Texas does a good job of denying that and locking up at the rim, top 10 in field goal percentage allowed near the cup, per Haslametrics.

I think this game profiles to be a defensive minded affair with Texas having the better one-on-one shot creators to keep this one within a few possessions. 

PICK: Texas +6.5

Game odds refresh periodically and are subject to change.

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