He spotted an old turn-of-the century fire station while out for a drive one day and embarked on a project to rebuild it at This Is the Place Heritage Park. He supervised the construction of Franklin Covey Field. He funded the building of BYU's new baseball field and loved every minute of it. "The BYU thing is way cool," he says. He is funding and overseeing the construction of three buildings for Salt Lake Community College that will comprise the Larry H. Miller Entrepreneurship Center. He is working with artists on painting and sculpting projects. He donated funds to expand Rice-Eccles Stadium. He provides college scholarships to the children of employees who graduate from high school with at least a C average. He teaches a three-hour entrepreneurial course one night a week at BYU.

Then there is Larry H. Miller Charities, which has received as many as 30,000 requests in a single year for financial help for individuals and organizations. Miller is often besieged with personal requests. He went to a dinner event recently and afterward was approached by more than 30 people who wanted something — money, a car, tickets, advice, funding for an invention. ("It's hard to know where to draw the line," Miller says. "You can't be all things to all people. . . . I think of myself as a bridge builder. You have someone on this side and someone on the other side. Our job is to build that bridge and hope once we get them there they will establish themselves.")

"There are a lot of other things done that people don't know about, and neither do I," says Allred, who is president of Larry H. Miller Charities. "People tell me things that he did that I didn't know. What we see is the tip of the iceberg. He doesn't like to talk about it. He has a fundamental belief that if that stuff gets public, then he's doing it for the wrong reason. . . . People probably don't believe this, but he has a strong philanthropic side to him. I really believe he does what he does and takes the risks he does less for the financial upside than because he believes it will be good for the community."

There really was no other reason why Miller would, for instance, step in at the 11th hour and buy the Jazz just to keep them from moving to Miami. "We need to buy this team," he told Gail one night. "If we don't, who will? If we lose this team, this community will never see major league sports again."