Coach Anthony is a native of Marietta, Georgia. He is the proud son of Mike and Karen Anthony and the brother of Steve Anthony. His brother has 2 children, Thomas and Kate. His brother owns a construction company. He is married to the former Lyndi Sippel of Rising Fawn, Georgia. She played high school basketball for Coach Durden at Dade County and is a nurse in Gainesville, Ga. She played college basketball at Mississippi State University and graduated from the University of Tennessee Chattanooga with a biology degree. They have two sons, John Thomas (Age 6.), Nate (Age 2, and a daughter ,Abi (Age 4).
His grandfather, the late Horace Anthony is the son of Italian immigrant Victor Anthony who came to this country with nineteen cents, no English proficiency, and no skills in 1900. He moved to Rome, Georgia where he started selling vegetables out of a cart. He saved enough money to buy a "storefront" which was a five foot wide door that he sold sandwiches out of for several years. He saved enough money to buy two drugstores and live a comfortable life providing for his family. He was one of the first merchants in Rome to allow African Americans to work in his drugstores "out front" whereas most African Americans were only allowed to work in the back of stores during the twenties.
His other grandfather, Tom Strickland was a product of the Great Depression. He quit school when he was in the eighth grade. He made twenty cents a day during the Depression logging in South Georgia and North Florida. He played high school football when he was twenty years old because all a man had to do to play for the team was to live in town. He met my grandmother, Audrey when he was thirty and she was twenty. They were married for fifty four wonderful years. He was a very intelligent man although he lacked a formal education. He became a shift engineer at the paper mill in Rome. He could construct anything, fix anything, and talk to anyone like he had known them for years.
Coach Anthony enjoys Georgia football, fishing, reading, and exercise. His personal teaching philosophy is that students are never lazy; they are just unmotivated. He strives to motivate and challenge students to reach their full potential as students and as young adults. He is a proud member of Blackshear Place Baptist Church. He previously taught at Washington Wilkes High School and Cedar Shoals High School. 5