Josh Miley is Quincy University’s head athletic trainer, working in the hot, steamy underbelly of the Health & Fitness Center. While he cares for humans in his work and personal life, instead of having a normal pet like a cat, hamster, or lizard, he cares for a creature with more than two legs: his tarantula, Francis.

The Mexican Fire-leg tarantula has been a part of Josh’s life as a pet for the past few years while working at his former university. He always wanted to purchase an eight-legged arachnid. He finally got to buy his dream pet due to a prank war that got out of control with a former assistant athletic trainer. He did this at his former stop on the career journey at Hannibal-LaGrange University before he became a Quincy University Hawk.

“I knew she was deathly scared of spiders, and I actually always wanted a tarantula, so I took our prank war a step further, and I went and bought a tarantula and put it in her office,” Miley said.

Miley’s love for the spider grew, leading to him purchasing another Tarantula, “Roy.”  This new spider was a Venezuelan Green Bottle and lived with Francis in the same cage. Unfortunately, due to the molting process that tarantulas undergo every six months of shedding skin, Roy ended up losing his life due to how challenging the process is on the tarantula.

While Roy may not have survived the molt, Francis did, and that excess skin continues to bring joy to Miley and the other athletic trainers yet strikes fear in the QU athletes. While some may discard the shed skin, Miley likes to scare the football players with it.

Assistant athletic trainer Katie Parks recalls sitting in the training room when football players came in frightened by the sight of the molt. This discarded skin looked so much like a real spider that the players could not tell the difference between them.

“I think it’s funny; I always love scaring the football players who act tough and are terrified anyway,” Parks said.

One of these players, Myles Smith, a junior defensive back on the Quincy University football team, had one of these reactions. While receiving cupping treatment for some back pain during fall camp, the molt was placed on his back. The prank commenced once the spider was placed, and Miley proceeded to scare Smith.

“So, I jump up, hop off the whole table, and almost fall off the whole table. Then everyone started laughing at me, and Katie told me to get out,” Smith said.

While there might not have been a real spider on his back, he did believe it was crawling around on him.

“I just felt like another living creature was moving on my body, and just don’t mess with that,” Smith said.

Some may find the thought of a tarantula frightening or scary, but others may find that they are just an unlikely friend that can be used for a bit of pranking. In the case of Josh Miley, he saw an unlikely friend to join his adventure of life.