Gulf cross country coach goes extra mile(s)

By JOEY KNIGHT

NEW PORT RICHEY - He's really no different than many who collect a pittance to coach prep sports. Divide his annual supplement by the time and toil he invests in his kids, and Dean Lofton is making sweatshop money.

Hundreds of his counterparts can rightfully make the same claim. But what distinguishes Gulf's longtime cross country coach from them are the types of extra miles he goes.

They're mostly elevated -- and sometimes grueling.

Each summer for the past nine years, Lofton has hauled as many as two vanloads of kids -- including dozens from rival schools -- to east Tennessee so they can hone their lungs and legs by negotiating the trails carved from the Smoky Mountain terrain.

During the weeklong trip, they tackle a series of mountain runs that are equal parts picturesque and painstaking, navigate the Ocoee River's white waters on rafts, and spend one evening indulging in the tourist trappings of Gatlinburg, Tenn.

"The first time I went, it was one of the best experiences I ever had, with the beauty and scenery and challenges you do on a daily basis," Land O' Lakes boys coach Kris Keppel said.

"It's just a great experience."

They call this excursion Camp Big Dawg. The name has no real significance.

The camp does. It aims to siphon every drop of resilience out of its participants, forge camaraderie, teach discipline, and expose about three dozen kids a year to a panoramic look at some of the Southeast's most breathtaking scenery.

All for $250 per runner.

"It's the best trip ever," Mitchell senior Jeff Surmin said.

One person's experience of a lifetime is another's summer pro bono work.

Lofton and his fellow adult volunteers make nothing from it -- except memories.

"It's a lot of work that he gets a lot of help with," said Dan Berkey, whose daughter, Nichole, is one of Gulf's top two runners. "But it's still a lot of work."

Lofton always knew a cross country camp would be a great thing for his runners. He also knew many college-affiliated camps included a steep price and spartan amenities.

"You have some college coach there sending you out on runs, and you come back to the dorm, eat and hang around the dorms," said Lofton, 45. "For the most part, that's what a lot of them are like."

Lofton figured he could do better, without even venturing from his folks' back yard.

Ethel and Wilbur Lofton -- the latter a prep football coach at Hudson, Gulf and Tarpon Springs -- had retired to a mountain home in Reliance, Tenn., in the Cherokee National Forest. At the foot of their hillside was a patch of land suitable for camping, and an adjacent stream.

Shortly after Wilbur's retirement in the mid-1990s, Dean Lofton and his first group carpooled to Reliance. For a week, they camped out in the evenings and ran the area's scenic trails during the day.

Endurance built up noticeably. So did word-of-mouth.

"Bill Napolitano, who used to coach at Mitchell, I was telling him about it, and he said, 'Well, can I go?' So I said, 'Sure,' " Lofton said. "Other people found out about it and asked if they could go and I said, 'OK.' It's just a big thing now."

This past summer, runners from Gulf, Mitchell, Land O' Lakes and River Ridge attended. Lofton also has taken Pinellas runners, and even some from Florida Southern College.

Over the years, the itinerary has evolved into a structured amalgamation of distance training and sightseeing.

In rented vans, the group leaves New Port Richey before dawn on a Saturday, arriving in Reliance about 12 hours later. The runners have an hour to set up their tents before embarking on their first run -- up a gravel slope -- on the Lofton property.

The makeshift campground is maintained by the runners. Lofton typically divides his assemblage into groups and assigns each a daily chore ranging from washing dishes to cleaning out the vans to sanitizing the portable toilets.

"Every year it's the same," Lofton said. "The first day or two we get there, it's such a shock to their system. We have people calling home, begging to come home, crying on the phone."

The training highlights include runs at the John Muir trail, an 18.8-mile stretch along the Hiwassee State Scenic River; Cades Cove Loop in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park; and Indian Boundary Campground in the Cherokee National Forest.

All serve as de facto tuneups for the camp's culmination: a Friday run up Oswald Dome Trail.

The 3.86-mile path, which the group hikes on Sunday, ascends Bean Mountain and ends at an elevation of 3,500 feet.

Translation: It's literally uphill all the way.

"It messes with your head," Surmin said.

"It's the most difficult race I've ever run," added 1998 Land O' Lakes graduate Lee Stephens, who completed 47 road races last year and remains one of the Bay area's top distance runners.

"Some of the guys here are running close to five-minute miles, but running up Oswald Dome, you're a fast guy if you can go under 10-minute miles."

For all the beauty and vertical rigor of the courses the group encounters, Lofton realizes monotony would set in if his runners did nothing but train and loiter around the campsite. His antidote: Adventure, chased by all the mountain-chilled water one can guzzle.

"It is an actual training camp," said Berkey, who has attended two camps, "but he makes it to where they have as much fun as they do work."

Monday's workouts are broken up by a whitewater rafting trip down the Ocoee River. The group also visits -- and raptures in -- a frigid waterfall within the Cherokee National Forest. On Wednesday, everyone heads to Gatlinburg, where they stay in a hotel for the night.

Such diversions have become part of the weekly camp routine, which doesn't seem to waver regardless of the adverse conditions life may present.

In the summer of 2004, Lofton found himself practically immobilized by a neck halo after fracturing the second cervical vertebra in an April car accident. The previous December, Wilbur had lost his battle against colon cancer. The camp went off anyway.

This past April, Lofton and wife Val welcomed their first child -- a daughter named Alanta. The camp went off anyway.

Plans already are underway for Camp Big Dawg '06, though Lofton may add another week to the itinerary exclusively for his own team.

Regardless, next year's registrants can expect physical excruciation, aquatic recreation and Ethel's homemade sausage biscuits for the trip home.

"By the end of the week, they say it's the best week that they've ever had," said Val Lofton, a former Gulf runner. "And they don't even remember the fact they were crying."