Injured Gulf coach looking ahead in anticipation of happier times

NEW PORT RICHEY - Modern medicine has the gall to refer to this cumbersome getup as a halo.

Hell's Angels wouldn't let this contraption hang over their heads. For more than seven weeks, it has remained a royal pain in Gulf girls cross country and track coach Dean Lofton's broken neck, even as it serves to stabilize it.

It remains in place by four screws literally twisted into the first layer of skin on Lofton's head. Four metal rods that extend down from the halo are attached to what might best be described as a white set of shoulder pads cut off at the shoulders.

A bed of thick white fabric lines its underside, providing insulation Lofton's upper torso doesn't need in stifling Central Florida humidity.

``It's like wearing a parka,'' he says, already broiling from a late-afternoon walk.

Lofton, 44, fractured his second cervical vertebra in a car accident April 16. He can't drive, work, lift anything weighing more than 10 pounds, or sleep in his own bed. He showers about as often as the Calgary Flames' second line shaves. Worst of all, he can't move his head.

Or maybe that's the best of all.

In the past year, fate has come at Lofton with a flurry of emotional and physical haymakers, many of them landing flush.

Perhaps then, it's a good thing he's not able to look back.

``It's been a pretty bad year for him,'' said his wife, Val. ``We're thinking that something good should come soon.''

Saying Goodbye

Last December, Dean was dealing with a matter far more pressing and painful than anything a halo screw could inflict.

His dad, Wilbur, a veritable icon in Pasco County prep football circles, had seemed to gain the upper hand in his bout with Stage 4 colon cancer.

He had been able to attend Dean and Val's wedding last June in Athens, Ga., and seemed fine at the Thanksgiving dinner table at his and wife Ethel's retirement home in the south Tennessee mountains. But four days before Christmas, Wilbur Lofton was gone at age 68.

Without warning, the cancer had seeped into his spine. The family was by Wilbur's side when the former Hudson, Gulf and Tarpon Springs coach passed away at home.

``We had a great Thanksgiving up until the last day I was there, on Sunday,'' Dean said. ``He just started going downhill, and it was bad. I mean, it was real bad.''

The subsequent jolt occurred on U.S. 19, on a Friday night. Dean was in the passenger's seat of a Ford Explorer, bound for a small bachelor party at a Tampa comedy club. The car in which he was riding had just pulled out of a strip mall.

Dean, wearing his seat belt, suddenly saw another vehicle smack in front of him. The ensuing moments remain hazy in his mind, but Dean remembers exiting the SUV on his own power and being unable to answer rudimentary questions such as the name of his wife.

He was airlifted to Bayfront Hospital in St. Petersburg, where his mind soon cleared. Then, almost as quickly, he was ready to go out of it.

Dean was practically glancing over release papers when a precautionary CAT scan revealed the fracture. Then came the halo, then the hospital roommate - apparently a recovering drug addict - who screamed for two consecutive nights.

That was followed by the mild insanity that accompanies confinement. If only the monotony could be fractured as well. An avid runner, Dean's activity has been limited mainly to walking, folding clothes and mastering the PlayStation 2 presented to him by his track team.

``The first three weeks were really tough,'' he said. ``I just couldn't stay in the house. Every minute I just wanted to be somewhere else besides being in the house. I just couldn't get used to the adjustment.''

When the boredom periodically has dissipated, anxiety has replaced it.

Ethel recently suffered a mild heart attack, a reaction to a blood-pressure medicine she was given. Before that, his brother Mike broke his leg, and brother Keith threw out his back - on the same weekend.

So much for that New Year's resolution Dean made about running every day of 2004.

``That was just shot,'' he said.

Angel Without A Halo

In accordance with Dean's luck, his wife wasn't in the area - or even the area code - the night of his accident.

A social science education major at Florida State, Val was in her Tallahassee apartment - without a vehicle. Dan Berkey, the bachelor party guest of honor, made the nine-hour round trip to pick up Val and transport her to her husband's side.

``It was horrible,'' Val recalled. ``It was like, the longest nine hours of my life.''

She hasn't been separated from him since.

``I don't know what I'd do without her,'' Dean said.

Theirs was somewhat of a clandestine romance when they began dating after Val's 1999 graduation from Gulf, where she ran for Dean's squad. Leery of the potential grumblings about a coach being involved with a former pupil, they tried keeping things secret for months.

``You can't help who you fall in love with,'' Dean said.

Today, Dean can't help but extol the selflessness of his bride. Because Dean can't sleep in a bed, the couple spends the night in their living room in matching recliners. Val is Dean's chauffeur, chef, even de facto interim coach during the summer cross country workouts.

``If we have a successful season, she'll be a big reason,'' he said.

Val, who withdrew from school when Dean was injured, returns to classes June 28 - her one-year wedding anniversary. If all goes as planned, Dean's halo comes off July 16, the day before he takes a contingent of county runners to a cross country camp on his parents' land.

They'll camp out at night, and navigate the hills and streambeds of the Appalachian foothills by day. The objective is to steer clear of the valleys.

Dean has traversed enough of those lately.

``It hasn't been a good year,'' he said.