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Chris Low
The first time I laid eyes on Chris Lofton, during a preseason workout at Tennessee, my thoughts mirrored those of the recruiters who so grossly whiffed on him during a legendary career at Mason County High School in Maysville, Kentucky.
Yeah, he could shoot with that slight backward lean, but there was always a “but” mixed in there somewhere.
As Lofton would playfully chide me years later, “Too short. Too slow. Not quick enough. Couldn’t dribble well enough. Couldn’t defend.”
Little did I know at the time that Lofton’s heart and desire for success would make any perceived shortcomings moot, to say nothing of the courage and selflessness that helped make him a legend for Volunteers fans and beyond.
One of the most beloved athletes in University of Tennessee history, Lofton met a brutal situation head on and kicked its butt without ever feeling sorry for himself, and did so as discreetly as possible because he never wanted to become a distraction to his teammates.
It’s been 17 years since Lofton played his senior season at Tennessee after being diagnosed with testicular cancer, and not even his teammates knew all he had to endure to get back on the court with them. His story will be told through the SEC Storied documentary “Volunteer for Life,” which will premiere Monday at 7 p.m. ET on the SEC Network and be available to stream on ESPN+.
“I just never wanted it to be about me, the focus to be on what I was going through,” Lofton told me soon after his record-setting college career was over following the 2008 season. “My teammates didn’t deserve that. We’d worked too hard, all of us, to get where we were to let my personal struggles maybe bring us down.”
The only person on the team Lofton told of his situation was his roommate on road trips, Jordan Howell. Tennessee’s coaching staff and administration went to great lengths to keep Lofton’s cancer treatments quiet. Very few people knew just how agonizing that summer prior to his senior season was as he underwent surgery and grueling radiation treatments. He lost 20 pounds and spent many nights vomiting violently and tearfully praying on the phone with his parents, Franklin and Kathleen Lofton. They desperately wanted to be around Knoxville more as their only child faced the challenge of his life, but also didn’t want to arouse suspicions that something was amiss.
“If I could have taken the cancer myself, I would have,” Kathleen said.
Lofton was named the SEC Player of the Year as a junior and was featured on the Nov. 21, 2007 cover of Sports Illustrated going into his senior season. The Vols vaulted to No. 1 in the country that season after beating Memphis in a memorable No. 1 vs. No. 2 matchup, and while Lofton was a key part of that team, his body simply wouldn’t allow him to be what he was before the cancer treatments.
After averaging 20.8 points and shooting .479 from the field as a junior, he averaged 13.4 points and shot .345 over the first 17 games of his senior year.
Fans and media began to openly question if teams had figured out how to defend Lofton and wondered if he was melting under the pressure of such lofty expectations, especially after he had gotten off to such a slow start that season.
If only they had known.
That’s the beauty of Lofton’s story. He never once said a word, never made excuses and was always front and center whenever media members questioned him about the dip in his numbers.
It was difficult for me after learning of Lofton’s cancer diagnosis earlier that season — and after meeting with him personally and getting my superiors’ blessing at ESPN to keep the story quiet — to hear all the theories about what was wrong with Lofton.
Through it all, he never flinched.
“You’re in a storm, coming out of a storm or getting ready to go into a storm,” Lofton said. “It’s one of the three.”
As I look back on Lofton’s experiences and the way he plowed through it all, there were numerous lessons that stand out.
For one, there are times when we all need help. Even though Lofton’s ordeal was mostly private, he had tremendous support from then-Tennessee coach Bruce Pearl, trainer Chad Newman, Tennessee’s entire medical staff, Lofton’s Knoxville-based minister Tim Miller, Howell and then-Tennessee athletic director Mike Hamilton, among others.
Hamilton was an unsung hero with the way he helped navigate the whole process and keep Lofton’s wishes for privacy at the forefront. Hamilton died Nov. 10, 2023 — he also had cancer. As an example of what Lofton meant to him, Hamilton and his wife, Beth, drove to a Nashville high school to be interviewed for the documentary. Frail and preparing for surgery that he hoped would save his life, Hamilton died less than 3½ months later.
Former Kentucky coach Tubby Smith was skewered for not recruiting Lofton, who led his team to a high school state championship in Kentucky as a junior and a runner-up finish as a senior. Yet Smith was willing to be interviewed to discuss Lofton’s journey, which says a lot about both Lofton and Smith.
Lofton said perhaps the most enduring lesson for him was that we never know why things happen the way they do and, as he said, how God is working in our lives. Lofton’s cancer was detected after he failed a drug test during the 2007 NCAA tournament. Players are picked randomly to be tested after each round. The test revealed high levels of hCG, a hormone that serves as an indicator of pregnancy in women, steroid use or cancer. In this case, it revealed a tumor marker.
One of the first things I heard months later, which proved to be inaccurate, was that Lofton had failed a test because he had used an NCAA-banned supplement. Having covered about 90% of the games Lofton had played in his career and getting to know him and his character, I kept telling myself, “No way.”
I once asked Lofton if he ever wondered what might have happened had he not been selected for that drug test.
“I just know it saved my life,” he said.
I learned a lot from Lofton during that time and afterward as we became friends. He’s the most unassuming and humble star I’ve ever covered.
You see it at his youth camp every summer in Maysville. You see it at public functions when he quietly slides in and out without wanting to be the center of attention. You see it at restaurants when he’s eating with his parents.
Once, when I was with my own family at a restaurant, Lofton and his parents came in. My middle son, Adam, was 7 at the time and a huge Lofton fan, with a poster of the Tennessee star on his bedroom wall. Adam was in the bathroom when Lofton walked into the restaurant. I noticed Lofton head that way soon after. I turned to my wife and said, “Watch this.”
Within a minute, Adam came tearing out of the bathroom screaming, “Dad, Chris Lofton is in the bathroom. Chris Lofton is in the bathroom!” The whole restaurant was laughing. Adam had played in a youth basketball game earlier that day and was still wearing his jersey. I asked him what Lofton said to him, and Adam beamed, “He wanted to know how we did today and if I had fun.”
Who didn’t have fun watching Lofton play, seeing how much joy he brought to so many people, even those outside the orange persuasion? In many ways, he was the face of Tennessee’s resurgence in basketball in the mid 2000s, which can still be felt today.
His No. 5 jersey was retired Jan. 14, 2023, as he joined Bernard King, Ernie Grunfeld, Dale Ellis and Allan Houston as the only men’s basketball players in Tennessee history to have their numbers retired.
And while Lofton is best remembered for playing through his cancer diagnosis and treatment, he also was a great player for the Volunteers. He remains the SEC’s all-time leader with 431 3-pointers, and when he graduated in 2008, he was third all-time among NCAA players. I’ve never seen a college shooter at his size (6-foot-2) with his range and the ability to get off a shot no matter how closely he was contested.
It’s impossible to know how much a role his cancer played in derailing his dreams of playing in the NBA. Lofton had a long and prosperous professional career overseas.
One thing I know for sure is that he has never used it as an excuse.
He took on one of life’s hardest blows and kept firing away — sometimes from 35 feet.
Chris Low was an executive producer for the “Volunteer for Life” documentary.
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