Heart on the mend

Tom McHugh is himself again, knowing his daughter will be okay.

By John C. Cotey
Published August 30, 2007

DADE CITY - Two weeks ago, Tom McHugh danced, and life was good again.

As Allison Krause softly sang in the background, McHugh's daughter slid herself out of a hospital bed for the first time since nearly dying in a car accident earlier this month.

Tom McHugh couldn't get to Brenna fast enough.

Baby mine, don't you cry

Baby mine, dry your eyes

Rest your head close to my heart

Never to part, baby of mine

He wrapped her up, carefully. Her spine - parts of which had been fused back together - is still recovering.

And they danced in the glow of machines that had been keeping her alive.

"I knew right then," McHugh said, "that it was going to be all right."

Life can be cruel, handing you your dream job one day, your worst nightmare the next.

McHugh was hired in January to resurrect a program that once was the very best in Pasco County, in a small town that loves its football team, especially when it's winning.

In recent years, Dade City's favorite pastime had fallen into disrepair, dragged there by incompetence and arrogance. Fans stopped showing up. The booster club directed its efforts elsewhere. The program became crude and sad.

In McHugh, Pasco principal Pat Reedy hired the right guy to lead the Pirates to better days. A family man, a popular coach at Wesley Chapel, a man who left his players better off than when he found them.

You know he is the right man, because as Brenna lay in a hospital bed fighting for her life, a former softball player of McHugh's drove down from Gainesville to make sure he was okay.

Others called from Iraq, where in between ducking IEDs they were wondering how he was holding up.

Cards and flowers arrived, signed by former players and students McHugh had sent off to college a decade ago.

God bless you, Coach, they read.

One night, then two and three, nurses at Tampa General had to shoo well-wishers from the hospital waiting room, 50 strong and standing room only.

If you wanted someone to touch lives, to make men of boys, McHugh was as right a choice as you could make.

Everything changes

The night before McHugh's first fall practice, Brenna, 21, missed a turn on Old Pasco Road and crashed her 2007 Hyundai into a tree. She was wearing her seat belt, but had to be airlifted to St. Joseph's Hospital in Tampa.

The next day, players opened practice at Pasco without their coach.

When she was 11, and McHugh had just been hired at Wesley Chapel, Brenna had colored a picture of Charlie Brown and Snoopy high-fiving in football uniforms, with Wildcat colors, he proudly points out.

For three days, that picture hung on a wall behind an empty chair in McHugh's office at Pasco High.

When he returned, he kept his cell phone clipped to his shorts. His mind drifted during drills. He wondered what Brenna was doing, how she was doing. Once, while talking to her from the practice field, he blew his whistle and she scolded him, because it was loud.

McHugh thought about walking away from football, for now. It wasn't fair to his players to follow a man who was adrift. They deserved better, he thought.

But Dade City wasn't about to let him quit. The booster club cooked meals for his family every night. Assistant coaches absorbed his duties, right down to cleaning and locking up every day after practice as McHugh rushed out to return to Brenna. Reedy told him to take his time getting back.

So McHugh found moments to squeeze his dream job into the small space his personal nightmare wasn't occupying.

"You could see it wearing on him," assistant coach Ricky Giles said. "The man is dedicated, but he was keeping a schedule that was taking a toll."

Brenna was a fine athlete at Wesley Chapel. She was an all-conference softball player on her dad's team, she was on the weightlifting team, she was a cheerleader.

A precious bond

But always, she was her father's little girl. The youngest of his three daughters.

He describes their relationship quite simply: "She's my baby."

Then he shrugs and looks at you, at your notebook, at your pen, which isn't moving.

What more needs to be said?

The older she gets, McHugh said, the more she is like him - a little spunky, strong, resilient. She is a little grumpy these days, asking to go home, tired of the white walls. McHugh reaches out his arms, explaining how he sits there and wants so badly to scoop her up and take her.

He can't. But soon.

She won't make it home in time for her dad's coaching debut, but that's okay, because she is breathing and smiling and laughing again, and so is he.

He can close his eyes Friday night before he leads his team into the stadium, and see his wife, Susan, leaning over a crib, singing the song Dumbo's mother sang to him in the classic Disney movie, singing it to his baby like she used to, more beautifully than Allison Krause ever could.

He can feel Brenna rest her head close to his heart, as they sway back and forth.

John C. Cotey can be reached at johncotey@gmail.com or 813 909-4612.

[Last modified August 30, 2007, 01:18:39]