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Jefferson's Falconer Rebounding From Injury, Loss With Football

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By KATHERINE SMITH, The Tampa Tribune

Published: September 19, 2007

Updated: 09/19/2007 12:22 am

TAMPA - Devion Falconer couldn't find his dad.

Wandering around the side of a highway outside Waynesboro, Miss., where his family's car had just crashed, Falconer nearly drifted into the oncoming traffic when somebody, a stranger, grabbed him and told him to sit down.

The 16-year-old settled onto the ground as stabbing pain pulsed through his neck and looked up. There in front of him was his father, Monolito.

'They had put covers over him, and I thought it was just to keep him warm,' Falconer said.
Falconer remembers being jarred awake by the sound of car horns. It was quiet before that moment, including the dull sound of the stereo, which his dad normally kept turned up loud to help keep him awake. Soon after he opened his eyes, Falconer somersaulted through the air and crashed through the back passenger window of the Ford Expedition.

His father had fallen asleep at the wheel, just as the rest of the family had, run off the side of the road, then overcorrected causing the car to flip several times.

A 6-inch scar down the back of Falconer's neck is the lone physical reminder of the March 22 accident. The emotional scars the Jefferson High junior bears are much more painful.

Right after the accident, Falconer's first instinct was to locate his little brother. Mondreas Lofton, 9, had been riding in the back of the car with the luggage. He was fine. Falconer's two cousins who were sitting next to him were injured, but nothing too serious.

Everyone was OK, except for Monolito. Just like Falconer, he was ejected from the car. He died on impact.

The covers Falconer thought were for warmth were actually used to cover his lifeless body.

'Devion's expressed himself. He cries and I want him to,' Devion's mother Laquitia said. 'When he got back from the funeral, he cried for a couple of days. He was very upset and angry. He wanted his dad back.'

On most Saturdays, there are two places you can find Falconer. He gets in an extra workout at the Jackson Springs Recreation Center and then he finds his spot along the fence at Skyway Park to watch his little brother play for the TBYFL Pee Wee Bucs.

It's no exaggeration to say Mondreas is the star of the team. On a recent Saturday, Mondreas scored three touchdowns before halftime of a game against the Seahawks.

After the game, Falconer was one of the first to greet him, wrapping an arm around him. Since the accident, Falconer's been more protective of his little brother. He used to be bothered by his incessant pestering, but those things don't bother him now.

'Now that my dad's not around, I feel like it's my responsibility to watch over him, to make sure he does good in school and make sure nothing bad don't happen to him,' he said.

Laquitia, who met Monolito in the third grade and then began dating him in high school, wasn't in Mississippi the day of the accident. She got word of the accident by phone at work.

'The accident was pretty bad,' she said. 'My kids definitely could have been taken from me as well as their dad. I know if their dad would want it any way, he'd want it like this. If it had to be anybody, he'd rather it be him than the kids.'

X-rays back in Tampa revealed Falconer had sustained a broken neck. He had surgery on April 26, the day after his Dragons' teammate C.J. Mills was shot and killed. Doctors told him had the injury been a half inch to the right, it would have hit a nerve, possibly paralyzing him. The surgery would fuse his broken vertebrae, using screws to hold it together.

'When I woke up, the only words I heard the doctor say was 'the surgery went OK,'' Falconer said. 'Then I rested peacefully the rest of the day.'

Finding peace has been hard to come by for Falconer. There are days the anger wells up in him, days he takes his emotions out on pieces of paper in the form of letters to his father.

He misses his dad. He misses C.J. He misses Sam Santilli, his friend who was struck and killed by lightning soon after his accident. Above his bed, Falconer has erected a makeshift shrine to them. He has photos and T-shirts with their images printed on the front nailed to the wall.

'Sometimes I just lay in my bed at night, and I see their pictures on the wall and I start crying,' he said. 'If they were still here, how things would be so much different, like if my dad were still here. If my dad were still here, if I had to go through neck surgery, he would have gotten me healed so much faster because he pushes me more. That's how I got so much faster.

'This year was supposed to be my best year in football. But then all this stuff happened to mess it up. Now I'm trying to get back on track.'

A lengthy rehabilitation after surgery paved Falconer's road back to the football field. After visiting him in the hospital, Jefferson coach Mike Fenton was convinced his wide receiver would never play football again.

But the week before the season kicked off, Falconer showed up at practice with medical clearance forms in hand. Fenton slowly began integrating him into practice.

'You see the scar and it scares me,' Coach Mike Fenton said. 'Little by little we're easing him back. Little by little we're going to get him back in the mix.'

On Friday, when Jefferson takes on Gaither, Falconer will play in his first game since the accident. He says he'll be thinking of his father.

'I'm going to picture him in the stands, talking to me, telling me what I'm doing wrong, how to do better, run the routes better,' he said.

His mother will be there, standing along the fence and holding her breath until her son takes his first hit. Laquitia worries about her son. She doesn't want him to hide away in his bedroom. That's why she signed the consent form to allow Falconer to play football again.

'My mom says she's going to take me to therapy,' Falconer said. 'I told her I don't need therapy. I'll just get through it the old fashioned way - sit at home and hope for the best.'

COMING NEXT WEEK: By day, Fenton gives career advice to students. By afternoon, Fenton coaches the football team, made up of a group of players with fragile emotions following the murder of their teammate, Mills, in April. Fenton has a stack of recruiting letters from colleges for C.J. in his desk drawer. He still receives them on a weekly basis.

Reporter Katherine Smith can be reached at (813) 259-7860 or ksmith@tampatrib.com.

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