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Obituaries

James Curtis (Jim) Lofton

Obituary Date: Thursday, January 1, 2015
Retired high school football coach James Curtis Lofton of Gainesville, Ga., left this life on Jan. 1. He was 85. He had struggled with complications linked to congestive heart failure in recent months.

Called "Coach" by his wife Ruby Jean, five sons, 24 grandchildren and many friends, Lofton had an exceptional coaching career that encompassed 39 years as head football coach and 255 wins. He was named high school coach of the year many times. He was also an English teacher for much of this time.

In 2010, Coach summarized the lessons of his nearly 50 years of coaching, during which he specialized in turning losing football teams into championship ones, in a privately published book titled "So You Think You Want To Coach." (This is available at www.coachlofton.com; the family welcomes comments and stories to be posted at this site, in anticipation of rounding out Lofton's second book, "Letters to Coach," which was in progress.)

The goal of the first book, he wrote, was: "Helping development football coaches with a mission to turn boys into men that bring honor and glory to our Lord and Savior by using the collective empowerment of teams, family, and community."

Coach was born to James Euless and Vonnie Moore Lofton in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 12, 1929. After high school, he spent three years as a private in the U.S. Army, including a stint in post-war Japan as a paratrooper. He then entered Auburn University on a football scholarship, where he roomed and played alongside Vince Dooley, who went on to a storied career as head football coach at the University of Georgia. In a forward to "So You Think You Want to Coach," Dooley wrote: "I know of no one better qualified to write this sound game plan for a coaching career than my long time good friend and former college team and roommate, Coach Jim Lofton."

Coach married Ruby Jean in 1952, the summer before his senior year at Auburn. Their five sons
Funeral Date
01/06/2015 at 12:00AM
Funeral Home
Little & Davenport Funeral Home