A coach on the road to recovery

COOKEVILLE, Tenn. -- For most of his life, Tennessee Tech basketball coach Mike Sutton has counted wins and losses. Now he measures success in smaller increments.

Raising an arm one week, both the next. Breathing without a ventilator, then having his tracheotomy tube removed a day later. Lying on his stomach for the first time in eight months -- even if someone has to roll him over.

Sutton recently returned to coaching, but he still uses a motorized wheelchair in the slow recovery from Guillain-Barre Syndrome, a mysterious disorder in which the immune system attacks the peripheral nerves and weakens the legs and arms.

It can be life-threatening and leave the victim paralyzed.

Actor Andy Griffith couldn't walk for seven months after a bout with Guillain-Barre in 1983, and "Catch-22" author Joseph Heller wrote "No Laughing Matter" about his fight with the disease.

"I had never heard of it," the 49-year-old Sutton said.

A 29-year coaching veteran, Sutton was 58-13 in his three seasons at Tennessee Tech after being an assistant to Tubby Smith at five different schools, including Kentucky. He was coming off his best season yet, one in which Golden Eagles won the Ohio Valley Conference regular-season title.

But one weekend in April, Sutton had a cough as well as pain in his feet and hands. He was struggling to dial his cell phone or open a bottle of water. He thought it was the flu, so he decided against joining his wife in Tampa, Fla., to see his new granddaughter. Then he collapsed in the parking garage of a Virginia hotel.

Sutton immediately sought help from a friend who's also a plastic surgeon, a decision that may have saved his life. Instead of flying home to Tennessee, his friend told Sutton's brother to drive the coach to Bon Secours DePaul Medical Center in Norfolk, Va.

Sutton doesn't remember much after that. He gave his assistant coaches a to-do list over the telephone, and his friend, Dr. Richard Rosenblum, directed his care.

"He kind of took the bull by the horns: 'This is what you're going to do and who you're going to see,'" Sutton's wife, Karen, said.

Still, Sutton deteriorated rapidly and was put on a ventilator, medicated for the pain and needed a tracheotomy on April 13. He remembers seeing his mother and sisters two days later before being flown to Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville but can't recall his daughter's visit in Tennessee.

His only form of communication was blinking his eyes to spell out words.

"You just had to do what you could do," Karen Sutton said. "They had charts you could point to, but he couldn't point."

His team didn't know how bad he was until after he had been moved to a rehabilitation hospital in Nashville to wean him off the ventilator. They had hoped he would be back within days, then weeks and then learned the prognosis was months.

"It was really scary," associate head coach Steve Payne said.

By June, Sutton was finally able to speak briefly and move his legs. He was taken off the ventilator July 18 and later that week moved to a hospital in Cookeville, about 70 miles east of Nashville. Therapy increased to three hours a day, five days a week.

His spirits lifted when practice started in October, and he reviewed video in his room. Finally, he went home Nov. 18 for the first time since he had left for the Final Four last March.

He was courtside when Tennessee Tech raised the banner for their conference title Nov. 20, and the Golden Eagles responded by routing Oregon State 90-62. He made his first road trip Dec. 17 to Cincinnati where officials built a ramp for his wheelchair to the raised floor, then unbolted it and gave it to the team in case Sutton needs it again.

Sutton hasn't missed a game since, sitting beside the scorer's table in his wheelchair, his wife beside him to help with his reading glasses, water and deflect loose balls. His voice isn't strong enough to bark out orders, so his assistant coach works the sideline.

"There's nothing sick about him," Karen Sutton said. "His muscles aren't strong enough to support him just yet, but that's pretty much it."

His Golden Eagles were 15-7 heading into Thursday night's game at Tennessee-Martin and third in the OVC.

"He's never complained or felt sorry for himself," Payne said. "That's been the hard part for me, having to watch him go through this. It's been an inspiration for our guys and our program to see how he's handled everything as far as being unselfish and how tough he's been."

With Guillain-Barre Syndrome, there are no timetables for recovery. Letters that Sutton receives from other victims offer hope that he will recover fully, but he has to be patient.

"One of the things I was constantly warned about is you had to be careful," he said. "If you overdo it, it can set you back. That's difficult because as an athlete and a coach, your mind-set is to work the muscles to fatigue and try to go past it.

"Sometimes your mind and your body, it takes a while to get them on the same page."