Lofton talks about cancer after keeping mum his senior year

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (AP) -Always the quietest member of Tennessee's basketball team, Chris Lofton managed to keep the biggest secret of his life from his teammates and fans during his senior season.

The former guard, who struggled with his shooting through the first half of the season, had been treated for cancer after a random drug test last year tipped off school officials he had a tumor.

Lofton told reporters the testicular cancer was the hardest thing that he's ever gone through and didn't want it to overshadow his teammates during what turned out to be a history-making season for the Vols.

He decided to reveal what he went through once he realized it might help other people.

"Sometimes I wanted to tell all my teammates, but I just couldn't get it out to them," Lofton said Friday before the team's end-of-season banquet. "I thought keeping it to myself for the whole season and waiting until after the season to say it would be better."

Beating cancer was the hardest thing the Maysville, Ky., native has ever gone through, but it's certainly changed him.

For one thing, Lofton - who admits he's a man of few words and often shies from the media as a player - doesn't seem to struggle to talk about the treatments which weakened him so much last summer that he didn't work out or shoot a basketball until just weeks before the season started.

It's also put basketball in perspective for the shooter whose 431 3-point shots lead the SEC and rank third in NCAA history.

"It used to be that a bad game was the end of the road for me. When I went through my cancer, I realized basketball is fun but it's not that big of a deal," Lofton said.

A drug test he was randomly selected for during the 2007 NCAA tournament indicated potential steroid use or cancer.

Coach Bruce Pearl said NCAA officials believed something was genuinely wrong with Lofton rather than accusing him of steroid use and allowed him to play through the tournament.

Tennessee officials didn't tell him and his family of the test results until hours after the Vols lost to Ohio State in the NCAA regional semifinal.

He underwent surgery March 28, six days after the loss, and began a month of radiation treatments a few weeks later.