Deputy dad figure

Abby Koff’s cellphone recognizes only five numbers by voice command. Those numbers are assigned to her mom, her two older brothers, 9-1-1 and “Pops.”

When Koff was a fifth-grader at Victoria Elementary, her father died in an accident. She felt drawn then to Costa Mesa Officer Jess Gilman, her school’s DARE representative at the time.

She nicknamed him Pops — not because he consoled her about her father’s death, but because he did not.

“I don’t know how to explain it,” said Abby, now an Estancia High School senior. “When stuff like that happens, everyone wants to talk about it, and you don’t want to talk about it.

“Everyone else was doing all this all this touchy-feely stuff like saying, ‘I’m sorry’ and ‘It will be all right.’ He was just this big dude that I could go to and not talk to about this stuff.”

When Abby graduated to TeWinkle Middle School and then Estancia High School, Gilman was there as a student resource officer. She turned to Gilman about things she didn’t feel comfortable talking to other people about.

“I can tell her what she needs to hear, not what she wants to hear,” Gilman said. “Sometimes I’ve got to put her back in check and say, ‘Hey, kid.’”

Last Friday, Abby called on Gilman again, this time to escort her down the red carpet as the homecoming queen.

Gilman said he was honored, but not surprised she chose him.

“He’s one of the most amazing people I know,” Abby said. “He has three other kids, but somehow he manages to fit me in.”

Gilman is married with two sons and a daughter — plus Abby.

“I give her fatherly advice sometimes. I don’t give her any boy advice except to stay away from them — they cause trouble. If she did ask, I’d say, ‘I don’t know, go ask your mom,” Gilman joked.

“I treat her like my own, but I do know that she’s not my own. I give her birthday cards, Christmas cards so she has that in her life. Am I her father? No. Am I her Pops? Sure.”

JOSEPH SERNA may be reached at (714) 966-4619 or at joseph.serna@latimes.com.