Working With 1%

The first high school football game of the season was dedicated to the man who had coached so many of those kids over the years.

Norton Penney Sr. was there at Guyer Field that night, speaking to the Laguna Beach High football team before they took on Corona del Mar on Sept. 11. “Nort” had lost some weight, but he was there to cheer on his sophomore son Norty and the Breakers, who had their best showing in many years against the eventually too-powerful Sea Kings.

“It was really neat,” Nort Penney said Thursday afternoon. “Words can’t describe how overwhelming the feeling is of having all these people rooting for you, praying for you. I wish we beat CdM, but maybe next year.”

Everyone who was there knows how special Penney’s presence at the game was. Six weeks earlier, it would have been nearly inconceivable.

Penney, 56, suffered a massive stroke the evening of July 23, while taking his evening walk. He was rushed to Mission Hospital in Mission Viejo and the prognosis wasn’t good. The next morning, doctors gave the longtime Laguna youth sports coach and referee a 1% chance of surviving.

“The doctors were so somber,” said his ex-wife, Gay Penney. “You could feel it in the room. Dr. [Michael] Moran said, ‘He’s got a 1% chance to live.’ So I said, ‘OK, we have 1% to work with, right?’ ”

The Penneys are divorced but Gay Penney said they moved back in together about a year ago because it made sense for financial reasons to be under one roof. At the time they had two kids living there as well, including Norty and his older sister, Holden, a soccer and track standout at Laguna who graduated and is now on a soccer scholarship at Centenary College in Louisiana.

“I think that was God’s way of helping to prepare us,” Gay Penney said.

They believe that kind of optimism and spirituality have been key in Nort’s recovery. They’ve needed it, even as the tough patch has continued. On Wednesday afternoon, Nort went to the emergency room after a headache and experiencing tingling in his right arm. He was doing much better as of Thursday, but is still scheduled to have open heart surgery Thursday to have both heart valves replaced.

“I’m not quite out of the woods yet, but pretty close,” Nort Penney said. “Pretty close.”

The community will be there for the family after the surgery, as they have been the whole way. Early on after Nort Penney’s stroke, there was a meeting between Coach Jonathan Todd and several Breakers football team parents, including booster club President Coleman Raffo, Denise De La Torre and Hillary Hilleman. De La Torre has stepped in as booster club vice president, a position Nort Penney held.

Neither Nort nor Gay had health insurance; it was tough to come by after what they’ve survived in recent years. In 2004, Nort first underwent open-heart surgery and was given a mechanical heart valve.

Three years later, Gay Penney was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. After surgery and chemotherapy, today she’s cancer-free. Her experience helped lead her to found Culinary Charities, which holds charity-cooking events whose proceeds benefit children in need.

But after Nort’s stroke, it was the Penneys who were in need. The football boosters helped organize meals for the household for several weeks until the family’s church, Little Church By the Sea, took that over.

“It shocked us all,” De La Torre said of Penney’s stroke. “I just did what I thought I needed to do. The football family is like an extended family. I even had a client of mine who didn’t know the family who immediately sent in a check. It’s just been an outpouring of community support. We all prayed and prayed and prayed. Even the doctors said to him, ‘You must have a lot of people praying for you.’”

Todd and his wife, Grace, set up a blog at helpthepenneys.blogspot.com to keep people updated on Nort’s progress. There is also a PayPal link to donate money; Raffo said between the site and personal checks, nearly $10,000 has been donated.

“It’s been amazing,” Raffo said. “I went and saw [Nort] when he was all tubed up, so to speak, in a coma. He lost 40 pounds. Two weeks later, I went in and saw a guy in a wheelchair brushing his teeth. I said, ‘Where can I find Nort Penney?’ and he said, ‘I’m right here.’ ”

Nort was eventually released from the hospital and, able to walk and talk without assistance, he was cleared to attend the Breakers’ home football opener.

After he spoke to the team pregame, the Breakers came out and led the higher-ranked Sea Kings for much of the first half.

“That was amazing because we never expected him to be at the game,” junior quarterback Austin Paxson said. “You can’t even describe it, to see him waiting at the end of the tunnel and to shake his hand ... [The Penneys have] always been there for everyone else, so it was nice to see everyone come together for them when they were having a tough time.”

Even during the game, there were concerns. Norty suffered a concussion midway through, and he’ll be out of football action for the foreseeable future.

And Holden broke her nose during a soccer game a couple of weeks ago, requiring surgery and for her to don a mask that she said makes her look like “a cross between the Phantom of the Opera and Jason.”

“We have the ambulance on speed dial now,” Gay Penney said, able to joke a bit despite the tough times. “Sometimes life gives you circumstances you really don’t understand ... I really think we were meant to take care of each other.”

Right now, they’re taking it day by day, but De La Torre said she isn’t surprised that the community rallied up the large amount of support. There were also the little things, like a friend of Gay Penney giving her 100,000 frequent-flier miles so Holden could get to college.

“There’s no better place to raise a child,” De La Torre said. “We’re a very passionate community and we’re raising a great group of kids. [Nort’s recovery and the response] renewed my faith in God and my faith in humanity.”

And Nort Penney, who had already impacted so many children’s lives through his involvement in youth sports in Laguna, hopes to do even more in the future.

“I just want to thank everyone for their support,” he said. “I just hope to pay it forward and help others. Hopefully, I can do something with this wonderful second chance I’ve been given.”

How To Help

For more information or to make a donation, visit helpthepenneys.blogspot.com. Checks payable to the “Penney Family Fund” may also be sent to 565 Center St., Laguna Beach, CA, 92651.