Elbrinet Dupras

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Elbrinet Dupras bounced into his coach’s office Thursday morning, emerging an hour before the first bell.

He wore a book bag over his shoulders. He wore a giant smile on his face.

Only one thing was missing.

“He wanted his jersey,” Palmetto Ridge football coach Tim Speakman said, recalling the surprise visit from his 16-year-old nose guard.

Like that, Dupras was back.

For the first time since collapsing at football practice exactly two weeks earlier, the 5-foot-6, 180-pound junior returned to school. He wore his No. 58 jersey from one class to the next, the most obvious sign yet that Dupras might just be OK.

“You should have heard those guys in the locker room this morning,” Speakman said of the Bears. “You’d have thought somebody just won the Super Bowl or something.”

Actually, this was better.

Since he was diagnosed with a subdural hematoma — a collection of blood on the surface of the brain — Dupras has covered ground like a speedy running back on the loose.

He returned home from Tampa General Hospital last Friday, a sign that he likely would not need the surgery his family had feared.

Thursday, he returned to school.

“It felt like a normal day,” Dupras said, taking a break late in the afternoon. “The only difference is that everybody wanted to know how I felt.”

One other difference: It was game day.

Hours after the final bell had sounded, Speakman’s team would make a one-hour bus trip to play LaBelle in the spring game.

Dupras might have waited longer to come back, he said, but he figured he would have to be at school in order to make the trip with his teammates.

That was important to him.

“I know I’m not 100 percent,” Dupras said. “I just had to see the team.”

That part, though, hadn’t been resolved.

As Dupras talked with a reporter about his desire to join the Bears in LaBelle — as a spectator, of course — he and his father, Elejean, tried to settle the issue.

They argued in Haitian Creole, the family’s native tongue.

“I’m not going to play,” Elbrinet promised. “It’s just to watch.”

His father threw him a glare.

“There is still a battle,” the son admitted, “that I must win with my parents.”

And yes, with his body.

Dupras still can’t remember anything about the day he collapsed. He can’t remember going to school. He can’t remember the last run he made.

He only knows what his coach tells him — that he had just scored a touchdown when he got back to the huddle between plays and fell to the ground.

Dupras was unconscious for hours. He was taken to a local hospital in an ambulance before being airlifted to Tampa General, where he spent eight nights.

“I feel lucky,” Dupras said. “I guess it could have ended up worse.”

Speakman has watched film of the March 9 practice time and again. He hasn’t seen the kind of violent hit generally associated with a head injury.

“It might not be football-related,” Speakman has said. “It might be something that’s congenital.”

Either way, it appears that Dupras, one of only two returning starters on the Palmetto Ridge defense, has played his last down of football.

And that’s fine, Dupras said.

He knows that No. 58 is his this fall. He knows the Bears will have a spot on the bus for him.

He knows he’s part of the team.

“I was happy just to see everyone again,” Dupras said. “It’s nice to know they care.”