I loved to play football! I moved from McNary, Oregon to Walla Walla in 1956. I tried out for football when I arrived at Grade 7. Tackle Football was totally new to me! I was back and forth on the 2nd and 3rd string until the end of the season. Never played in a regular game in the 7th Grade season.
After the regular season was over, there was a final scrimmage game between the Ist String and the 2nd and 3rd String. The night before the final scrimmage my beloved father told me the stories of the individual players of the Haskell Indian School that he attended and how Haskell, a High School Team, played against Kansas State University and beat the best High School in Kansas.
My father showed me the newspaper clippings of these games. In the High School Championships, Haskell won decisively. Thier Kansas City opponents were held to a -13 yards.
My father got me so inspired that the next day I went berserk in the scrimmage! I hit anything that moved on the first string. That day, through the inspiration of my father and his classmates at Haskell, I went from the 3rd String to Captain of my 8th and 9th Grade teams and eventually the Most Inspirational Player of my High School Team!
From one day to the other, I was physically the same. My physical transformation came from the spiritual inspiration of my beloved father and our Ancestors!
