All American, John Levi, whose picture is below, was the Boy's Advisor when my father, Phil Sr., attended the Haskell Indian Institute, in Lawrence, Kansas. It was Mr. Levi who told my father both his Grandfather Philip Deloria and his father Fred Lane died. He told him after he took my father, when he was 13, for a walk to the Haskell Football field.
When Jim Thorpe came to visit Mr. Levi, at Haskell, in 1929, they put on an exhibition of their passing and kicking abilities. This exhibition was at half-time, during a Haskell Football Game. Both in their 40's, Jim Thorpe drop kicked the football from one end of the field to John Levi, who was at the other end of the field. John Levi would catch it and pass it back across the field to Jim Thorpe, who would drop kick it again, back to John Levi and so on!
When I was in the 7th Grade I started to play football at Pioneer Jr. High School. I was not very big and I never had played tackle football.
I mainly played on the Third String. After the Varsity season was over, playing against other teams, the coaches held a scrimmage game between the 2nd and 3rd string players, since we most never got to play in a Varsity Game. The night before the game, my father told me stories about John Levi, Jim Thorpe, and the Haskell Indian's Football players and how tough, relentless and disciplined they were.
These stories inspired me so much that the next day at the game, I was like a beserk balling ball. I hit anything that moved.
Believe it or not, from my father's inspirational stories from that game, I went from 3rd string to 1st String. From the inspirational stories about Jim Thorpe, John Levi, and the Haskell Indians, I played on the 1st string for the next 5 years until I graduated from Walla Walla High School. I was only about 160 lbs. when I graduated, but I would go berserk on the football field. Both in practice and in games. I was honored by my Blue Devil teammates when they voted me Most Inspirational Player in my Senior year.
This same inspiration carried over into wrestling and track, where I was voted Most Inspirational Wrestler by my teammates, and in track, I set the Jr. Olympic Pole Vault record.
The inspiration did not come from me, it came from the spirit of the inspirational stories my beloved father told me about John Levi, Jim Thorpe, and the Haskell Indians. This and other experiences taught me that our relatives who have passed on to the Spiritual World, are closer than our closest vein!