Several years ago, my life fell apart in ways I never could have imagined.
I had recently gone through a brutal divorce, lost everything I had built, and — perhaps most devastating of all — discovered that someone I had considered a brother since childhood had betrayed me by having an inappropriate relationship with my ex-wife. I was angry. Lost. I didn’t know if I would ever find solid ground again.
Just when I was at my lowest, a surprising opportunity appeared: a chance to become the head coach of a post-grad football team. It wasn’t a typical team. It was a program designed for young men who had been overlooked — players who didn’t get recruited out of high school, who struggled with grades, or who had been kicked out of college programs. Like me, they were searching for a second chance.
At first, it sounded like just another job — but it quickly became clear it would be something far more powerful.
The team was based on a Choctaw Indian reservation. An old elementary school had been converted into dorms, offices, and classrooms. The plan was for coaches and players alike to live together on campus. I would travel back and forth as much as possible, but even before I stepped foot on that land, I sensed it would be no ordinary place.
I invited Kevin — my Masonic brother and longtime friend — to come coach with me. We packed up our lives and prepared for a journey that would challenge not only our coaching skills but our very understanding of the world.
The first nights on campus were unsettling.
The dorms, built decades ago, held a strange energy. At first, we chalked it up to old buildings and nerves. But soon, undeniable things began happening.
One night, Kevin and I sat alone in a dimly lit dorm room. The air was thick, humming with unseen energy. Suddenly, the door — firmly shut — began to open and close, not with the random creaks of old hinges, but on command.
We spoke aloud, and whatever was there responded. Kevin, quick-thinking, pulled out his phone and captured some of it on video — proof, for anyone who dared doubt.
The players noticed things too
.
Shadow figures darting down hallways. Objects moving on their own. Violent bursts of poltergeist activity targeting some students, while others, like me, experienced more surreal, almost reverent encounters.
It didn’t matter who you were — coach, player, visitor — the spirits made their presence known.
Perhaps we didn’t belong there. Or perhaps we were meant to be there all along.
During that season, I often walked the edge of the property alone, seeking peace.
It was there, along the fence line, that I first encountered the horse.
Thin and malnourished, yet impossibly dignified, the animal would appear seemingly out of nowhere, approaching quietly, gazing at me with deep, ancient eyes. No matter how many times I saw him, no one else ever seemed to — it was as if the horse existed only for me.
He became important to me. A silent companion during one of the most spiritually challenging seasons of my life.
One afternoon, an elderly Choctaw woman — a stranger I’d never seen before — wandered into my office. She was in her nineties, yet moved with the energy of someone half her age. She told me she had been raised on a reservation in Oklahoma, brought here decades ago through an arranged marriage.
She was a teacher of the old ways — of dances, ceremonies, and traditions.
Feeling strangely compelled, I shared my story about the horse.
She smiled, her eyes sparkling with the wisdom of generations. She told me that, for the Choctaw people, horses — called “issuba,” meaning “like a deer” — held profound spiritual significance.
They were not just animals.
They were brothers in the spirit world, powerful links between the physical and the supernatural. Horses were seen as carriers of healing, energy, beauty, and connection. They were used in ceremonies, adorned with sacred symbols to honor their role as mediators between two worlds.
Hearing her words, I understood: the horse was not just a coincidence. He was a message — a guide sent to walk beside me during a time of great uncertainty.
The football program lasted only one season. Financial troubles forced the school to shut its doors. The players scattered. The dreams we built together dissolved faster than we could hold onto them.
Yet when I returned home, I was not the same man who had first set foot on that reservation.
I believe — with all my heart — that Kevin and I were meant to be there. Not to coach football. Not to win games. But to find our paths, to be reminded that the spirit world is real, that second chances sometimes come wrapped in hardship, and that the greatest victories are not always won on the field.
I carry the lessons of that season with me still — the echoes of ancient spirits, the wisdom of an elder I met only once, and the memory of a thin, silent horse who walked with me at the edge of two worlds.
And in my quiet moments, when the world feels heavy, I remember that on sacred ground, among sacred people, I was given a gift: the reminder that even when everything seems lost, we are never truly alone.