EP:443 | Coach Vic Schaefer Shares A Life Defining Story

This week we play part two of our conversation with the legendary women's basketball Coach Vic  Schaefer.  It’s the powerful story of his sons accident and his road to recovery. He talks and we listen. In fact, the story is so powerful we decided to not insert commercials to prevent interrupting this meaningful and often tearful telling of a very trying time in his family. You’ll be moved. 

Listen, Learn and Enjoy. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

I'm Jeff Fox Forty, and welcome to Gamekeeper Podcast. If you want to learn more about farming for wildlife and habitat management, then buddy are in the right place. Join the Gamekeeper crew direct from Locke Young Land Inhabit Studios based best related wildlife and habitat management practices. And of course, there's no telling what you'll learn, but I'm gonna tell you. I bet it's good.

SPEAKER_03 0:26

So I wanted to ask you, Tox, you mentioned earlier you're a man of faith, and I'd like to just uh talk about that a little bit and how that applies to the stress of your job, and then talk about your faith when you walk out there on that farm and look at that lake. There's there's a juxtaposition there I'd like for you to just kind of talk about.

SPEAKER_02 0:46

Well, um, you know, you y'all may not know this, but when my son was 14, I almost lost him. And uh I grew up as a in a in a Christian home. Uh my dad was chairman of the congregation, my mother was presidental ladies' aide. If the church doors were open, we were there. Um growing up in the Lutheran church meant you had to go to church on Christmas Day. And that always made me mad as a kid because when I got my toys from Santa Claus, I wanted to stay on play with my toys. All my buddies were staying home, but us Lutherans were going to church, you know. But that's just the the that's the house that I grew up in. And uh, and so I've never known anything different. People ask me all the time, hey, when when did you get saved? I was saved from the moment I was born in my mind. I just have never, you know, it's just all I've ever known. And uh, and again, I'm so thankful for the mother and father that I had that exposed me, exposed me to that early in life. And but fast forward, and so my my daughter obviously played basketball, and she was on a four, I was with her in Cincinnati, Ohio at uh 14 and under AAU national championships, and my son, they both went to a Christian camp in East Texas every year, and they loved going there because they got to pick what they wanted to do. But every day at lunch and dinner, they were gonna have TP, which is Bible study. But the rest of the day, they could do anything from water skiing to flag football to basketball to arts and crafts to anything you could pick. So they loved it. But on this particular year, Blair was now playing AAU basketball, and she was going to Cincinnati, and I went with her. I was coaching at AM at the time as an assistant. And so Logan's like, hey, I'm going to camp. And I just bought him a brand new wakeboard, and it was slick. And I our kids grew up on the lake. I've pulled them a million times. You know, I've pulled them literally five days a week after school a million times. Well, so Holly took Logan to camp on Sunday and dropped him off. And the first thing he does is he walks in there and signs up for diehard. Die hard is 6 a.m. on the water, water skiing, wakeboarding, whatever you wanted to do before the wind gets up. So Logan went and signed up for diehard. And that Monday morning he was on the lake, and um, and so I'm I'm with Blair. I just gotten up and got my coffee and my phone rings, and it's a doctor in Crockett, Texas. Crockett, Texas, about as big as this, but it might be half the size of West Point. And the hospital, I'm sure, is no bigger than the building we're in right now. And the emergency room is probably as big as this room. And it was Dr. Cruzy. He says, Coach, uh, this is Dr. Cruzy in Crockett, Texas. Your son's just been brought in. He's unconscious, unresponsive, and seizing. Where would you like us to send him?

unknown 4:11

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_02 4:13

Now that ain't a good phone call. No. So I said, Well, Doc, it don't sound like he's doing too good. He said, Coach, he's having a seizure right now on the gurney. He said, I need to get him somewhere pretty quick. I said, Okay. I said, You're an hour and a half from Houston. It's the best medical center in the world. Get him there. And he said, Well, I don't think I can get him there. Lifelight didn't get him there. I said, Well, where do you want to send him? He said, I want to send him to Tyler, Texas. Now, boys, I've been to Tyler, Texas a hundred times. Not the first place I'm thinking for a brain injury that you want to go. Just off the top of my head. So I said, okay, you're an hour and a half from Dallas. Get him to Dallas. Big city. I'm sure they got neurosurgeons up there. I don't think he can get him to Dallas. I'm like, well, you got to be kidding me. You want to send him to Tyler. He goes, Coach, say, I can get him to Tyler in like 30, 35 minutes. He said, You're from, you coach at AM. I said, Yes, sir. He said, You want me to see if they'll take him? Well, I'll be honest with y'all. College station wasn't the first place I was thinking of either for a brain injury, you know, to send somebody, but it certainly would have been easier to get to him from my wife. So I said, Yeah, okay, you can check. And so I hang up, I'm talking to my wife, you know, she's frazzled. I get back on the phone with him. He said, Coach, they denied him.

SPEAKER_05 5:49

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_02 5:51

That's miracle number one. That's God working. So I go, okay. I go, so we're back square one. He goes, Coach, we need to get him somewhere quick. He said, I really want to get him to Tyler. I go, man, I am not fired up about Tyler. I go, you gotta be kidding me. You've got to be a way to get him to the medical center in Houston. And uh he's like, Coach, I just don't think I can get him there. And uh we went back and forth. I mean, 10 minutes. And finally I said, okay, if he's your son, that's your boy laying on the gurney, he's having a seizure right now. Where are you sending him? He goes, Coach, I'm sending him to Tyler, to the East Texas Medical Center. I said, Okay, load him up. So Life Light came and got him. And so that morning, what happened was he was wakeboarding, he made a big jump. As you know, when you're on a wake wakeboard, your front edge catches it's face plant. And so he made a big jump, but when he made that jump, that board was so slick. He jumped one side to the other. He was so good, y'all. He was so good on that board. But when he hit, that board was so slick it got him out wide and it turned him around backwards. And his back edge caught. And he had a helmet on because they make them wear helmets. When his back edge held hit, uh grabbed, it slammed the back of his head, and he either hit a stump in the water or just the sheer whiplash of a 14-year-old brain in a 14-year-old skull, the bouncing back and forth in his skull, or just hitting that water. But when they picked him up, his helmet was off. It was that violent of a crash. And so when they picked him up, he was complaining about a headache. And by the time they got him in the boat and they were headed back to the boat ramp, he had passed out. They intubated him right there in a boat, got him and put him in the back of a station wagon, took him up to camp, they drove him into Crockett, and so here we are. So they send him to Tyler. Blair and I now are on our knees in our hotel room praying. We're throwing everything in a bag and we are sprinting to the airport. There's a 1244 flight to Dallas. My best friend's gonna pick me up in his helicopter in Dallas and take me to Tyler. He's already picked up my wife in college station and flown her to Tyler. So we get to the airport. Well, this is after 9-11. So everything is tight. There's police officers everywhere. And so we pull up to the Cincinnati airport, and there's a there's a an officer out there out front, and then I'm like, I've got a rental car, and I'm not taking the rental car back. Like, we're sprinting into inside, and there were three guys, TSA guys, having a smoke outside. So we pull up, and that officer's right there looking at me funny. I said, Officer, this is a rental car. I just got a phone call about my son. We are sprinting upstairs trying to catch a flight on American. I am not taking this car back. I said, I've got to get upstairs. We got to try to get out of here. My son's been critically injured. He said, he looked at me and he said, just a second. He crawled underneath the car, looked under there, made sure there wasn't any bombs. I'm guessing is what he's looking for. He said, Coach, you go ahead. I told him who it was. He said, Coach, you go ahead. I'll make sure the car gets back over to the car dealer. The three guys with TSA are having a cigarette go, hey, what's going on? I told them, they said, come with me. They take me upstairs, we go up the escalator, they take me up there, get we get past uh security, but then there's like 200 people in the American Airline line. That's 400 eyes. And the red coat's waiting on us there. And the TSI guys tell the red coat, hey, this is what's going on. They need help. They walk us in front of all them people. Utah will talk about feeling uncomfortable. They walk us in front of all those people to the front of the line. I turned around and apologized to everybody. And the red coat said, Coach, don't apologize. This is what we're here for. We go up there, they get me the tickets, we go down to the gate. We're sitting at the gate, and uh the pilot comes out. He says, You the coach? I said, Yes, sir. He said, When we get on a plane, he said, we're gonna go to the end of the runway and I'm gonna stop. He said, You can come to the cockpit and we're gonna make a phone call. He said, Your son's in surgery. I said, Yes, sir. I'd like to know if he's okay before we take off. He said, I'm gonna stop at the end of the runway. He said, I ain't supposed to do it, but I'm gonna stop. They're gonna come get you, and you can come to the cockpit and we'll make a phone call. So we're sitting in the front, this is one of those planes. There's two seats here and one seat here. We're in the first row, and we're sitting together, and there's a big old cowboy sitting right here. Big old 10-gallon hat. He's got boots on and blue jeans, and uh he can tell me and her, or me and my daughter, are have a lot of trepidation going on. And he leans over and he's he's got a James Avery piece in his hand, uh, and it's one of the apostles, but he said, Here, you need this, you keep this. So he gives me that. We get to the end of the runway, sure enough, they call me up the cockpit. Um, there's no word. We take off, we're halfway, they call me to the cockpit. The pilot says, Coach, I just talked to the hospital. He said, All I can tell you is he is he made it through surgery. That's all I know. And I said, Well, that's more than we did know. So we get, I get back, uh, we land, I offer the James Avery coin back to the cowboy. He says, Coach, you keep it. There'll be a day when you'll need to pass this on to somebody. He said, You keep it for now. I said, Okay, thank you very much. So we get off the plane, helicopter, we helicopter to Tyler. We get there at 5:30 in the afternoon. Logan's been out of surgery. Now he's on life support. He's got things going in and out of him everywhere. And um, so Dr. Graham, who was the doctor that saved him, uh, is in there, and I'm like, okay, doc, tell me what's going on. He said, Well, here's what happened. He busted a blood vessel in his brain. The buildup pushed his center line all the way over to one side. Just mashed his brain up against his skull on one side. He said, I was able to go in there. I I found where I not only got the blood off his brain, but I found where he was bleeding from. Miracle number two. He said, but he ain't good right now. I go, well, what do you think? He goes, I have no idea. He said, brain injuries, there's no consistency to them. He said, all I can tell you is be glad that ain't you or me there. He goes, he's young, and young people heal. He said, other than that, I can't tell you anything about what's going to happen. So we go through the night, and uh he's he's he's on life support. He's unconscious, he's he's there's a machine breathing for him. I mean, that's your skinny-waisted, broad-shouldered baseball player son laying there. It ain't good. And so um we get through the night, and uh I didn't leave him for 39 days. And uh and so we we get we get through the night the next day, and you know, he's just we don't have any idea. So then that night, um the nurse came in and it was a it was a gentleman, and he said, Coach, let's try to wake him up. And so he took his hands and he pinched him up here in his shoulder and his neck, and and Logan kind of reacted to it and he opened his eyes, and I said, Hey buddy. I go, you alright? And he he did this to me. Oh wow, and uh and then he went right back to sleep. Right back. And so we get that's uh that's night two. So this happened on a Monday. So Monday night, that was Tuesday night. Now we're in Wednesday. So uh Wednesday now, Wednesday night, we do it again. We wake him up again, and he and uh he's got he's he's got multiple tubes all over him, in his mouth, in his throat, up his nose. And he when he woke up that night, we had a a brief conversation. And it it you know, it's funny, y'all. From the time that doctor called me to the time I got there, to the time I saw him, like I don't know. I never really it was never, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god. I I never really felt like this, oh my god, I'm gonna lose him. I don't know why. Especially when you walk up and you see all them tubes in and out of him when you got a dead gun breath, you know, breathing for him. He's on life support. So we had a conversation just briefly about what had happened, and and then he's out. Thursday uh comes and goes. Friday they take him off the machine and he eats his first meal, and uh, but now he's off the machine and he's coming off the medicines, and now the evidence of a brain injury is coming to light. He literally, I could change his clothes every 10 minutes. He's got neurosweat so bad, and he is shaking violently. Like I'm thinking he's gonna vibrate off the bed. Dr. Graham goes on, he it's his weekend off. Well, they tried to move him to intensive care out of where he was since he came off life support, and I'm I'm losing my mind. Like he is shaking so violently. And I called Dr. Graham. Graham, he had given me his cell phone number, and he's like, Coach, I said, You got to give him something. Like, there's got to be a medicine you can give him. He said, Coach, I'm not gonna give him any medicine. If they want to give him medicine where you send him to for rehab, that's their deal. He said, his brain right now is firing and missing. He said, It can't connect. It's trying to figure it out. You got to let it try to figure itself out. I'm like, well, it's killing me. And he said, Well, just know it won't, it may kill you, but it won't kill him. Well, so we get through the weekend, and so now the coach in me is coming out. Okay, where's the best rehab place in America? And so we we do our research, it's Tier in Houston, it's part of the medical center, it's part of the Methodist system. And so we make the arrangements, but Logan and I are not sleeping. He does not sleep, and now when he's awake, he's got this scowl on his face. Just the ugliest looking thing you've ever seen. And uh if he happened to doze off for a nap after lunch, the scowl would disappear, and you go, Hey, that's my boy. But as soon as he opened his eyes, just the ugliest scowl you've ever seen. So we take him to Tier. This is when it gets good. Can't walk, can't talk, can't hold a fork in his right hand, drilling it out left side of his mouth. That's my skinny waisted broadshoulder baseball player. So I ride with him down to tear, and in intensive care, I've been putting a baseball in his hand and standing at the foot of the bed, and he's been throwing 10 with his right, ten with his left. Now he can't catch it if I throw it back to him, so I have to walk back, put it in his hand, ten with his right, ten with his right. I'm just trying to give him some rehab because he can't stand up. He'll fall dead over. And they they stand him up and walk him around the nurse's station, and he's you know, leaning to one side, and if you don't hold him up, he just falls flat on his face. So we go down there on a Thursday, he gets evaluated on a Friday by Dr. Ivanhoe. Now, this place is amazing. At seven in the morning, it comes alive. And it's an all-day sucker, man. That place is hopping, it's humming. In the evenings, calms back down, people get rest. Nothing happens on the weekend. No rehab. Gets evaluated on Friday. They come in, Dr. Ivano and her team come in, they assess him. He's sitting in a wheelchair. You want to be humbled. Look at your 14-year-old baseball player, skinny waisted, broad-shouled, sitting in a wheelchair. That's humbling. They walk out. I looked at Holly, I went, that's it. I gotta have some answers. Because I'd been acting Dr. Graham forever, what he thought. He finally told me the day we left, he said, I coach, I think in a year this will all be a bad dream. That's the best thing he gave me. Wouldn't give me nothing else. So I chased her down the hall, and on my phone, I had a picture of Logan and his twin sister on his back with two big old smiles. You know, she's on his back. And I said, Doctor Grant, Dr. Ivanhoe, this is what my son looks like, not what he looks like right now. When am I gonna get that smile back? And she said, Coach, I don't know, but before you leave here, you'll get your smile back. That's Friday. Saturday morning, there's a knock on the door at 10 o'clock. I open the door, and there's a guy standing in Scrubs, blue Scrubs, and he's of Bahamian descent, and he says, Hey, I'm so-and-so. I'm here for Logan. And I'm like, You're here for Logan for rehab? He goes, Yes, sir. I go, awesome, let's go. Like, I've been this is what I've been wanting. I we need this. So on Friday, the day before, Blair, his twin sister, fed him ice cream. He couldn't even pick up his head. Fed him ice cream in that wheelchair again. As a parent, you want to talk about something that's humbling. There's your daughter feeding her twin brother ice cream. He can't even feed himself, pick up his head, nothing. So Saturday morning, I'm like, let's go. So in tier, when you walk in tier on the ground level, there's a 50 yard long hallway, and it's the hallway of fame. It's pictures of success stories of people that have come in there. But nobody walks out of there. The success stories might be a guy duck hunting in a Wheelchair or a girl operating a computer with a straw. Wow. Things like that. And it's 50 yards long.

SPEAKER_04 22:08

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 22:09

And there's six floors, and each floor is for depending on what your injury is. So you might be a paraplegic, quadriplegic, you might have thoracic problems, heart problems, brain injury was the top floor. That's where Logan was. So we take him down the stairs. We go in the gym. And the gym's the most unassuming place you've ever seen. But in the corner, there are six flights of stairs that go up to nothing. He wheels Logan over there and he says, Okay, coach, we're going up these stairs. He said, Here's a cloth. He said, You catch his drool. He said, I'm gonna be behind him. I got this belt on him. We're going up those stairs. I went, Are you crazy? Like, if you stand him up, he's gonna fall down. He goes, Coach, I got him. Well, there were rails on each side. So Logan put his hands on each rail, and for the next 10 minutes, we plod up those steps one at a time. I have never coached so hard in my life, y'all. I bet my wife is down on the floor with the video on her camera on her phone, video and the whole thing bawling like a baby. So we get up those stairs. I'm coaching my butt off. We get to the top, man. I'm jumping up and down like a cheerleader, screaming and hollering, man, look what you did, Logan. Way to go. Um, great job, you know, on and on and on, carrying on. And he's got his arms on the rail and he can't pick his head up. And he just looks at me out of the top of his eye and he says, now what?

SPEAKER_04 23:54

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 23:54

And I said, Hey man, we're going back down. He never whimpered.

unknown 24:00

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 24:00

We turn back around, we go back down. So now I'm on this side. The guy's behind him. We go back down the stairs. We get to the bottom of those stairs and get done. He plops in that chair and he is fried. He is exhausted. Two things. That's the first night that he and I slept. We slept six hours that night. First time we slept in 11 days.

SPEAKER_04 24:26

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_02 24:27

But here's the second thing, y'all. Nobody knows who's that guy. Who's that guy? Who that guy is.

SPEAKER_05 24:37

Oh.

SPEAKER_02 24:39

Oh my gosh. He's my angel. Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_05 24:44

I thought you said on Saturday and they didn't work on Saturday. They don't.

SPEAKER_02 24:48

They don't. Nobody knows who that guy is, that the rehab guy.

SPEAKER_04 24:52

I got chills all over myself.

SPEAKER_02 24:55

He's he's my miracle. Yeah, he is. So we we get through the day, and so Sunday, we go downstairs to the chapel for church, and it's they got one row of little benches in there, but everybody else, ain't nobody walking in there now. You're going in there in a wheelchair, you're going in there on crutches, you're going in there on a gurney. So the sermon that day was walking through storms. And so when the guy was, when the preacher was done, Logan turns around and he says, Man, dad, we're in a big old hurricane, aren't we? I said, Yeah, buddy, but we're gonna get through it. So back in college station, everybody, I told Holly, when we got to Tier, well, when it happened even in in Tyler, I said, I don't want no visitors, I don't want to see nobody, I don't want nobody looking at Logan because he was in bad shape, y'all. And I didn't want nobody oooing, I just didn't want it. And I didn't want to deal with it either. And so when we got to Tier, same deal. I said, I don't want any visitors, I want nobody coming to see us. I'm gonna control this atmosphere that he's in. And uh, and so, but people were wanting to know what happened and how he was doing, and so I started this page on Facebook called Prayers for Logan Schaefer. You can still pull it up, and I would update every night about midnight how he's doing. Monday was the first day of rehab, so we go to rehab, Tuesday's this next day, Wednesday now, he's making some pretty big progress. And so uh Wednesday night, when I posted, I said, Man, I think tomorrow's gonna be a pretty special day. So Thursday, uh the lady comes to get him and uh he walks unassisted down the hallway. We didn't have to hang on to him. And when he walked by the nursing station, y'all, the pens dropped, pencils dropped, jaws dropped. Those people couldn't believe it. And um from there he just he took off. And so then it became okay, Logan, when you walk in that gym, people are gonna be looking at you. You're the you're their light, you're their hope. Because ain't nobody else walking in there like you are. I go, nobody else is doing rehab like you're doing now. So just know you you gotta know you're the example now. And so uh, man, he he he was he would I mean we we really graduated quickly to things that that you could do and and his rehab, and uh and and he was he was the light in that room every day when he walked in. People were watching him that were injured, hurt, debilitated, um, because he was their hope. They had seen him come in there the first day, yeah, but he ain't going in there like that no more. So now Logan is on the wall of fame, but he's the only guy that walked out of there like nothing happened to him. So he goes in there, can't walk, can't talk, can't hold a fork in his right hand, drooling out left side of his mouth, and 28 days later he walks out of there like nothing happened to him. He is my walking, talking miracle. 100%.

SPEAKER_04 28:42

Yeah. So uh Yeah, how can you not live every day with the most deep heart of gratitude after that?

SPEAKER_02 28:51

I mean, it just it just puts everything in perspective. Oh my gosh. You know, and on my worst days, y'all, if I've had my butt handed to me, all I gotta do is pick up the phone and call and hear his voice, and it brings me right back to where I need to be at that moment because that's what's important. Big time. And uh it's just an I could tell you about so many things along the way, so many miracles, so many times when God showed up, and there were three people, y'all, that reached out to me every day. Every day. One was my trainer, Mike Rickey. We called him radar because he looked like radar from the show. Yeah, Bash.

SPEAKER_05 29:38

Bash, yep.

SPEAKER_02 29:39

Two was a youth minister at a church I didn't go to, but he's a referee, and he and I are dear friends to this day. And uh he reached out to me every day. And the third person was Jackie Cheryl. Wow. Coach and I had become friends when I was at AM, and every day, coach would reach out, and he usually would close it with, What have you done for yourself today, Vic? You gotta do, he says, go downstairs, get you a thing of ice cream, do something for yourself because you gotta be strong for Logan. So you gotta do something for yourself. Wow. And that still resonates. Remember what I told you? We went on Sunday, you fish on Monday. I gotta do something for myself. And and so uh those three guys literally got me through that period. And so back in college station, they were show they were selling t-shirts that said uh prayers for Logan Schaefer on them. That's all they said. And we raised like $15,000 off those t-shirts. Everybody bought one. We took that money and we we divided it. We gave half of it to uh tier and half of it to the East Texas Medical Center in Tyler, Texas. Now, let's go back to East Texas Medical Center in Tyler, Texas. Here's what I didn't know. They're the only level one trauma unit in the country not affiliated with a teaching school. They got three neurosurgeons on call. Their offices are attached to the hospital on the second floor, and the day that Logan went in, Dr. Graham, the veteran, was on call. That's God. The veteran who studied under the number one neurosurgeon in America in Houston, he was on call. We would become dear friends and we would hunt together. We would we would pheasant hunt together later. I took him to South Texas, South Dakota with me, and we became dear friends. And he later would tell me, he said, Coach, when they brought Logan in, typically what happens is they get him off the helicopter, they take them into the emergency room or the operating room, they hook them up, they get their vitals, and I come in and then I do my deal. He said, I had seen the CT from Crockett, I knew what was wrong with him, and I told him, I said, guys, y'all get out of my way. I know what's wrong with him, I know what he needs, y'all work around me. And and that's what they did. They had to cut, you know, this whole side of his skull off. Right. And uh so it just there's so many things that happened during that time. Well, at the time, the football coach at AM wanted to see Logan. And it was a friend of mine, and uh, I wouldn't do it. And the director of football ops was calling me, going, Coach, he really wants to see him. And uh I'm like, buddy, I'm not letting anybody see him. Like, it ain't happening. And he called me one Thursday late in Logan's rehab, and he said, Coach, Mike wants to see Logan. I said, Parsons, nobody has seen Logan, and I'm not letting him see just tell him it's just not a good time. He goes, Coach, he's sitting in outside at the front door of Logan's room right now. He goes, It's coach's night in Houston, so he's down there, but he wants to see Logan.

SPEAKER_04 33:08

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 33:09

So I thought, okay, and Logan was pretty well getting better, but he still had some issues. And so I let him see, and he brought him a 12th man jersey and he gave it to Logan and it had his name on it, and he told Logan if Logan got out of tier and and was able to get out of there before the home opener, he would let Logan be the honorary captain at the football game. Now you have to know at AM, the only honorary captains are former players. They ain't letting nobody else be an honorary captain. That's just tradition there.

unknown 33:47

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 33:48

Well, Logan got out, and that was uh a good motivating deal for him. And so Logan got out and he was the honorary captain for the home opener in front of 88,000 people. Wow. And Holly's videos were on the big screen, the jumbotron, showing as they were describing the whole deal, what Logan was doing, and he was the honorary captain that day, and there wasn't a dry in the place.

SPEAKER_05 34:13

That night.

SPEAKER_02 34:13

And and and when Logan stood, here's the other thing. When Logan stood at the end zone and the camera panned to him, what do you think he did? He did the first thing he did when he woke up that night, that first night.

SPEAKER_04 34:27

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 34:27

He gave two thumbs up. So, you know, he's he's uh, like I said, he's just a walking-talkin' miracle. And uh, but again, I don't think you go through that the way we went through it without having faith. You know, and and and trusting that it's it's in God's hands, and you know, thy will be done.

SPEAKER_04 34:53

That's something amazing.

SPEAKER_02 34:54

And um, you know, your flesh, I can tell y'all this the the hardest night I had was that Sunday night. Um I had left to go take a shower. I never left him, but I had to go take a shower, and I sat in my truck in a parking garage, bawling like a baby, and at that moment it hit me. And nobody ever talks about this. But as I'm looking at my son, and my flesh is crying out why? Why Logan? He's a good boy, he is, he's a good kid. Why Logan? I thought, you know, this might be how God felt looking down at his son Jesus on the cross.

unknown 35:43

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 35:44

And nobody ever talks about that. I mean, in my my church, Jesus is God's son. And and so that dynamic, you know, it hit me at that moment. This might be might be how he felt that day. Yeah, wow.

SPEAKER_04 36:00

What a thing to pop in your head. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 36:02

Uh it was just, yeah, you know, and I mean, I'm telling you, that was a rough moment in that truck, just crying out. Crying out. Why? And you know, we all are fleshy, you know. When my dad died suddenly, why? It just didn't make any sense. He worked all his life, he's finally retired, he's enjoying life, and then boom, something you know happens and he's gone like that. And uh, and then I had to watch my mother, who's the most godly person on earth, go through what she went through. And I literally was held her in my arms when she took her last bread, but uh breath, but I was with her the last every day for the last six months of her life. Um, so that was a blessing, but a curse at the same time to watch have to watch her go through that and wonder why. Why is she having to suffer when she's such a godly woman? So, but through it all, y'all, through it all, you just there has to be a level of trust somewhere along the way. And um, like I said, I never during that time, it just never hit me, oh my God, oh my god, or I'm gonna lose him. And I told my my boss, I said, look, I don't know if I'm ever I'm gonna be back this year. I didn't know how long it was gonna take to get him back. I didn't know if he was three months, six months, a year, but I told him, I said, I may not have a job when this is over, but I'm gonna have a son. And so, you know, I can't tell you. And it was in the middle of recruiting in July. That's a big recruiting period for us, and it happened on July 12th. Wow. And so I missed all that recruiting, but it just it wasn't gonna matter to me. No, of course not. So that along with being raised in the church, that happening, you know, it's uh came tonight.

SPEAKER_05 37:47

That's right. Yep. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 37:51

What do you think? I didn't know uh I wasn't I didn't know the story. So I didn't know.

SPEAKER_04 37:55

I didn't have I had a little bit on the basics of it, but not that. And to hear you first of all, yeah, you're great just going through it today. And yeah, being able to tell us about it. Yeah, he's a great storyteller to start with, but um that's unbelievable. Yeah, yeah. And and I mean, I it's the overused word, inspirational, but it is. I mean, it it hit uh the story about the stairs. Um I looked around the room and it was Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_03 38:34

Thanks for sharing that. Yeah, thank you. It took a lot. Coach, I don't know what to ask you uh anymore. And we had a uh trivia question, but it sounds kind of silly now, even if you have trivia question. We can pass on that one too. I think we just uh we look at you and we thank you for being here and thank you for expressing your faith publicly. And there's somebody that that's probably that stories hopefully will touch.

SPEAKER_05 38:54

Yeah, listen to us.

SPEAKER_02 38:56

Yeah, so Logan and I get get asked a lot. Like I've and this was one of the you know, my mother, there's 14 and a half years apart between Miss Sister and I. She's 14 and a half years older than I am. Well, she's my kindergarten teacher, she's my reading and spelling teacher from the first through the eighth grade. Gave me my first C, which resulted in the first good butt whipping by the curve. She'll deny that. She'll also deny locking me in a closet when I was five years old and her boyfriends would come over, but that's true. Nonetheless, uh, you know, my mother obviously had a hard time having me, but you know, after she had her. And my mother always promised, she'd always tell me, she said, you know, Vic, when when I uh we was going through that time where I couldn't have kids, she said, I always promised the Lord if he'd just give me a son, I'd do everything I could to see that he'd be a Lutheran minister. And you know, I'd tell mom, well, Mom, I fell a little short on that. But what's transpired off of this is that Logan and I have been asked, and I here in Mississippi, I've I've preached on Sundays in churches all over the state and told that story. Um, and it's really been a blessing. We get calls all the time about, hey, can you talk to so-and-so? They just had their kid, was in a Humvee accident or a golf cart accident, got flipped over and they had a brain injury. Can you kind of walk them through this? I to uh last week I called Deanna, who's the case manager there at Tier, because somebody called me and said, Coach, can you help us? We're trying to get him, get uh our father into Tier. He's had a stroke and he needs rehab and they're the best in the country. And can you help us get them in there? And I'm I'm like, sure, you know, and I call it's not the first time I've called Deanna. And Dee always knows when I call, it's for somebody that needs help. And she usually gets them in, you know. And so uh, you know, it's just opened up some doors for us where we're able to give people hope, you know, and not everybody turns out like in fact, most of them don't, to be honest with you. And that's the part we obviously don't like to share, but that's why he's so special. Like he has been touched by the Lord.

SPEAKER_05 41:10

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 41:11

I mean, he he is my walking, talking miracle. And uh so, yeah, it's it's it's really been a an incredible thing. And again, you don't want to go through it, but my family wouldn't be the family we are today without it. It's like that ticket getting your butt beat 60 to get that ticket to beat that team 365 days later. There's a reason we had to go through that to get this. And you know, I don't know why. Uh uh if I can get to the gates, I might ask, you know, why he had to go through that because that was hard. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 41:50

Well, you know, it kind of reminds me that uh been pointed out to me recently that you know, boy, a little kindness goes a long way because when you encounter somebody, you never know what they're going through. Right. And that everybody is either in something or they're about to be in something or they're coming out of something. And you just don't know. And wow, what a story. Yes. Yeah. Yep.

SPEAKER_04 42:13

What a story. Toxic, I there's no way to add anything there except that uh you see the fire that forged the man, you know, and it was on many fronts, but nothing like that, you know, because I mean, I just I've I've said that forever. That's the one thing. Y'all know me. I'm Teflon through all these years here, and that's my job to be. But man, I'm not so sure I could handle that. That I I'd have to. I mean, how can you people say you you ask the questions, but how can you not, how could you possibly handle that without faith in our creator? Think and I think about that all the time. It's the creator of the entire universe. You're that we're made an image of. And to think that we can understand why we ask why, you ask why, you can't understand why. I mean, you need to cease the why and worry about what you can do and how you can be an influence. What an unbelievable influence he and the family are now because of all this, too.

SPEAKER_02 43:13

And you think about my wife. You know, I I can sit here and say, well, I never left him for 39 days and I didn't. My wife had to leave him because they'd only let one person stay at the hospital and one person stay at Tier. And that's probably as hard as anything having to walk out of there at night, especially early when he was on life support and not knowing if you were coming back the next day to his son. You know, and so um, you know, Holly and I both, I mean, I I think, you know, when we go through that and then Blair as a as a as a sister and uh the changes that happen, you know, uh it it's it's certainly life altering.

SPEAKER_04 43:54

It makes me smile to see you watching on the big screen now and see that they're all. Around you still. I see her on the sideline. I see her. You call time out and you're just doing this, but she's the one in their ear, in their heart, one-on-one, getting them ready for stuff. And to see that is really cool. Yeah, it is cool. Chip off the old block. Yeah, it is.

SPEAKER_03 44:15

Well, I tell you what, uh, I I didn't really know what all to expect today when you were coming in here. I I knew we were going to talk about turkeys and fishing a little bit, and that you were one heck of a basketball coach. And Toxie, it may be the biggest fan you have in the world. He's there.

SPEAKER_04 44:34

He's got a lot of them. He's a cheerful man. Well, the the the fun part, you know, is there's tragedy. I it took me a while to get over that he was gone from here. It happened so quick and I didn't know about it. But at the same time, I man, all my beloved Missoubi State fans may hate me for it, but if I had to trade out, he's gone for a few years, but knowing we're gonna get him back for the rest of it. That's cool. I guess I'd trade it. Begrudgingly, but I would trade that because it is heartening to know how much he loves. And you can't trade off love. You can't change it. It's the only thing that matters, and how much he does love Starvel and loves the people and loves what happened there and has so many dear friends. None of that changes that. Man, it was hard to know he's coming back all the time to come back. I would have I would not I would not have left, you know.

SPEAKER_02 45:26

People always thought I was gonna leave here and go to AM because that's where I went to school, and that's where I grew up going to football games when I was five years old, my daddy, and he went to school there. I wasn't gonna leave for AM. I would not have left for any job except the one I left, and the only reason is because again, I was born in Austin. I am a Texan, my parents are both buried 65 miles from there in a little town called La Grange, Texas, where I grew up at Granny's house on the weekend. And um and it's to me, it's it's it's the best job in the country, and it still wasn't easy. And I left uh you want to do here's what's hard that nobody knows. They they let me tell, so we're in COVID, so I couldn't meet with my team. I had to tell my team on the phone, and then they wouldn't let me talk to them again individually. Usually when somebody does this, you bring them together, you have a team meeting, you tell them what you're gonna do, then you go, hey, I'll be in the office. Anybody want to come by? Love to visit with you, you know. They wouldn't let me talk to them ever again. That was awful. And and it would just, you know, and then then we're stuck here in COVID. I couldn't go anywhere, which was great. When I got, when I when I took the job, we were still living in town, and I told Holly, I go, well, pack our stuff, we're moving. She goes, we going to Austin? I go, no, we're moving to the farm. I go, I hadn't got a chance to live in that place, but I'm gonna live in it the next four months. She said, Well, we don't even have any grass. I go, that's fine, I'll throw it.

SPEAKER_05 47:04

Yeah, that's right.

SPEAKER_02 47:05

So I did. I threw every block of grass that's on that place around the house, made every flower bed, but I was gonna at least have four months there, which I did. We had April, May, June. We moved into the.

SPEAKER_04 47:18

But the turkeys around here took a hit that spring. Every morning.

SPEAKER_02 47:22

I mean, I hunted every morning.

SPEAKER_01 47:24

Yeah. So that timing was pretty good. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 47:27

But you know, it was just hard.

SPEAKER_03 47:29

Like it was so hard.

SPEAKER_01 47:31

But the hard made you better again.

SPEAKER_04 47:32

That's right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 47:34

So well, guys, this has been a really good one. Blessing is a huge one. Doctor, thank you for setting this up. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 47:42

You know what? The good news is he's he's a fan of what we do. He listens to the gamekeepers all the time. Oh is that right? I just I gotta get on one thing. You gotta you gotta you were coming earlier, and I know no telling what all got in the way with your job. And then he shows up the other day, sends me a selfie, and he's out in front of the store. Hey, I'm back. Well, I had just left. We had the the guys from Yeti to take hunting, and so I was, you know, an hour away south, you know, to do that. And by the time I get back, he's gone again. I think he's gone. You know, we exchanged some more texts and stuff. I was and then I didn't realize he was actually back, and he was going with my one of my dearest friends on the planet, Rodney Johnson. And at 627 this morning, I get a picture of him with a dead turkey with Rodney. Yeah. It was a giant turkey, too. Yeah, well, congrats on all you're doing. Yeah, you get more envy from the table on that than anything you brought up. Yeah, for sure. Hey, thanks for having me. Yeah, I really appreciate this. Oh, it won't be the last time.

SPEAKER_02 48:46

I do, you know, I get to have an opportunity to do some some obviously lots of media stuff and and things like this has been really special, y'all. And uh I appreciate the opportunity. Uh it means a lot to be in here with you guys. And uh um, man, I'm I'm a fan, and anytime I can do anything for any of you all, don't hesitate to to ask. Uh, I appreciate y'all's friendship so much, but I really appreciate the opportunity to be in here today. It's been it's been a blast, man. It's been a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_03 49:17

Oh, we've had a lot of fun too. Yeah, we appreciate you, man.

SPEAKER_01 49:19

And if we can do anything for you, let us know. Yeah, yeah. You might need a couple trees at the farm. Yeah, we want to reach out. Yeah, that's right.

SPEAKER_04 49:26

He's I tell you what, the tree doctor doesn't live very far from here. He's on the way, on the way home. He lives in Starville. Yeah, I live on 182.

SPEAKER_02 49:33

That's all he needs is a project. Mm-hmm. That's right. Yeah. You know, I've got I've had uh we have two live oaks that are 200 years old on each corner of the house. We have three uh three oaks that are I think they said a hundred to a hundred and fifty years old. And that's what shades the place up on that knoll. But we might have been you. We had a tree doctor out there and they were injecting that ground to keep those trees alive while they were pouring that slab and building that house. And we actually knows them, no, I bet it was fulge them.

SPEAKER_04 50:14

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 50:15

Yeah, but it it we took care of those trees. I mean, I bet he's got a hybrid eye.

SPEAKER_04 50:19

That was smart. I paid I paid a pretty penny to keep them alive.

SPEAKER_02 50:23

Yeah, I mean they then those guys said, hey, and they told the home builder, nobody's sitting under these trees at lunch. They ain't they ain't smoking a cigarette under them. We ain't putting, you know, no equipment on them whatsoever. Don't get inside the drip ballet. None of them died. That's great. That's a miracle.

SPEAKER_04 50:41

I smell a seed tree or two.

SPEAKER_03 50:43

Yeah, you know, they worked it in Mr. Fox's yard. They did, they sure did.

SPEAKER_00 50:48

How about that?

SPEAKER_03 50:49

Yeah, Richie, you got anything else?

SPEAKER_00 50:51

Uh yeah, I know we usually hit this time and do uh, you know, promotions stuff we got going on, but I'm not gonna worry about that right now. I just I I know everybody said it too, coach, but you know, I just met you two hours ago, but that was we've done over 400 podcasts, and that's the most powerful story on that couch I've ever heard of. 100%. Yep.

SPEAKER_04 51:11

Yeah. I'm just glad to be the vehicle to talk to people, let them hear it, and under, you know. Just amazing. I hope it it it adds to others' faith.

SPEAKER_03 51:21

Well, you got you got quite a smile, you got a twinkle in your eye. You and I I see now why you're so successful. It doesn't take long to it's just that's right. It it really does. Something special right there. This has been great. Why don't you say goodbye, Dudley? Goodbye, Dudley. Get us out of here, Richie.

SPEAKER_01 51:35

Thanks for tuning in to this week's episode of the Game Keeper Podcast. And be sure to tune in again. Subscribe to Game Keeper Farming for Wildlife Magazine, and don't miss the Mafio Properties Fitzfull of Dirt podcast with my good buddy, Ronnie Dodger.