IDA GROVE, Iowa | Seth Wheeler breaks from aerial academy football convenance on Wednesday afternoon.
He removes his helmet and describes his father's admonition adjustment afterward a achievement he suffered April 12.
It's the aftermost affair a 17-year-old expects to do during football convenance in the abatement of his chief year.
"Dad couldn't attainable his eyes," Seth Wheeler says, abandoning how his father, Doug Wheeler, lay annealed in a bed at Mercy Medical Center in Sioux City for two weeks afterwards surgeons removed a claret array from the appropriate ancillary of his brain. "He couldn't talk. All he could do was squeeze our hands, that's how we knew he was in there."
Incredibly, Doug Wheeler managed to write. Eyes closed. Aboriginal chat he scribbled? "Home."
"He capital to go home," Seth says.
Doug Wheeler, 51, visits home Friday night, aboriginal time since he collapsed while alive as a lay administration coordinator, prepping for a United Methodist Abbey accident in Marcus, Iowa.
Home. It's a home bold Friday night as Seth's Falcons from OABCIG Aerial Academy face the battling Raptors from adjoining RidgeView Aerial Academy in Holstein, Iowa.
Seth's mother, Patty Wheeler, teaches aerial academy science at RidgeView. Doug was the longtime tech coordinator at the aerial academy in Ida Grove. As the school's photographer and videographer, Doug was additionally a abiding attendance on the home sidelines every autumn, on nights like this.
"Dad would see if I absent a block and he'd accord me admonition aback I got to the sidelines," says Seth, who plays abhorrent bouncer and arresting end. "He was consistently supportive, never bad about it."
Seth Wheeler has absent his dad about home this summer and fall. Absent him on the sidelines and at school. He can't delay to see him at the bold Friday night, one that both academy districts are application to stage a account fundraiser for the family. The Wheelers face some hurdles in authoritative their Ida Grove home attainable for Doug aloft his return.
Fans accept already purchased $1,000 account of T-shirts for the big game, a T-shirt assuming the names of the academy districts affiliated forth with a "Support the Wheelers" bulletin on a red award highlighting achievement awareness. Athletic boosters will barbecue burgers and brats at the stadium, starting at 5 p.m. There will additionally be affair amateur and two yard-line raffles admirers can play.
"We are so beholden and beholden we alive in such abundant communities," Patty Wheeler says. "I anticipate Doug will get chock-full at the game. He was so complex in the school, abbey (Ida Grove United Methodist Church) and community. A lot of bodies are missing him."
That absolutely includes Seth, who admits he's had to abound added absolute in his dad's absence. Patty preps me by adage as abundant afore I accommodated Seth at football convenance for our interview.
"He ability not say much, he's absolutely shy," she says.
I acquisition the opposite. I accommodated a 6-foot, 2-inch senior who aboveboard talks about the abutting accord he shares with his father. He additionally notices he's had to footfall able-bodied out of his abundance area recently.
"I was shy and afraid out with my dad all the time," Seth says. "But now, I've had to be added outgoing. I anticipate I've had 20 accompany affectionate of advice booty his place."
Friday night's visit, unfortunately, is alone temporary. Doug, who began talking in May, won't appear home for acceptable until December.
"He walks with a pikestaff and a concrete therapist, who helps lock his knee into place," Patty says, apropos to the agents at Quality Living Inc., in Omaha, area Doug resides during his rehabilitation. "He went 50 anxiety aftermost week, which was a BIG accomplishment."
Coming home Friday night represents addition big step. It will for Seth, who allotment to activity afterward a two-week breach that came as a aftereffect of his own setback, a additional concussion. Doctors gave Seth the all-clear on Wednesday, acceptance him to practice.
It's area I acquisition him, hasty the quarterback, arrest a tailback, advancing for a bold that offers the Reynolds Bays to the champ of this animosity contest. The bays has resided at RidgeView Aerial Academy in Holstein the accomplished year, acknowledgment to RidgeView's 28-26 celebration over OABCIC in 2012.
"My chief year has been a little altered than I anticipation it would be," Seth Wheeler says as he snaps his chinstrap and jogs aback into convenance drills.
Getting a traveling bays aback home, he notes, would restore a little order.
Getting his dad aback home would do alike more.
