Just when it felt like Fox Birdtail was finally on the right path, life served up another challenge.
Twenty-two days from starting his second to last semester at SUNY Jamestown Community College, a terrifying bicycle accident nearly derailed Birdtail’s aspirations of earning a college degree and accomplishing more in life.
This was familiar territory for a boy who grew up poor, often on the move, the odds stacked against him.
One of six children to a single mother, he yearned for a father figure. He dropped out of high school. In his own words, he was a failure.
campus after receiving his diploma.
Here he was again, doubting himself. His brain in a fog from the accident, he thought long and hard about giving up, maybe taking the semester off. He started telling himself he couldn’t possibly pass the demanding Trigonometry and Abnormal Psychology courses he faced.
“I was struggling,” he said. “I looked for assistance and JCC helped me out. During my Abnormal Psychology course, Dr. John-Morgan Phillips recommended several scholarships to me. That led me to the Jack Kent Cooke Scholarship.”
Birdtail was one of 1,700 students from 448 community colleges to apply for the Cooke Undergraduate Transfer Scholarship, which is given based on students’ academic ability and achievement, financial need, persistence, and leadership. His long-ranging perseverance paid off, as he was named one of only 60 to earn the highly competitive, national award.
While he once questioned how he might fund further education while supporting a wife and four children ages 7 to 1, the Cooke scholarship will pay for Birdtail’s bachelor's degree studies at SUNY Fredonia, including stipends for internships and conferences, and may also help fund graduate school. He has aspirations of becoming a school psychologist, earning a doctorate, and one day defining a new branch of psychology.
Such are lofty goals for a man, now 27, who less than 10 years ago was living in the remote wilderness of western Michigan, an 18-year-old with no aim in his life.
Perhaps few, if any, of this year’s Cook scholarship recipients have a more inspiring or unlikely backstory than Birdtail, who graduated in May from JCC with an associate’s degree in Individual Studies.
Birdtail was born in Spokane, Washington. His father, a Native American member of the Arapaho Tribe in Montana, left the family when Birdtail was 3.
Birdtail’s mother moved herself and her six children first to Belfair, Washington, and then onto a tugboat called the Excaliber at Port Orchard Marina on Puget Sound near Seattle. Finally, the family traded living on the water for the isolated forests of western Michigan.
He was a deckhand on the Excaliber, and a dog handler for an Iditarod sled team in Michigan. Finishing high school wasn’t that important. He quit less than a year away from graduating.
“I tried online school,” he said, “but I didn’t have the stability or the drive at the time. I was undisciplined.”
His life began to change when he met his wife Hannah online. At the age of 18, he bought a one-way plane ticket to be with her in Perrysburg, near Gowanda. The couple married and started to have children.
Following the birth of his second child five years ago, Birdtail thought to himself: “I can be better than this. I can be the person that I wanted to be.”
He started by earning his high school equivalency diploma. Then, he applied to JCC.
“When I got the acceptance letter, I about broke down into tears that day,” he said. “I told my wife, ‘I did it. I’m doing it. It’s possible.’”
Enrolling at JCC at the height of the pandemic, Birdtail started and finished his degree online. He credits his advisor, Morgan Franchina, and Don Pool, JCC’s coordinator of Accessibility Services, for guiding him along the way.
Pool helped Birdtail secure extra time for tests and study assistance. JCC professors were also accommodating.
It’s exactly what Birdtail needed after his bike accident on Aug. 1 of last year, for which he was airlifted to Erie County Medical Center for treatment. Though he doesn’t remember much from that day, Birdtail was told that he fell hard on the left side of his head, resulting in memory loss and challenges with focus and speech, but no permanent brain damage.
Instead of taking a break from school, he immersed himself in it. Birdtail attributed his fast recovery in part to focusing his mind for six to eight hours daily on his studies. “I learned discipline, perseverance, and persistence,” he said.
Still, until the Cooke scholarship came along, Birdtail wasn’t sure if he could keep up with school plus continue to work two jobs to support his family.
“It defined my experience at JCC beyond what I ever thought possible,” he said of the scholarship honor. “I transformed from someone who thought life was going to be survival to someone who has had so many doors open up for him.”
Growing up, Birdtail often felt alone and adrift. With no one to turn to, he attached himself to nature. It was therapeutic for him. He wants to share it with others.
That is why Birdtail focused his studies on psychology and earth science at JCC. His “childish dream,” as he puts it, is to “be the man who defined natural psychology.”
“I don’t want to prescribe pharmaceuticals to your child,” he said. “I want to reinvigorate their love of the environment, the love to go outside like we have for many generations. The fact that we’re becoming heavily homebodied at times might be an origin for a lot of troubles we’re facing these days. We need natural spaces as much as we need purpose to live.”
Following his graduation from JCC, Birdtail planted 30 trees on property his in-laws own in Perrysburg. He dreams of one day buying that land, building a house and shed, and having a fenced area for goats, sheep, and chickens. He envisions his children sitting under those trees, basking in the simplicity of nature.
He smiles while acknowledging that such a life is “a bit far off.” But, given where Birdtail has been and where he’s going, it doesn’t feel right to doubt him.