Winning Combination Boxing, common backgrounds connect trainer, 'Contender' star

For Quentin Blue Horse and Jonathan Reid, there is the little message, and The Message.

The little message is the one that brought together the 31-year-old Blue Horse, a member of the Rosebud (South Dakota) Sioux tribe who was born in Schurz, and the 35-year-old Reid, who hails from Nashville, Tenn., and for the last few weeks has lived and trained with Blue Horse on the Dresslerville Indian Reservation.

The little message - in the form of an e-mail - came from Reid, who once fought for a world title, became an international celebrity on the NBC reality show "The Contender" and was looking to further his career under the direction of Blue Horse.

Blue Horse is an environmental specialist for the Washoe Tribe of Nevada and California, founded The War Party boxing club and trains young American Indians.

While there is only a world of contrast between the mundane and the metaphysical, of how and why, of circumstance and destiny, there is a galactic difference between the message and The Message.

Whereas the former merely had to travel through cyberspace, the latter emanates from a more divine source, sifting its way through the filters of culture, belief systems and the endless flow of time and parameters of space.

THE MESSAGE (JONATHAN REID)

Reid grew up learning discipline from his father, Graham E. Reid II, who served in the United States Marine Corps in Vietnam, and earned a first-degree black belt in Wado-ryu karate.

"He'd tell me and my brothers (Graham E. Reid III and Demetrius) to take out the trash. If we didn't take it out the night before, we woke up with the trash bag on us in the bed," Reid says. "After karate class, he told us to be ready to go. If we took too long to get to (the) car, we either walked or ran home."

Reid said he never did drugs, but began to hang out with the wrong crowd.

"My parents had no idea what I was doing," Reid says. "My father could sense something. I came home at 1 or 2 a.m. He said, 'Son, ain't nothing out there this time of hour.' I said, 'All right.'"

Six months later, Reid was arrested for armed robbery and sentenced to 16 years in prison. His father's words stay with him still.

"He looked at me from behind the glass, grabbed the phone and said, 'This is one time you better be glad I can't get at you. Here's your mama.'"

Reid was serving his time in the Turney Center, in Only, Tenn., when The Message came to him. He was reading one of the many letters sent by his high school sweetheart, who copied down nearly the whole Bible for him to read.

One day a verse - Reid memorized it word for word - jumped off the page and into his heart. It was Proverbs 3:11-12:

"My son, despise not the chastisement of the Lord; neither be weary of his correction:

For whom the Lord loveth he correcteth; even as a father the son in whom he delighteth."

"Something clicked," Reid says. "God gave me spiritual strength. He treated me like Job. I was there to get my eyes open. I took my incarceration like God used it to give me spiritual strength."

During his imprisonment, Reid attended church. Less than three years into his sentence, he was paroled. Ever since, he has been a member of the Born Again Church and Outreach Ministry and visits inmates to give them hope.

"I looked at it like it was a second chance at life," he says. "I got out and tried to make amends with my family. I wanted to try and get out and set an example for those men who get into that situation and want to give up, who think they don't have a chance to change anything and things will always be that way.

"I wanted to prove them wrong. I believe I've done that. I was able to get a passport, go to Germany and spar with (IBF middleweight champion) Arthur Abraham. Boxing has allowed me to explore the world."

Reid, 34-9-4 with 19 knockouts, followed his father's advice and took up boxing when he got of prison.

He went 57-3 as an amateur before turning pro and winning his first 27 fights. He fought WBA middleweight champion William Joppy for his title in 2000, but was stopped in the fourth round.

In 2004, he was one of 16 boxers selected to compete for the million-dollar prize offered on "The Contender" (including Yerington's Jesse Brinkley and Reno's Joey Gilbert). Reid, now a single father of five children whose ages range from 3-13, was eliminated from the show by Brinkley when the pair met in the first round, but carries a special place in his heart for his opponent.

"He's a great man - in the ring and outside the ring," Reid says of Brinkley, a semifinalist. "He's what boxing needs. It didn't show up in the episode, but after we fought, he came up to me in the dressing room and gave me half of his paycheck. He said, 'I'm still in it. Take your kids to Disneyland. I'll get this right back.' He didn't have to do that. It shows a lot about his character."

THE MESSAGE (QUENTIN Blue Horse)

Blue Horse was always on the run - either from his own demons, or the shadow of his father, Pierre Blue Horse, a member of the militant American Indian Movement (AIM), who spent more than 30 years in federal prisons.

"I felt like I was cursed," Quentin says." I didn't want to be my father."

Even though he had the support of his mother, step-father Martin Hernandez and grandparents, Blue Horse fell under the spell of alcohol and first went to juvenile hall at 14, then graduated to jail before spending time in many Nevada penitentiaries . He spent a total of eight years behind bars.

He almost put his past behind him, becoming a wildland firefighter and an emergency medical technician. After suffering an injury while fighting a fire, he once again turned to alcohol.

"I felt like I failed," says Blue Horse, who returned to prison on a parole violation after being caught for driving under the influence.

The Message came to Blue Horse not in the pages of the Bible or in a letter, but rather while on the telephone with his older daughter, Janae, now 7 (his other daughter, Valerie, is 6).

"I remember sitting in a prison cell and (Janae) crying on the phone, wanting her father around," he says. "That was when I made the choice to turn my life around."

The right path for Blue Horse has been the Red Road, a sacred way of living particular to American Indians. Instead of a Bible, there is an oral tradition passed on for centuries. Rather than in a church, sacred rituals are performed in a sweat lodge, from where Blue Horse says he emerges "reborn" and "purified."

"Family comes first. I have total faith in that. I'm just a human being. I pray. You have to be humble," says Blue Horse, who for a time was a janitor. "You have choices in life. I believe there is one Creator. There's one God. It's what you choose to call him. We're all from different backgrounds, so He shows Himself in different ways to different people to get you to believe."

'SITS TOO CLOSE TO THE FIRE'

After his release from prison, Blue Horse trained in Carson City, to rid himself of frustration, keep healthy and stay out of trouble. But traveling became too expensive and after a kid who lived up the street from him asked Blue Horse to train him, he found a new calling.

"Boxing was nowhere in my future dreams. I never thought I'd be in boxing when I walked out of the gate," Blue Horse says.

He started training fighters in his living room, then his garage and now, with the help of John Snooks, the Dresslerville Community Washoe Tribe of Nevada and California and Jackson Rancheria, Blue Horse has a state-of-the-art gym, where he trains Gregory Harrison, Brent John and Skyler Hackler ... and Jonathan Reid.

"I know Quentin has to make sacrifices to have me in the house - there's electricity, water ..." says Reid, who adds that it took a while, but people on the reservation have grown used to him and now wave at him as he does his roadwork.

Reid also can relate to how it feels for Blue Horse to spend time away from his children. While in training, Reid leaves his own brood with his parents and his ex-wife. Reid, who is engaged and plans to marry Elisa Peterkin in September 2009, says he chose the relatively unestablished Blue Horse because he was able to devote the kind of one-on-one attention to him that other trainers haven't.

"One thing I have here with Coach Blue Horse is enough time to get prepared physically and mentally," says Reid, who believes the majority of his losses (he's lost eight of his last nine fights, including one Saturday to Mark Woolnough) have come because he's taken fights on short notice.

"He's a serious type of person. He makes sure you're doing what you're supposed to be doing. For lack of a better phrase, it's Quentin's way or the highway. He's all business."

Almost all business anyway. There's a lot of family time and joking around after workouts. Then there's the little matter of Reid's Indian name.

"It's 'Sits Too Close To The Fire,'" Reid says.

Asked about the origin of the nickname, Reid offers his skin tone for inspection and deadpans, "Can't you tell?"

It's yet another Message, one that says to the world that there is redemption, harmony, trust in others and enough hope to bridge any cultural gap and the only limitation is how wide people choose to open their hearts.

"I came from sitting in a prison cell to where I'm at now," Blue Horse says, knowing the same can be said of Reid. "As long as I do what I'm supposed to do, things will work out for the best."