A Monday morning at Rogers High in late July: A small collection of young people races up and down the school stairways, and then chugs off to another room where the members clank iron and strain against devices designed to build them into athletes.

It’s the kind of effort that nobody else sees, the best kind, because it makes them brothers.

Maybe it pays off with wins on football fields in the autumn. Or, if done with the highest commitment, dividends can accrue further down the road, maybe for an entire lifetime.

The kids don’t know that, yet, but Levi Horn does.

Horn is here with these kids because he understands that it is with this presence that he exerts his greatest influence.

He was once a young Native American in these halls, carrying around similar goals. He would make his most valuable point by standing there, a 6-foot-7 symbol of possibilities. A towering paradigm, perhaps. Or, better yet, a totem.

He’s back, as proof to the aspirational that it can be done.

Here’s a story he can tell them: When he was activated onto the Chicago Bears roster, Horn found himself pausing – in disbelief – to look around at the facilities and the other extraordinary athletes. “I would go, holy … this poor Northern Cheyenne (Tribe) boy, with no father, somehow reached his dreams.”

He can tell them about getting help to overcome those harmful lapses in self-esteem and confidence. And he can warn them of the opportunities he wasted from “self-sabotage,” giving into those huge doubts over whether he really belonged.

“I have the gift and honor of being with these young kids every day,” he said. “I had so many people who helped me, so many people who gave to me without asking anything from me.” His return to Rogers is payment of that debt.

Horn, 38, has coached football at Rogers in recent seasons, but now works for Rise Above, a nonprofit organization that (according to its website): “Empowers Native youth to lead healthy lives through education, prevention skills, and mentorship programs.”

Of this offseason training program, Horn said that his first message is simple: “Every day I tell them I love them, and thank them for coming out and getting better every day, and thank them for representing our community. Rise Above has made it possible for me to be here every day and help these kids get better.”

His work at Rogers completes the circle.

Asked of his youth in Hillyard: “Single mother, welfare, there were struggles at the end of the month, but she always got it done. Seeing my mother work so hard, grind so hard, gives you a sense of what it takes.”

Nearly 12 pounds at birth, and 6-4, 230 pounds in eighth grade, Horn turned into an all-state tight end at Rogers.

When the first college recruiter called him, he was certain it was a friend masquerading, taunting him with the kind of opportunities he never considered possible.

“Being a Native American who wanted to go to the NFL, I never saw people go to college,” he said, recalling that he had no concept of such a thing.

He was forced to ask himself, am I smart enough to go to college? “That brought out a lot of anxiety in me.”

People in the community and the fathers of friends helped him toward his goal, and whittled away at some of the roadblocks, he said. “A lot of people rallied around me and I’m very grateful to them.”

But when he left Spokane for his freshman year on scholarship at Oregon, he concedes, “I wasn’t ready for it.”

Football was not the problem. “I was coming along, and after the first couple practices, I thought, dang, I can do this,” he said. “I think I was just so scared to succeed, I lacked the positive self-talk, the believing in myself, making the right choices.”

Maybe it was manifest in being late for some meetings, or skipping a class. Maybe, it would be less painful to fail on his own terms than to be told by someone else that he couldn’t make it.

He transferred to Montana, where he became an FCS All-American tackle, and also had more opportunities to explore Native American culture.

Going undrafted in 2010, Horn latched on to the Bears’ practice squad, was activated in 2011, and ultimately picked up by the Minnesota Vikings in 2012.

Brief tries in the CFL and Arena League brought his journey through professional football to an end.

Through counseling, though, he came to understand that “I’m more than football. Everything in my life revolved around football, it gave me everything, but learning to not define myself by football was a big thing.”

By then, he added courses in counseling to his degrees in sociology and criminology at Montana.

Over time, he often appreciated the effort he had seen when counselors give motivational speeches at youth gatherings. “But how long does that last?” The important part, for him, was being available over the long term. Putting in the time. Earning trust.

“When I got my counseling education, I decided I wanted to fill their tool box,” he said. “Not just with a great story, but to help them learn (life) skills together, to go through the mindfulness, the positive self-talk, visualization, coping skills, being nice to yourself, being kind – all those soft skills I didn’t have.”

Jaci McCormack, founder and CEO of Rise Above, said Horn’s return to his old school “brings a different level of investment to our kids.”

Horn’s willingness to be vulnerable with the kids, to tell them about his mistakes, failures and the need for help, “really resonates with kids; it’s OK to make mistakes, you can come back from that as long as you have people in your life who support you,” McCormack said.

Turning kids into professional athletes isn’t the goal, Horn stressed. “How can we help them improve?” Horn asked. “If it’s sports, if it’s chess, whatever, we want to be there for them and cut down the obstacles.”

A primary concern of Horn, and Rise Above, is the lowly 47% high school graduation rate of Native Americans in Washington state.

That challenge is huge, Horn said. He stressed that he’s been gifted by the unrelenting support of his mother, and his wife of 13 years.

A huge and powerful man, Horn clearly gets emotional at times when he recounts his “journey,” and the people who helped him along the way, and all those he hopes to help in return in coming years.

“I always say, you can’t teach passion,” McCormack said. “Levi is very passionate about the kids, and the next generation, and being able to impact them and share his story for good.”