Already in the midst of a long day after leaving for Orchard Park at 7:30 that morning, returning to Mayville around 2 in the afternoon and getting ready for a two-hour practice set to begin at 3:45, Harper was “intrigued” and decided to check out the post.

As Dr. Josh Liddell, his son, Paxton, and several community members shoveled 25 yards of turf outside just to give the Eagles somewhere to practice, it quickly became apparent to Harper reading the post inside his office that he would need a few minutes to compose himself before taking the field.

“To read the things that he wrote, anybody with a pulse would get choked up reading those things,” Harper recalled Monday evening. “It was very meaningful. I truly appreciated that he was willing to share those things in such a public way.”

“I apologize for the long post!

Photo courtesy of Cody Jacobson Brayden Gibbs

Peace is something I’ve always struggled to truly find, really in any aspect of my life. No matter the situation, it was always on to the next thing …

In March, my world was turned upside down when a change was made at the head coach position. Everything I had known and done for the better part of a decade was spent trying to build a winning football program. Heartbroken, I was at a place mentally I hadn’t experienced since my first trip to Iraq.

For the first time ever, I had to worry about my boys and how they’d respond to a different coach. How will the new coach treat them? How will Brayden mesh with him for his senior season? How will ‘T’ respond mentally?

Throughout the season I watched as just dad for the first time ever. … At times I’ve struggled, I’ve struggled to find personal peace with someone else leading ‘my team.’

On Friday, I was called by Dan Palmer and asked to be the color man for the radio broadcast of the semifinal game in Barker. This is something I had never done before but an opportunity too good to pass up.

Photo courtesy of Cody Jacobson Tristen Gibbs

As the final seconds of the game ticked off the clock, it was obvious the Eagles were headed to Highmark Stadium. Emotions immediately started to hit me, from the booth I immediately scanned to find Brayden and Tristen eager to watch them celebrate with teammates.

First I find ‘B’ who had his arms wide open getting ready to embrace his coach! The embrace was heartfelt and had enthusiasm from both sides. Then I find ‘T’ who had his contagious smile beaming from ear to ear high-fiving and hugging everyone around.

Witnessing Brayden show so much joy and Coach Harper showing him love back finally allowed me to find it. … I finally have peace.”

The post was made by Ryan Gibbs, Chautauqua Lake/Westfield/Brocton’s football coach for the previous five years.

While always cordial, Gibbs and Harper had never really discussed what happened eight months prior, when Harper was announced as the Eagles’ new head coach, thus taking away the role Gibbs had played in his two sons’ football careers since they were 5 and 7 years old, respectively.

Photo courtesy of Cody Jacobson Stephanie Gibbs

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Ryan Gibbs was a 2004 Panama graduate who played high school football for Chris Payne while a Panther.

After high school, he enrolled in the United States Air Force, serving active duty until 2014. During his time in the service, Gibbs and his wife, Stephanie, were stationed at Eielson AFB in Alaska for three years and Kadena Air Base Okinawa in Japan for six years. Stephanie gave birth to their oldest son, Brayden, during Ryan’s first of three deployments to the Middle East in 2007 and later to their youngest son, Tristen, while the family was stationed in Japan in 2009.

When the family returned to the area in 2014 to establish their roots, Ryan coached his boys’ youth flag and tackle football teams.

In 2020, Ryan became Chautauqua Lake/Westfield/Brocton’s coach, slowly rebuilding a program that had not seen much consistency at the head coach position — at the end of a string of four coaches in four years.

Photo courtesy of Cody Jacobson Ryan Gibbs is pictured in a radio booth while calling last Thursday’s Section VI Class C championship game for WDOE at Highmark Stadium in Orchard Park.

By the fall of 2024, the Eagles were finally on the brink of success. They had earned a home playoff game and beat Alden 41-28 in the sectional quarterfinals before losing to Portville, 32-17, a week later.

“Coach Gibbs was instrumental in building the foundation of our varsity football program. His work began with this group at the youth level, and he continued with them all the way to becoming the varsity head coach — finding success at every stage,” Liddell, Chautauqua Lake’s superintendent, said in a statement earlier this week.

As preparations were being made for the 2025 season — Brayden’s senior year — Ryan’s life as he knew it was flipped upside down.

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On Dec. 29, as the Buffalo Bills hosted the New York Jets in Orchard Park, Gibbs and Harper met in the bowels of Highmark Stadium prior to the game to be recognized as Coaches of the Week for different points throughout the high school season.

Rumors had been circulating about Harper ever since he led Clymer/Sherman/Panama to its third state title in 10 years a couple of weeks earlier.

“I heard you might be leaving,” Gibbs recalled saying to Harper.

“I told him I would definitely apply for a teaching job at Chautauqua Lake if it came up because it’s closer to home,” Harper said Monday night. ” … and if football was on the table, I’d have to at least consider that.”

Gibbs was blindsided.

“I could tell by the look on Harper’s face that he would’ve thought that I already knew,” Gibbs said. “I was trying to put on a smiling face as we were about to walk out in front of 50,000 people.”

Two weeks later, as the Wolfpack held their season-ending banquet, Harper told his players, their parents and his coaching staff that he was not returning as C/S/P’s head coach.

A day later, the 2004 Fredonia graduate was interviewing for an opening at Chautauqua Lake. At the board of education’s January meeting, Harper was named the new social studies teacher and two months later he was appointed the Eagles football coach.

“To be honest, I was heartbroken,” Gibbs said. “Anybody who had followed our program knew where it was and where it was being built to. … You feel a lot of different emotions there. Part of it was that I had two sons who were going to be deeply affected by the change.”

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Harper quickly formed his staff, which included his longtime defensive coordinator Payne — Gibbs’ head coach at Panama decades earlier. There wasn’t necessarily a spot for Gibbs, who wasn’t ready to be back on the sidelines either.

“I didn’t entertain it because I felt like I wasn’t in the right head space,” he said. “I didn’t want it to be a distraction to any of the players, let alone my sons and Ty, too. … I didn’t really entertain coaching anywhere this year.”

While Harper, Payne and the rest of the coaches began establishing offseason workout teams, there were even rumors that Gibbs would pull his sons and go to another district in the area.

“Even some of my former coaching staff thought I had a deal worked out with Falconer that I would be coaching during the week and not attending the games,” Gibbs said. “We’d poured everything into building this thing. With Brayden being a senior, there was no chance we were going anywhere else.”

Gibbs and his wife were actually excited for their sons to play for Payne and Harper.

“We want to make it perfectly clear … there’s never been a bad word about Payne and Harper coming. The decisions and lack of communication had nothing to do with them. We’ve been nothing but supportive,” Ryan said. “Those guys coach their (butts) off. There was no doubt they were going to be in a good spot.

“How were my kids going to respond,” Gibbs asked. “Brayden was learning an entirely new offense his senior year. Those were the concerns.”

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To say things have gone well would be the understatement of the year.

“When we welcomed Ty Harper to our district as a social studies teacher, we also knew we were bringing in one of the premier high school head football coaches in the state,” Liddell said. “Adding Coach Payne as our defensive coordinator was an additional blessing — as you’d be hard-pressed to find a stronger coaching combination. … They have done an amazing job this past season.”

Chautauqua Lake/Westfield/Brocton started the year 4-0, including a 49-8 win over nonleague Tonawanda to open the year and a 14-12 victory over Clymer/Sherman/Panama in Week 4 as Harper returned to Clymer.

“I’m so impressed with how quickly Brayden has been able to pick things up and a lot of that is his work ethic,” Harper said. “He reached out to me after the first game against Tonawanda and asked if I’d be willing to come in on a Sunday and watch film with him. We’ve made that a weekly date. Every Sunday, Brayden and I watch film together for however long it takes. We talk about some things we might want to install for that coming week. He’s just been phenomenal. I can’t say enough about Brayden Gibbs.”

The Eagles outscored their first four opponents 149-20 before running into a 45-0 loss against Southwestern/Frewsburg during Week 5 homecoming festivities in Mayville. That became a turning point for the season, and Harper believes the Gibbs boys have been a big part of that.

“We got embarrassed and within a half-hour of me getting to my house, I had a text message from Tristen Gibbs. He said ‘I’m sorry for the way I played tonight. That won’t happen again.’ He’s been tremendous the second half of the season. Nobody watches more film than Tristen Gibbs. He’s locked in at practice every day and offensively, he’s taken on a much larger role. … Tristen Gibbs is going to be a huge part of what we do moving forward.”

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Moving forward is what the entire Gibbs family has done.

A 7-1 record, including 6-1 in Class C South, earned Chautauqua Lake/Westfield/Brocton a home quarterfinal playoff game. The Eagles beat Akron 70-12 to earn a semifinal date with Barker/Royalton-Hartland.

In the hours before the Eagles traveled to Barker to take on the Bulls, Ryan Gibbs received a phone call from Dan Palmer of WDOE radio in Dunkirk asking if he’d do color commentary for the game with Greg Larson.

“I had never called a game before. I was in a tree stand that day when Dan Palmer called me,” Ryan said. “I had found a little corner at games and I think I actually went down and said something to my kids after a game maybe twice. Other than that, I just kind of stayed in the background and didn’t want anybody to know I was there.”

But Ryan agreed to do the radio call and watched as Chautauqua Lake/Westfield/Brocton beat Barker/Royalton-Hartland 30-13 to advance to the title game. And as the game ended, Brayden and Harper shared an embrace on the sideline.

“It was so awesome. I didn’t know that Cody (Jacobson) had captured it,” Ryan said of the picture that accompanied his Facebook post. “For a dad, for all three of us, to go through the changes and witness that was pretty awesome.”

Six days later, the Eagles beat Southwestern/Frewsburg 21-0 in a rematch of their Week 5 blowout that catapulted the Trojans to an undefeated regular season. When it came time to dump a Gatorade cooler full of water on Harper, it was Brayden Gibbs leading the charge.

“It was emotional. That’s been the goal; let’s go win a sectional championship. To see Brayden and Tristen get that moment and both of them play well in that game was the cherry on top,” said Ryan, who could only watch from a radio booth above the field at Highmark Stadium as Brayden ran over to the crowd to hug Stephanie. “I’m doing the postgame show, looking out the window and seeing him with my wife. I saw him dump the water on Coach Harper. It’s been fantastic. I’m loving this radio thing. I was kind of nervous in the beginning, but it’s a chance to talk about football. I feel like I’m in a bubble. It’s just me and Greg talking, which has been pretty cool.”

Ryan will get at least one more chance to return to his bubble this weekend at All-High Stadium as the Eagles take on Section V champion Alexander/Pembroke in the Far West Regional. After hunting in Illinois all week, he will drive overnight Friday and get home early Saturday, just in time to drive to Buffalo.

“I don’t think the Facebook post changes anything, but it’s just a good feeling to know that Ryan is in a good place and that he’s enjoying the opportunity to call his sons’ games on the radio. I’ve listened a little bit and he’s doing a phenomenal job,” Harper said. “To know that he is at peace makes me really happy.”