Fans, students and friends called him the “Ghetto Cowboy”. 1284 career receiving yards, 77 career receptions and 10 career touchdowns. That was Brandon Sheperd’s final career stat line at Oklahoma State University. With college behind, him professional teams were on the phone and the future looked bright for Sheperd’s career and life.

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                  Fast forward December 2017. Now imagine a man who has lost everything in the world; his career, his friends and his reputation. That is Brandon Sheperd today. Sheperd now lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma, taking care of his son, living with friends, with any professional football career a distant memory.

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                  Now to really know who Sheperd is, one must go back to where it all started. Born in St. Louis, Missouri, Sheperd was raised by his Mom and his two sisters. Life was rough growing up in the projects, with his dad in and out of his life and numerous people he grew up with killed or hurt for various reasons, Brandon knew at a young age something wasn’t right.

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                 “Actually my dad shot my mom in the leg, so that kinda shows and tells you just how it was growing up,” Sheperd said. “Because of stuff like that, my mindset has always been to get out of the situation I was in and to put the people that I love into a better situation.”

                 For many kids where he was from sports provided an escape from the real world, a sanctuary from all of the drugs, the crime and the killing. Sheperd tried everything; basketball, baseball, anything that could keep him active and finally with the help of a friend, Shepard found his niche. Football was his way out.

                 With his senior year of high school quickly approaching, Sheperd started receiving offers from various division one programs, providing him with an opportunity he never thought was possible… going to college.

                 “No, [going to college without football] never was a thought,” Sheperd said. “I don’t think that’s anybody’s thought growing up where I grew up. Our thought has always been if you have a ball in your hands and you’re good at it, that will be your way out.”

                 With offers on the table form some of division one’s best programs, he had some decisions to make, and with bedlam coming up, Sheperd decided to make the trip to Oklahoma State University.

                 “I had a good feeling about Stillwater. I had such a good feeling, that I caught the Greyhound up there for my official visit,” Sheperd said. “It wasn’t so much the people; it was the home feeling that you had [in Stillwater]. You felt like when you walked through the doors you could relax. It felt safe.”

                  For four years Sheperd played football for the Cowboys and after all the accolades, the highlights and the stardom, all it took was one night for all the cheering to stop and for his whole world to come crashing down.

                  It’s 3:30 a.m. and the date is March 20, 2016. Police have been dispatched to the Grand Panama Beach Resort to speak to a woman who has reportedly been raped while she slept. According to the police records, the woman went to sleep with clothes on but awoke to find a man on top of her and penetrating her.

                  Police said the women shoved the man off of her and that he fled on foot but left behind his underwear and a tan OSU embossed wallet that contained a Missouri driver’s license. The license belonged to a Mr. Brandon La Troy Sheperd.

                 Sheperd was originally in Alabama with his ex-girlfriend, her two friends and a guy named Jorge ‘Mula’ Tanafum for spring break. Tanafum told Sheperd he some friends in Panama City, so the two of them went to visit them.

                 “Basically we came in, I introduced myself and when they found out who I was, pretty much all the girls were all over me,” Sheperd said. “And as the night progressed she got more aggressive. She was sucking down bottles, grabbing me and trying to pull me into the room.”

                  The duo of Sheperd and Tanafum decided to go out on the town, he said. When they came back, she opened the door. Sheperd and the women went back to her room for about a minute and a half and when the women said she was going to bed, he left, Sheperd said.

                 “I remember her roommate was in the living room making me pizza and I literally went into her room for like a minute and a half, she acted like she was going to sleep so I left,” Sheperd said. “I woke up like an hour and a half later on the couch to her friend yelling, ‘What did you do to my friend, what did you do to my friend? Blah blah blah blah blah’. I said ‘I didn’t do anything, y’all literally saw everything we did… There is nothing to hide, like I didn’t do anything.’ That’s when I was kicked out and this whole situation occurred.”

                According to Sheperd’s testimony, that is when he was kicked out and was told to leave.

               “They said I fled the apartment but I was kicked out of the apartment. They kicked me out then called the police, so I couldn’t defend myself even if I had known. It was just a bad situation.”

                For over three months Sheperd kept living his life, putting the entire incident behind him, not knowing he had a warrant out for his arrest. Working out, talking to NFL teams and preparing for the next step in his career, he remained oblivious to the situation that was casting a shadow over him.

                “Honestly I didn’t know I had a warrant for my arrest until I got arrested in Wyoming,” Sheperd said. “Before that I was with the Panthers and they said there were some ‘red flags’. I didn’t know what they were but come to find out, I think that was the red flag they were talking about.”

                 Following the arrest June 17, 2016 no NFL team wanted to sign him, no Canadian team wanted to sign him and no arena team wanted to sign him to a professional football contract. All of the deals were off the table and Sheperd’s future looked meek.

                “I remember just sitting in jail, like ‘I didn’t do it, I didn’t,’” Sheperd said. “I stressed but I didn’t really stress. I just stayed in my own little box and just tried to keep it together and not show anybody that I was to messed up about it.”

                After being transported back to Florida, undergoing his arraignment and posting bail of $15,000, he was released in July 2016. For Sheperd all he could do was pick up the pieces of his life and wait for the judicial process to run its time.

                For Sheperd times became more trying and as the teams quit calling and the phone stopped ringing, he began to re-evaluate and found out who his real friends were.

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                “I was more pissed than anything because I knew that I didn’t do it and I had people close to me that were starting to doubt me,” Sheperd said. “Like they started to think that I might be the kind of person to do something like that and that messed up my trust. Like people I was around the most didn’t actually know me.”

               "He was always fun to be around, playing around and was always making jokes," Oklahoma State wide receiver Jalen McClesky said. "When I heard the news, I was like dang, hoping he would be okay and that it wasn't true."

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                 Sheperd began to rely more on himself, his former teammates and his closest friends as the case drew on to keep his moral up.

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                 “I really got close to ‘Shep’ my freshman year, he was kinda like that big brother role to me, getting me in the hang of things,” Oklahoma State wide receiver James Washington said. “… Shep was a unique guy and for that to happen to him, it never even crossed my mind that he could do something like that.”

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                 With his entire life rocky and the future uncertain, Sheperd started to yearn for the game football, his safety net since he was a kid, the one solid thing in his life. Inevitably he reached reached out to the Oklahoma Thunder, a semi-pro team in Tulsa as a last ditch effort to stay in football.

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                After telling them his situation and his side of the story, the team was on board. Not only did they want him to play them, they wanted to help him clear his name. With the help of his teammates and coaches, Sheperd hired a new lawyer and was able to get back on his feet, which unknown to him, would be the biggest step forward for him yet.

                  With the help of this new lawyer and legal team, as of December 6, 2017, all charges against Sheperd were dropped, in that the victim in the case no longer wished to pursue the charges. For the first time in almost two years, Sheperd was a truly free man, with the case no longer over his head.

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                  “I was like ‘Wohooo” and ran around the house like three times and killed about three steaks that night,” Sheperd said. “It was probably one of the best nights of my life.”

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                  Since the charges have been dropped and in the weeks that have followed, Sheperd has received phone calls from multiple arena football teams and has scheduled a CFL workout. All of these opportunities have come within the last week or so and as word spreads that he is a innocent man, Sheperd hopes they keep coming and that he still may have a opportunity somewhere in the pros.

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                  “Thinking back on it, I’m not glad it happened but I’m glad that I learned the stuff that I did within that two-year time span, to make me value what’s most important in life,” Sheperd said. ““I’m definitely more mature, definitely more of a thinker and definitely more of an introvert but when I step on the field I’m a completely different animal. I know I can bring the enthusiasm, the fire and just the feng shui that somebody would want for their team.”

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                  Sheperd says he knows these charges will probably always hover over him and that no matter what people are going to talk but he says that doesn’t bother him. He wants people to look at his incident as a learning experience because he doesn’t want anyone else to ever go through that again.

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                  “I was extremely happy for him for this whole thing to clear up,” Washington said. “I’m just happy for him and proud of him and wish nothing but the best for him. I know if he can just stay determined and consistent he can make it back.”

                   For Brandon, his next step is to re-establish himself and to pick up the pieces of his life that are left and to put them together in the best way he can, and he understands that it will be an uphill climb. But for Brandon for the first time in forever, his next step is completely up to him.

                  “I felt like for the first time in a long time I actually have control of my life and its not in the hands of somebody else,” he said.

By Devin Lawrence Wilber

Brandon Sheperd: From Star Receiver to Perceived Criminal and Back

A Former OSU Football Player is Forced to Pick Up the Remaining Pieces of  his Shattered Life