Earl Thomas wanted to show an old friend how far he had come.
It was 2013 and Thomas, 24, patrolled the Seattle Seahawks Secondary Legion. The franchise was just weeks away from its first Super Bowl championship, and Thomas led his high school coach Dan Hooks to the Texas Hall of Famer and his wife to see the end of the Seahawks’ regular season against St. Louis. Louis Rams.
After the Seahawks passed the Rams, Hooks woke up at Thomas’ house for dinner, surrounded by luxury. He overlooked the lake while Nina Thomas, Earl’s future wife, prepared a tender steak. After dinner, Thomas took Hooks to his garage to check out the Lamborghini Murcielago. The hooks don’t remember if the car was blue or white, but they certainly remember the scissor doors and hand-sewn leather seats, a rare look of a player he always considered a bit introverted.
Thomas pointed out that he had never driven her through rain or mud.
Seven years later, Hooks wonders how Thomas – a once proud player, now unemployed after a rocky season with the Baltimore Ravens and well-publicized problems on the field – is navigating the same conditions in his life.
“I was really surprised when he got off the track like that,” said Hooks, who coached Thomas at Orange-Stark High School. “As time went on, the image he represented became a little different. I don’t know what happened. But he’s a wonderful child and I wish him success.”
After nearly $ 90 million in career earnings, seven Pro Bowls and three All-Pro selections, Thomas played deep safety on a likely route to the Hall of Fame. But a series of bizarre events on and off the field, at the end of his career, raised questions about a legacy that fell apart, including:
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He ended his career in Seattle by throwing his middle finger at Pete Carroll on September 30, 2018, after a leg injury and a bitter contract dispute.
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He ended his career in Baltimore with a fist, with teammates fed up with his act before fighting safety Chuck Clark during a training camp training on August 21, 2020. Two days later, the Ravens cut him for behavior to the detriment of the team.
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Meanwhile, a well-publicized issue with his wife, Nina – who was arrested on April 13, 2020, for allegedly pointing a gun at Thomas in the face of suspicions of cheating, according to court data – caught fire on football.
Now Thomas is 31 years old and is hoping for a last chance to anchor a secondary. Throughout the season, the free agent worked five to six days a week with Jeremy Hills, a former teammate at the University of Texas who coaches many NFL athletes in Austin.
“It feels like he has a lot more to prove,” Hills said. – It will appear ready whenever it receives the call.
Blake Gideon, a former University of Texas security guard who shared the defensive field with Thomas, supports the claim, saying Thomas said in recent text messages that he “understands the position he is in and wants to” correct it with another chance. .
Many former teammates and coaches have said that the news about Thomas, who did not respond to several ESPN attempts to reach him, does not match the person I know: a quiet but loyal individual who does not trust others, but they care deeply once the walls are broken, with a rare focus on football, who make mistakes with freezing.
The last part complicated Thomas’ status in several locker rooms. His relentless search for greatness could create a chasm that many former teammates did not want to discuss in the recording out of respect for Thomas’ career.
As one old Seahawk put it, Thomas was “very much like Kobe” in his competition. Kobe Bryant evolved and was loved when he retired in 2016. Will he say goodbye to Thomas or did the game say it for him?
Faith and family in Orange, Texas
Almost everything a young Thomas did felt ordained.
His interest in music became not only a hobby, but a vessel for the whole body of the church, playing drums and organ in the Sunday service band in Orange, Texas.
A quiet boy, with a matching tie and waistcoat, helped remove the Sixth Street Community Church congregation from their seats. The sixth street, located in the eastern part of Orange – which the church’s Facebook page calls “devil’s territory” because of crime and drugs in the area – spread joy from a brown brick building. Thomas’ grandfather, Earl V. Thomas Sr., was the founding pastor, and Uncle Anthony D. Thomas took over.
Raymond Richard, Thomas’ teammate at Orange-Stark, said the boys were at church three nights a week, plus weekends. The services were “filled with the Holy Spirit – shouts and moving spirits,” he said, and although Thomas was not the animated genre, he took pride in helping others celebrate God through music.
“He could play every instrument. He was just gifted like that,” Richard said. “I think she just learned to play, being around her.”
Growing up in Orange – nicknamed “Fruit City”, located on the border between Texas and Louisiana, with a population of about 11,000, Thomas cut the grass with his father on the weekends. The locals knew Thomas as Debbie Thomas’ “miracle baby” because doctors told her, a cancer survivor, that she could not have children. Instead, “God blessed her with a millionaire,” Richard said.
Thomas became arguably the best Orange player in former Dallas Cowboy All-Pro corner Kevin Smith in the 1980s. Thomas was a hybrid defender who hated to leave the field. No test, field or standardized, would stop his ascent.
Depauldrick Garrett High School teammate remembers that Thomas struggled with his SAT scores to qualify at the University of Texas. Before his last qualifying attempt, Thomas told him on the spot: “If I pass this score, I will go to the league.”
“His level of concentration was simply different,” Garrett said. “He wanted to make a name for Orange and learned the value of hard work from his family.”