Count Thomas wanted to show an old friend how far he had come.
It was 2013, and a 24-year-old Thomas then patrolled the Seattle Seahawks’ Boom Legion. The franchise was just a few weeks away from its first Super Bowl championship, and Thomas took his high school trainer, Texas Hall of Fame, Dan Hooks, and his wife to see the end of the Seahawks’ regular season against St. Louis Rams.
After the Seahawks passed the Rams, Hooks found themselves at Thomas’ house for dinner, surrounded by luxury. He ignored the waters of the lake while Nina Thomas, Earl’s future wife, prepared a tender steak. After dinner, Thomas accompanied Hooks to his garage to check on the Lamborghini Murcielago. Hooks can’t remember whether the car was blue or white, but he definitely remembers the scissor doors and hand-stitched leather seats, a rare glimpse of a player he has always considered a bit of an introvert.
Thomas emphasized that he never drove in the rain or in the mud.
Seven years later, Hooks wonders how Thomas – a formerly proud ace now unemployed after a difficult season with the Baltimore Ravens and well-publicized problems off the pitch – is sailing under the same conditions in his life.
“I was really surprised when he got off the line like that,” said Hooks, who trained Thomas at Orange-Stark High School. “As time went by, the image he represented was becoming a little different. I don’t know what happened. But he is a great boy and I wish him success.”
After nearly $ 90 million in career earnings, seven Pro Bowls and three All-Pro teams, Thomas played deep safety on a likely path to the Hall of Fame. But a series of bizarre events on and off the field towards the end of his career raised questions about a legacy crumbling, including:
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He ended his career in Seattle by showing his middle finger to Pete Carroll on September 30, 2018, after a leg injury and a close contract dispute.
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He ended his career in Baltimore with a punch, with teammates tired of his performance long before fighting against safety Chuck Clark during a practice on the training ground on August 21, 2020. Two days later, the Ravens cut for conduct harmful to 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 under suspicion of cheating, according to the case file – took the focus off football.
Thomas is now 31 and hopeful for one 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 trains many NFL athletes outside Austin.
“He feels he has a lot more to prove,” said Hills. “He will appear ready when he receives the call.”
Blake Gideon, a former security guard at the University of Texas who shared the defensive field with Thomas, supports this claim, saying that Thomas has conveyed in recent text messages that he “understands the position he is in and is anxious” to correct it with another chance.
Many former teammates and coaches said that the new stories about Thomas, who did not respond to ESPN’s various attempts to contact him, do not correspond to the person they know: a quiet but loyal individual who does not trust others easily , but worries deeply as the walls are broken, with a rare focus of football that some mistake for ice.
That last part complicated Thomas’s status in several locker rooms. His relentless pursuit of greatness could create an abyss that many former teammates did not want to discuss officially out of respect for Thomas’s career.
As an old Seahawk said, Thomas was “very much like Kobe” in his competitive drive. Kobe Bryant has evolved and was loved when he retired in 2016. Is Thomas going to say goodbye or has the game already said that for him?
Faith and Family in Orange, Texas
Almost everything a young Thomas did seemed orderly.
His interest in music became not just a hobby, but a container for the entire church body, playing drums and organ in the Sunday worship band in Orange, Texas.
A quiet boy with a matching tie and waistcoat helped lift the Sixth Street Community Church congregation out of their seats. Sixth Street, located on the east side of Orange – which the church’s Facebook page calls “devil’s territory” because of crime and drugs in the area – spread joy in a brown brick building. Thomas’s 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 went to church three nights a week, in addition to weekends. The services were “filled with the Holy Spirit – screams and spirits moving,” he said, and although Thomas was not the cheerful type, he prided himself on helping others to celebrate God through music.
“He knew how to play all the instruments. He was just gifted like that,” said Richard. “I think he learned to play by staying close.”
Having grown up in Orange – nicknamed “Fruit City”, located on the border of Texas and Louisiana with a population of about 11,000 – Thomas cut grass with his father on weekends. Locals knew Thomas as Debbie Thomas’ “miracle baby” because doctors told her, a cancer survivor, that she couldn’t have children. Instead, “God has blessed you with a millionaire,” said Richard.
Thomas has arguably become Orange’s best player since former Dallas Cowboy All-Pro cornerback Kevin Smith in the 1980s. Thomas was a hybrid cornerback-running back who hated to leave the field. No test, in the field or standardized, would prevent its rise.
High school teammate Depauldrick Garrett remembers Thomas struggling with his SAT scores to qualify for the University of Texas. Before his last qualifying attempt, Thomas told him on the spot: “If I pass that score, I will go to the league.”
“His level of focus was just different,” said Garrett. “He wanted to make a name for Orange and learned the value of hard work with his family.”