Inside College Football
By John Walters
Posted: Wed October 21, 1998
Profiting from Experience
Former Wisconsin soda vendor Donnel Thompson has earned his due
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Wisconsin's coach says Thompson is "all business" on the field.
(Tom Lynn)
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"Football's a business," says Wisconsin junior linebacker Donnel
Thompson. "I understand that." Thompson, one of four co-captains
for the 7-0 Badgers, has had a lifetime education in gridiron
capitalism. He grew up in Madison, just two blocks north of Camp
Randall Stadium. Starting at age six, he and his younger
brother, Bryson, spent game days holding parking signs to lure
fans to the Thompson house on Rowley Avenue, where their dad,
Curtis, would close the deal. "I always told them to just be
polite and point the cars my way," says Curtis. "Never discuss
price."
By the time Donnel was in sixth grade, his Saturday workload had
expanded. Shortly before kickoff, he would dump his billboard,
run to the stadium and sell sodas in the stands. Within the
confines of Camp Randall, he was an unharnessable force. "We were
assigned sections," says Thompson, who earned a 10% commission
for each rack of sodas he sold, "but I was so competitive that
I'd venture into other areas."
Thompson's greatest business lesson, though, came during his
senior year at Madison West High, when he broke his right arm in
the third game. An all-conference linebacker as a junior,
Thompson had received mail from nearly every Big Ten school;
suddenly, the mail all but stopped. "Nobody wants to recruit a
linebacker with a broken arm," says Thompson, "especially not
one who was six foot, 215."
Wisconsin coach Barry Alvarez did invite Thompson to walk on,
and given a chance to work the field at Camp Randall, he grew
into an unharnessable force as a linebacker. His 150 tackles in
his first two seasons were more than any other defender in
Badgers history. He has 62 more this year, including five in
Wisconsin's 37-3 victory over Illinois last Saturday.
"From the very first day we put on pads, Donnel has impressed
me," says Alvarez. "We yelled at him the first few weeks he
practiced with us because he would not let a ballcarrier go by
him, even when we were walking through plays with no pads."
The life of a walk-on is no picnic. As a freshman, Thompson would
practice with the team until 6 p.m. Scholarship players then
dined at the training table before attending a mandatory study
hall in an adjacent building at 7 p.m. Thompson was supposed to
eat in his dormitory, but the trek across campus and back would
have meant being late for study hall. So he would hang around the
practice facility, waiting. "After study hall he'd just walk home
to eat with us," says Curtis. "I never saw a kid look so
exhausted."
After his freshman year, Thompson was awarded a scholarship. Last
winter a wiser Alvarez visited the family and offered one to
Bryson, who now backs up Donnel at linebacker.
"Donnel took the opportunity, earned a scholarship and became the
leader of our defense," says Alvarez. "You know why? He's all
business when he steps on the field."
Issue date: October 26, 1998
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