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SI Flashback: Thomas' chief concern Future Hall of Famer faced his toughest challenge
By Mark Mravic Issue date: January 31, 2000
In his 11 seasons with the Chiefs, nine-time Pro Bowl linebacker Derrick Thomas had become almost as familiar a figure off the field as he was on it. Kansas City fans knew of his interest in JFK conspiracy theories. They knew about the pain he still felt over the death of his father, an Air Force B-52 pilot who was shot down over Vietnam in 1972. They knew that he read to children at libraries on Saturdays before most home games as part of a program he started called the Third and Long Foundation. Now they know that Thomas needs every ounce of the indomitable spirit he has shown over the last decade to overcome the obstacle before him, one that has ended his Hall of Fame career at age 33. On Monday, a day after the one-car accident in Kansas City that killed one of his best friends and threatens to leave him paralyzed from the waist down, Thomas was flown to Jackson Memorial Hospital in his hometown of Miami, where he'll receive treatment for injuries to his spinal column. The facility is on the same campus as the Miami Project to Cure Paralysis, which was cofounded in 1985 by ex-Dolphin Nick Buoniconti after his son, Marc, was paralyzed during a college football game. Chiefs physician Jon Browne said Thomas had "good use of his upper extremities and his upper chest area." The injury, said Browne, was at the fifth cervical vertebra (which is right below the neck); Thomas also had a fracture of a thoracic vertebra.
Thomas was the cornerstone of the Kansas City franchise during the '90s. He conjured up memories of Lawrence Taylor, whose mantle as the game's top pass-rushing linebacker Thomas inherited in '90 with a 20-sack season; his breakout game was an NFL-record seven-sack outing that year against the Seahawks on Veteran's Day, a performance he dedicated to the memory of his father. "If you wanted to be a pass rusher," says Rams defensive end Grant Wistrom, "you studied film of Derrick Thomas." Thomas's star had begun to fade a bit in recent years, but if an offensive lineman didn't bring his A game, Thomas would still make him pay. Raiders left tackle Pat Harlow found that out in the 1998 opener at Arrowhead, in which Thomas turned quarterback Jeff George's afternoon into a nightmare. When insiders began to talk about Titans rookie pass-rush phenom Jevon Kearse, one name kept coming up as the standard of comparison: Thomas. This off-season he was to have taken a ride in a B-1 bomber at an Air Force base in Missouri. No doubt that flight would have honored the memory of Air Force Capt. Robert Thomas. Derrick thought his father a man of courage, a quality that the son needs now. Issue date: January 31, 2000
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