Slats Sunday  2010-05-23

FORT LAUDERDALE
Early Saturday morning and there’s a hard rain falling in the Panhandle.
“Can you hear it on the roof?” Steve Thomas asks while sitting on his porch in Pampa, Texas. The raindrops hit firm and loud. The wind is expected to kick up later this afternoon and it will cut right through this town.
“And, man, the wind really blows,” Zach Thomas says. “There’ll be dirt blowing because of the plowing and farming. Dust storms. You can’t smile too much or you’ll get dirt in your teeth.”
And just then Zach Thomas smiles.
He’s a thousand miles away at the Dolphins’ training facility but right there on the porch with his father. He’s running 40-yard sprints in the backyard and playing baseball in nearby White Deer. He’s driving that `75 Monte Carlo. You know, the one the tires never stayed on because the lug nuts were stripped?
“I can’t tell you how fortunate I was growing up,” says the heart of the Dolphins’ defense. “I mean, man, I was happy. I grew up in a good environment. You know, my father …”
Zach Thomas shakes his head.
“Man, he overcame a lot of things.”
Sitting on that porch in Pampa, Steve Thomas tells of growing up on a farm dirt poor, the son of alcoholic parents who committed suicide 10 years apart. A boy who practically raised a family himself. A self-made oil man who felt so blessed later in life that he would construct a 19-story, 2{ million-pound steel cross in the middle of this flat, dusty prairie.
The steel structure, the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ in nearby Groom, is the largest such structure in the Western Hemisphere and is visited daily by 1,000 weary travelers and tourists. It is, Steve Thomas says, a way to “leave an impression on people.”
But the greatest impression he’s ever left is on his children, by simply giving them what he never had growing up. Stability, fun, a chance to excel at the games they loved.
“You don’t see it when you’re a kid, but when you grow up you begin to understand a lot of things,” Zach Thomas mused. “My father used to be on a tractor and his dad would keep him out there so he didn’t get into athletics. He always worked and he missed a lot. But when it came time for us to play ball, to go to Little League or go to football practice, he never let work get in the way of our sports or having fun.”
So it’s here the story begins, here in the Panhandle, where a father overcame a troubling childhood to allow his son to have something better.
This is where Steve Thomas found his wealth, financially and spiritually. And, this is where Zach Thomas grew up and played his first ball. This is where he met a coach named Max Plunk, whose insights he still uses. This is where he learned no obstacle is too great, taking lessons from a father who overcame so many.
He had an iron will
There’s something you should know straight away about little Zach Thomas: He was maniacal about his weight training.
“I started in fifth grade on a Soloflex, and, man, it got out of hand,” Thomas said with a smile. “I couldn’t miss a day, and if I did, I’d be mentally ruined.”
Thomas was so obsessed with his weights that he took them on a family vacation when he was 14 to Captiva.
“You had to take a boat to go to the island we were staying at,” Steve Thomas recalled. “Well, Zach dragged the weights with him and he dropped a bunch in the water. We had to wait while he went down in 10 or 15 feet of water to retrieve his weights.”
Not that a little physical activity would bother Zach. The kid had “a tremendous threshold for pain,” his father said. Probably inherent. After all, he did survive being backed over by a truck when he was 2{. And he was known to hike barefoot.
“Zach could take pain,” brother Bart said. “I remember playing baseball once. I was batting, my dad was pitching and Zach was catching. I tipped one off and it caught Zach right in the mouth. Busted his mouth up. He cried for about 10 seconds, then got real mad and wanted to keep catching. He was bleeding all over himself.”
There was always competition with the Thomas family.
Sister Katina (now married to Dolphins defensive end Jason Taylor) was Miss Amarillo Area. Zach and Bart played basketball “like it was the NBA championship,” Steve said. And even Dad got into the act, trying to beat the boys in the 40-yard dash.
“It’s still like that when I go home,” Zach said. "My dad wants to race. He’s got great speed and he’s in great shape. He plays in a hardball league.
“But he cheats, man. My mom will say, `On your mark, get set,’ and he’ll take off. And if he starts on time, and if we get halfway (to the finish) and I’m in the lead, he’ll stop and act like he’s tripped on a rock or something.”
Steve Thomas laughs.
“I’ve got 25 years on Zach,” he says. “I think I deserve a little jump.”
Bart Thomas was a star at White Deer High School. Quarterback of the football team. Track and field. Scholarship to Texas Tech. He was 6 feet 2, 200 pounds.
Then came Zach. Built more like a fire hydrant. You know what the first impression of him on the football field was? Too small, not fast enough.
All Zach Thomas did his freshman year at White Deer in 1988 was average eight tackles a game and take them to the state championship.
A year later, however, White Deer’s program hit hard times and Zach knew he’d have to go to a bigger school if he wanted to play at a major college. White Deer was 1A. Pampa was 4A.
“At the time, I said I transferred because (Pampa) had better classes,” Zach says with a laugh. “But, really, I had a better chance of getting recruited if I went to Pampa.”
Coach Dennis Cavalier remembers the first time Zach Thomas practiced as a member of his Pampa High football team.
“We were doing a series of blocking drills from an offensive standpoint, and Zach was on the field because he was a fullback, too,” Cavalier said. "Well, Zach was very ferocious. I was holding the (tackling) dummy when it was his turn, and the field has streets on each side. Well, he came at that thing so hard he knocked me into the street. My glasses went off to one side of my face and they clipped my nose and I was bleeding.
“Zach had this look of panic on his face when I went down. I was thrilled.”
More than 10 years later Thomas will tell you he doesn’t know where he’d be today if he didn’t move to Pampa. Not only did it give him an opportunity to play at a larger school, but it was there he met defensive coach Max Plunk.
Plunk, who now coaches in Oklahoma, had just returned from a football clinic in Lubbock when he met incoming junior Thomas. It was at that clinic that Plunk was shown how to make reads off linemen, not backs.
“We were in a bar and the read was drawn up on a napkin,” Plunk said. “Basically, once you know where the linemen are going, you find the back.”
Of course, there’s more to the read. But Zach prefers it not be given away. “I don’t want some young punk taking my job,” he says with a laugh.
“You know, people always say I’m instinctive and things like that, but it doesn’t have anything to do with that,” he says. “It has to do with coaching and how I read a play. I mean, I’m using the read Max showed me today.”
Thomas has never forgotten Plunk.
While being inducted into the Texas High School Hall of Fame last spring, he invited his former coach to the ceremony and then told the audience if it wasn’t for Plunk he never would have made it in the NFL. Thomas then presented him with his plaque.
“Zach’s got a great heart, but he did it all himself,” Plunk said. “Teams had to use their tight ends to help block Zach because the tackle couldn’t handle him. We used him on offense, running down on kickoffs. He went 100 miles per hour. Coaches would give him a scouting report and then he’d spend four or five hours breaking down the report and watching film.”
Despite being All-Conference, Thomas didn’t get much more than a sniff at recruitment time. “That’s because Zach had the toos,” Cavalier said. “Too short, too slow, too light. Too a lot of stuff.”
Oklahoma came to measure Zach. Too small. Texas? Too slow. TCU, New Mexico … they had him as second-level. “He really wasn’t on anybody’s list,” Cavalier said. “Only Texas Tech would give him a chance.”
Too short? Too small? Too slow? All those obstacles and all Thomas did was go on to be a three-year starter at Tech and an All-American his senior year.
While Zach’s play at Tech was drawing attention in `95 from the Dolphins, his father was drawing attention from the rest of the country.
Tired of seeing billboards along Highway 40 advertising XXX movies and book shops, Steve Thomas figured he’d build an advertisement of his own. So in July 1995, Thomas erected the cross 190 feet tall, 110 feet wide.
The cross is so big it took eight months to build and was put in place with 300-pound steel pins. Surrounding it are life-size bronze statues of Jesus’ march to crucifixion, one of seven replicas of the Shroud of Turin and a tomb replica. Thomas has put more than $1.5 million into the site, and it’s estimated that 10 million people a year pass the cross.
“I wanted to build something to get people thinking about God,” Thomas said. “I was in a position to do that. I feel blessed, and I wanted to return the blessing.”
Blessings he never knew as a child. Steve Thomas didn’t sleep many nights because his parents would argue until 3 or 4 in the morning. “We saw a lot of aggression,” he says. And one night as he slept while a teenager, his father severely injured his mother and two sisters with a hammer. Then, realizing what he had done, his father shot and killed himself with a pistol.
“He practically had to raise his family after his dad died,” Zach said.
But Steve Thomas earned an engineering degree from Texas Tech, hit the first well he ever drilled and designed the world’s largest drilling rig. He now owns his own company.
“Sometimes what I call suffering events are actually gifts,” Steve Thomas says.
“That’s why I respect him so much,” Zach said. "When he was poor and broke, he had to work his way up. But when you see my dad, he don’t look like no millionaire. He’s a guy who wears beat-up tennis shoes. He’s not flashy. To be honest, we were a little with the silver spoon. But there were no handouts and he didn’t spoil us. Maybe a little my sister. But we worked for what we got.
“I guess that’s where I get my work ethic. My dad worked and made it on his own, and that’s probably why I just kept working. I mean, man, when I was drafted, all I wanted to do was get one year. I’m serious. I was like, `Man, just give me one year.’ I just wanted to be around football. But I worked. I learned from my dad.”
Quick hits on LB
Fast facts about Zach Thomas:
He’s scared of tornadoes. Spent $12,000 on a hyperbaricchamber to help his body recover faster. Might be homegrown in Texas but doesn’t listen to country music. He’s a hip-hop fan. He’s got a DJ mixer and makes his own CDs.
A couple other things:
He hyperventilated before last year’s opening game after he ran on the field for introductions. “Man, I was on the oxygen tank from the start,” he said. “I got so hyped, I watched Gladiator before the game, man, and that probably didn’t help.”
Second thing: His sentences, as if you haven’t noticed, can be generously dosed with the word `man.’ For instance, this exchange about his two Dobermans.
Question: Are they puppies?
Zach: “Six months old, man, but they’re getting huge, man. The male dog, man, is a bad dude, man.”
Finally, Zach doesn’t care what the Dolphins’ record is at the end of the year. All that’s important is they make it to the playoffs and they get on a roll late in the season.
“It’s like the Jets beat us every year, but they’ve been to the playoffs how many times in the last few years?” he asked. “We always hear about the Jets. Who cares? It’s like we beat Baltimore last year. Did we win the Super Bowl?”
Thomas wants to win. He also wants to help. Last year, with brother-in-law Taylor and former Dolphin Trace Armstrong, he started “Crunch out Paralysis,” a foundation to benefit the Miami Project to Cure Paralysis. He also has served as the team’s representative for the United Way.
But Thomas says he’s nowhere close to his father in the giving department.
“I’m not at his level,” he says. “He’s had more experience. I’m just glad I had a great role model like him to raise me. You know, it’s crazy how things work out. So many athletes could have made it in the NFL, but they caught up in other things, whether it was high school or junior high or college. But we lived in the country and instead of partying on Friday nights I was home weight-lifting or playing ball. My dad was a great father figure.”
Back in Pampa, back where this story started, Steve Thomas doesn’t take any of the credit for his son’s success. The way he sees it, “Kids are like sponges, and the greatest gift a parent can do is give them love.”
It’s a gift Zach Thomas has never forgotten.