Finally!

Steve Guiremand

Thursday, Sept. 7, 2000 | 10:34 a.m.

Years before Shaquille O'Neal was helping the Lakers win the NBA championship, there was another athlete with a large Superman "S" tattoo on his arm who was the talk of the Southern California sporting scene.

He was a high school athlete from Dominguez High School in Compton named Jason Thomas.

Like Shaq, Thomas dominated basketball games with powerful dunks and strong rebounds. He attended two Nike All-American camps in Indianapolis, where he was considered one of the top 20 prospects along with the likes of Mike Bibby, Allen Iverson and Shane Battier.

Unlike Shaq, Thomas was an even better football player. At 6-foot-4 and 230 pounds, and with a 40-yard dash time of 4.5 seconds, he was considered a linebacker prospect in the Junior Seau-Willie McGinest mold. But it was at quarterback for the Dons that Thomas opened even more eyes, with his 70-yard spirals and repeated highlight-film scrambles.

Everyone from Florida State to Nebraska to USC began recruiting Thomas during his junior year. He would go on to earn Parade All-American honors and score a rare perfect 10 in the Long Beach Press-Telegram's "Best in the West" poll of college coaches a year later.

"It took me about 30 seconds to figure out he was going to be something special," said UNLV coach John Robinson, then the head coach at USC.

Robinson landed a verbal commitment from Thomas during his senior season. He was considered the crown jewel of what was perhaps USC's finest recruiting class in more than a decade. There was even talk of making room for a fifth Heisman Trophy in USC's Heritage Hall.

But Robinson was fired after the 1997 season upon losing a well-documented power struggle with athletic director Mike Garrett. Thomas never played a down for the Trojans.

Now, almost three years later, Thomas will finally fulfill his longtime dream of playing quarterback in college football when he starts -- ironically -- for Robinson's UNLV Rebels at Iowa State on Saturday.

"My whole life I've been dreaming about playing college football, watching it on TV, playing the video games, waiting for my turn," Thomas said. "Now it's finally my turn to go out and show what I can do. I'm excited."

It was all supposed to be so easy for Jason Thomas in college.

He'd go to USC, lead the Trojans to two or three Rose Bowls and maybe a national championship or two, and make a run at a Heisman Trophy. Then he'd go on to be a first-round NFL pick.

But then injury -- and with it reality -- set in during his senior year at Dominguez High.

On the night of Oct. 4, 1997, the Dons were playing a nonleague game at Antelope Valley High School when Thomas suffered what was nearly a career-ending injury.

"It was the third play of the second half," Thomas said. "It was third-and-2 and I ran a quarterback sneak. I was supposed to run up inside and try and get the two yards. Instead, I tried to belly it outside. They contained and -- pow! -- my ankle broke."

Thomas' cleats had gotten caught in the long grass. Not only did he break his right ankle and dislocate it, he also broke the bottom tip of his right fibula.

"Right when it was at the point of breaking I felt it and then I couldn't lift my foot up," Thomas said. "I just fell to the ground. I was laying there and my foot was dangling and not even making contact with the ground. It was just kind of sideways in the air.

"I remember looking up in the sky, a clear night, and thinking, 'Dang, my career might be over.' "

It actually was even worse than that. If not for the quick thinking of first-year Dominguez trainer Dana White, Thomas could have been forced to have his right foot amputated.

Instead of waiting for an ambulance and paramedics to arrive, White decided to set Thomas' injured ankle on the field.

"My artery had been blocked for about five minutes, so naturally blood was beginning to build up," Thomas said. "Their trainer was like, 'What do you want to do?' And our trainer said, 'Hey, we've got to do something.' "

"(White) asked me if Jason could stand the pain if he tried to reset it right there on the field," Charles Thomas, Jason's father, said. "I told him to go ahead."

When they arrived at Antelope Valley Hospital a short time later, they found out just how crucial a decision had been made by White.

"The doctor said that if we had waited for the ambulance to get there, it would have been too late," Jason Thomas said. "I probably would have had to have my foot amputated."

Seven pins and a metal plate were inserted into Thomas' ankle to repair the injury, which was supposed to keep him from playing football until the following August when USC began its fall camp. Remarkably, just seven weeks later Thomas was back on the field playing for the Dons in the CIF Southern Section playoffs.

"I didn't want (the injury) to be my last memory of high school football ... laying on the field and getting carted off," Thomas said. "So I had to play again."

The quick comeback, along with some poor rehab habits, came back to haunt Thomas the following year when he reported for fall practice at USC.

He quickly fell behind another talented Trojan quarterback recruit, Carson Palmer, and the decision was made for him to redshirt.

"If I had been healthy and in better shape, I think I would have had a better shot at being on the field," Thomas said. "I didn't give myself a fair shot as far as conditioning and getting ready in the summer. I wanted to hang with my friends instead and all that. I have to live with that. I made my decision and I wasn't ready. (Palmer) was and he stepped in there and did great."

Not being "The Man" was tough on Thomas. So was trying to get used to a new head coach, Paul Hackett, who was much more businesslike than Robinson, the man who originally recruited him to USC.

"I'd walk around Heritage Hall and just wait for (Hackett) to say something," Thomas said. "Coach Robinson is the kind of guy who no matter who you are is going to give you a pat on the rear and tell you a joke. I was looking for something like that from Coach Hackett. But he had just come from the NFL and he didn't have that kind of personality at that point.

"I'm sure that's probably changed a little now. I talk to Sultan (McCullough, Thomas' former SC roommate) and he tells me it's better there now. But when he first came it was all business. And if you weren't a part of that business, you just weren't a part of things, period."

Still, Thomas decided he could still become a part of Trojan business the following spring when, he says, Hackett promised him a shot at the starting job.

"He told me that I'd get a shot in the spring, that everybody has a shot," Thomas said. "I thought I had a legitimate chance at winning the job until I read the (spring) media guide. Coach Hackett was quoted in there as saying Palmer was their guy for the next three years. Once I read that, I was like, 'Then why am I even here then?' "

The final straw came on the second day of spring practice when Thomas found himself returning punts and lining up at wide receiver in some drills.

"Once I saw those signs, it didn't take me too long to make a decision to transfer," Thomas said. "I didn't want to wait until it was too late. I was outta there."

When it came time to transfer, Thomas talked with perennial top 20 schools such as Florida State, Tennessee, Nebraska and Kansas State. Instead, he decided to rejoin Robinson at UNLV, a school coming off an 0-11 record.

"Coach Robinson outweighed the whole deal," Thomas said. "I knew he was a man of his word. What if I went to another school and they pulled the same thing USC was going to do and move me to another position?

"I mean, I love UNLV and that's where I'm at -- I'm a Rebel. But if Coach Robinson wasn't here, I wouldn't be here. That's just reality."

The reality is also that Thomas, arguably the most highly touted football recruit in school history, is being asked to take the Rebels to the promised land -- or at least a bowl game or two.

That suits Thomas just fine.

"It's not pressure, it's just part of the whole deal," Thomas said. "Nobody expects more of me than I expect of myself. As far as all the media stuff, I've been doing interviews since the ninth grade. Compared to Los Angeles and USC, where sometimes I'd have nine or 10 people wanting to interview me, this is pretty easy."

Jason Thomas is asked about the Superman tattoo on his left arm.

"I got this back in the 10th grade," he said. "I thought I was pretty tough. I was going to be the man of steel. Now I want to get this covered up.

"I'm a totally different person now than the one who got this tattoo. I think I'm more humble and more down to earth. I think that injury and all the adversity I've been through did nothing but make me a better person."

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