You can’t keep a good QB down

Steve Guiremand

Friday, Aug. 24, 2001 | 10:58 a.m.

Sun football writer Steve Guiremand profiles 10 potential impact players who could make -- or break -- UNLV's 2001 football season. This is the last in a 10-part series.

UNLV's schedule poster this year shows quarterback Jason Thomas pointing to the sky with the phrase "Heisman hopeful" nearby.

A UNLV player winning the Heisman Trophy?

Such a notion would have been laughable as recently as three years ago when the Rebels were the laughingstock of major college football, going 0-11 in the midst of a 16-game losing streak.

But Jason Thomas, a 6-4, 240-pound junior with a cannon for an arm, knows a thing or two about beating the odds.

And even though he doesn't have Nike chairman Phil Knight's huge pocketbook backing his campaign like Oregon quarterback Joey Harrington does, or play in a major media hub as Northwestern running back Damian Anderson does, it would be unwise to bet against Thomas winning college football's No. 1 honor.

You see, Jason Thomas is playing with house money just making it to the football field again each day.

Although it has been well-documented that Thomas came within minutes of perhaps having his left foot amputated following a serious ankle injury his senior year at Compton (Calif.) Dominguez High School, the fact the "left-handed Duante Culpepper" even was still alive in high school is a minor miracle in itself.

Forget about the fact that Thomas grew up near gang-invested areas of Compton and Carson where drive-by shootings are a routine occurrence. Thomas came within just inches of not even making it to his eighth birthday after getting hit by a car in front of his Carson home.

"It was actually similiar to how my older sister, Lois, passed away," Thomas said. "That's the eerie part of it."

Lois Ann Thomas was killed before Jason was born while running across the street to see her brother Charles. The bitter memories eventually resulted in the Thomas family moving from their Compton home to one about 15 minutes away in Carson.

"I was running across the street to my older sister (Nicole)," Thomas said. "I was running across the street yelling, 'Niki! Niki!' Then I heard my neighbor shout, 'Jason, no!' I stopped a little bit. Then this car hit me and knocked me up (into the air)."

The left arm that Thomas now uses to throw 70-yard spirals was broken. He was knocked unconscious. But, unlike his older sister, he was alive.

"I remember getting hit," Thomas said, "and then I remember having an out-of-body experience. I was knocked out. But I remember seeing my mom (Lois) driving down the street. I could see her looking into the ambulance. I saw the whole thing."

Another two or three inches and there's a good chance Jason Thomas wouldn't be alive to tell the story.

"It was really, really close man," Thomas said. "Two more inches and I would have been hit flush on."

That was the second time in less than a year that Thomas had almost been run over by a car.

"I also fell out of a car once on the way to a football practice," he said. "Luckily, I had my football equipment on which protected me.

"I was a mascot then," Thomas continued with a smile. "I wasn't actually on the team because I was too young. But I got to practice with the older kids."

Thomas would go on to become one of the most touted two-sport stars in Southern California prep history, leading Dominguez to state titles in basketball and earning perfect scores from college recruiters in football.

Despite breaking and dislocating his left ankle his senior year -- a quick-thinking Dominguez trainer is credited with possibly saving Thomas' ankle by re-setting it on the Antelope Valley High School field before paramedics arrived -- Thomas had everybody from Florida State to Nebraska to USC still recruiting him.

But it was then-Trojan head coach John Robinson who was the first to back up his scholarship offer after the injury and Thomas committed to the Trojans.

Two months later, USC athletic director Mike Garrett left Robinson a voice mail on his answering machine telling him he was fired.

Thomas stuck to his USC commitment, even though he had strong second-thoughts for Nebraska. New Trojans coach Paul Hackett then recruited another blue chip prep quarterback named Carson Palmer.

Forced to redshirt his first season at USC because his ankle hadn't fully healed, Thomas said he was assured by Hackett he'd get a fair shot at Palmer's starting quarterback job the following spring.

But on the second day of practice, he found himself fielding punts and playing wide receiver.

A few days later he obtained his scholarship release from USC so he could transfer.

Although Nebraska and Tennessee were among the schools who came after Thomas hard again, he shocked most of the nation by going to a Division I doormat that was coming off a 0-11 campaign.

The reason was simple: John Robinson.

"I call it 'divine intervention,' " Thomas says. "He just came out of the blue. He had been retired and in Hawaii. And even though I had decided to transfer, the picture wasn't clear until Coach Robinson came here. Then it was like a no-brainer for me."

Now two years later, Thomas finds himself rated one of the nation's top quarterbacks and UNLV is on the verge of its first Top 25 national ranking.