Tuesday, Jan. 4, 2005 | 9:37 a.m.
When the stadium lights finally dim for good, even The Man must wear a name tag.
Jason Thomas learned that over the past year as an entry-level grunt at Findlay Toyota, setting up promotions at concerts among other tedious work. Gone was the athletic promise that always defined "JT," and left was just Jason, a father trying to feed his young daughter and begin a life most would have thought ludicrous before his confidence on the field crumbled under injuries and expectations.
And after tasting adult life outside what he calls "the bubble" of sports -- where an autograph is only wanted on a time card -- Thomas decided to put it off for a while. Still only 25 years old, he needed to take one more shot at his dream of becoming the quarterback the world once expected him to be when he finished his mercurial UNLV career in 2002.
Six months after quitting his job to train full-time and just 18 months after being cut from two NFL training camps as a tight end, Thomas takes his first step toward a comeback today at Las Vegas Gladiators minicamp. He gets a two-day tryout for a spot in full training camp this month, where his best-case scenario is earning the job as backup quarterback to Clint Dolezel.
Three years after anticipating a multimillion-dollar guaranteed contract, Thomas is pouring his life into the hope of making about $35,000. It's not close to his dreams, but Thomas is just grateful to be back on the field after gaining an invitation from the Gladiators' most recent open tryout.
"I've got the bubbly stomach and all that good stuff," Thomas said Monday night after his first team meeting. "It's been a long time since I had this feeling, the competitive fire you have in your belly when it's time to compete."
He's already competing, jockeying for the best seat in the room at the meetings and playing the alpha dog part expected of a big-time quarterback.
"We'll be looking for a sense of professionalism about him," Gladiators head coach Ron James said. "We want to see that he's there to be serious about it."
Thomas is competing against former Missouri quarterback Kirk Farmer at minicamp, hoping to display renewed confidence that escaped him along with some of his physical gifts after suffering foot and shoulder injuries as a sophomore with the Rebels.
He wants to prove that draft expert Mel Kiper, Jr., was right when he called Thomas the top pro prospect in the country in 2001, to prove to his critics that the injuries really were the overriding cause of his decline thereafter, and to prove to himself that "JT" still exists within Jason Thomas. And he wants to do it all at quarterback, the position he loves.
Blade's runner
The soul searching forced by a mundane day job brought Thomas to those realizations, but he needed to make a serious physical commitment if he really wanted to try football again. In June, he put most of his belongings into his parents' home in Summerlin, arranged for Jalynn's mother to take care of her and moved in with his brother in Carson, Calif., to begin the sweat work.
Thomas hooked up with his former Pop Warner and high school coach, Walter Holloway, who was beginning his own training business.
"He knew I'm going to be on him every day," said Holloway, whose players call him Coach Blade. "I want to know what you eat every day, if you're resting."
The mutual beneficial marriage was consummated most summer mornings at 6 a.m., when the running and speed work began in the southern California heat. That went on for an hour and a half before Thomas and some former teammates went back to Holloway's house to lift weights.
And that's where Thomas really began to find the passion he felt had been lost during his trying final two years at UNLV. There is nothing fancy in the garage where they lifted, just a bench press, squat rack and some free weights. It's a far cry from anything that a guy once represented by Leigh Steinberg would consider a workout facility. But it's what Thomas needed -- a trip to his roots with a coach who has known him since childhood.
"It was taking it back to the high school work ethic," Thomas said.
Two hours of weights followed and that was often supplemented by what Thomas and Holloway call the "night shift." Thomas would come back to Holloway's house around 7 p.m. and lift alongside a man who knows something about work ethic and perseverance -- Holloway once started at outside linebacker in high school weighing just 150 pounds.
"I'd have to tell him, 'Man, go home and get some rest,"' Holloway said. "He just had that burn again, man. I just hope the fire takes him all the way this time."
Thomas stuck to that routine for two months before coming back to Las Vegas and starting informal offseason workouts with Gladiators players. He continued the two-hour morning workouts and also threw for a couple of hours a day with former Rebels teammate Troy Mason and others.
Through the past few months, Thomas added in throwing sessions with former UNLV quarterback coach Randy Whitsitt in California. The former mentor of Randall Cunningham, Whitsitt helped Thomas not only rebuild his throwing motion, but over time, his confidence as well with what Thomas termed an "Eastern medicine" style of approaching football from both physical and mental angles.
"It was almost like he and the ball were in a big fight," Whitsitt said of Thomas. "Once he couldn't control it, he started fighting with himself and fighting with the ball."
Downward spiral
That fight began years earlier. The way Jason sees it, JT began vanishing shortly after his breakout sophomore season at UNLV. After transferring from USC, Thomas led the Rebels to a Las Vegas Bowl victory in his first season. He accounted for 2,307 total yards and 25 touchdowns, valiantly playing the latter part of the season with a fracture in his foot and needing surgery on his throwing shoulder in the offseason.
Thomas now reflects maturely and humbly about the surgery that began the "perfect storm" of events that derailed a seemingly fated football career by systematically breaking his confidence.
"I was the most confident player ever," Thomas said. "It was a long road to regain it. When you have it, it's not a factor until you lose it. Any other position, you can play with a little bit of doubt."
Thomas admittedly didn't take his rehabilitation work seriously enough over the summer. He went through the same mental battles after breaking his leg at the end of his high school career, setting in motion the chain of events that brought him from USC to UNLV.
"When you're in school, you can't really see the decisions you make affecting your life 10 years down the line," Thomas said.
It's just that when you've survived being hit by a car as a 7-year-old and you've always been able to throw farther and run faster than all the other kids, it's easy to believe everything will just work itself out.
"I was like, 'Oh, I don't have to go today,"' Thomas said of the rehab and offseason work. "Only you know (how hard you work) -- my coach doesn't know, my dad doesn't know."
Thomas said he persuaded doctors to let him come back months earlier than he should have from the shoulder surgery because he felt obligated to push the Rebels forward after laying the foundation with the bowl victory. But this time, long-ingrained flaws in his throwing mechanics combined with the shoulder injury to rob Thomas of his passing ability and soon, everyone knew it.
With a weak shoulder and poor mechanics that he no longer could overcome with arm strength and playmaking ability, Thomas scuffled through his junior season with little accuracy, as all of his statistics suffered and the Rebels fell from 8-5 in 2000 to 4-7 in 2001. The Rebels struggled to a 5-7 record in Thomas' senior year, a disheartening campaign that found him on the bench by season's end.
"By the time I finished, it was just a negative situation," Thomas said.
Harsh criticism dogged him throughout the ordeal and, for the first time as an athlete, Thomas felt the doubt of those around him. Adversity still was not something Thomas was accustomed to battling.
"Everything happened good for Jason," Whitsitt said. "And it doesn't always end up with everything perfect for a great athlete like Jason."
His physical problems were becoming mental and the weight of stardom that Thomas wore like a feather on his shoulder pads suddenly became unbearable.
"You've got to understand one thing about JT," Holloway said. "Every level he has ever played at, he's been the man. And that's a lot of burden."
Man among boys
Take it all the way back to high school, when Whitsitt first saw Thomas play at Dominguez High in Compton, Calif.
"I walked away from that game saying that this guy's the Michael Jordan of football," Whitsitt said.
Thomas had heard such hyperbole since the days of youth football, even as his father, Charles, had him play on the line so as not to show favoritism. Already 6-foot-4 with a rocket arm, great speed and instinctive running ability, Thomas earned every imaginable prep honor as a quarterback and went to USC as a favorite to start as a freshman even after breaking his leg and dislocating his ankle during his senior year of high school.
He never recovered from the leg injury at USC, fell behind Carson Palmer on the depth chart, fought with then-coach Paul Hackett and ended up at UNLV when he followed John Robinson -- the coach for whome he first expected to play at USC -- here. Between his last snap in high school and his first snap with the Rebels, almost three years passed, but the expectations never had, and that's where the mental part of Whitsitt's approach aided Thomas.
Whitsitt helped Thomas regain confidence in his ability with an unflinchingly positive attitude to go with his technical advice. Thomas credits that mentality as the biggest reason he is a better prospect now than when he came out of college.
"I had to have somebody else who believed in me," Thomas said.
After spending his final college years listening to every random piece of advice about how to right his game, Thomas benefited from the steady and uplifting approach of Whitsitt.
"(His ability) isn't gone," Whitsitt said of Thomas. "It's just behind the door. It's just a matter of reopening that door again."
Thomas responded to the encouragement by getting into great shape and impressing James at the tryout by firing passes all over the field. The switch to the arena game, with its extreme speed and quirky rules, can be a difficult one and James said that will be Thomas' biggest challenge.
But having a new coach evaluating him may be a huge bonus for Thomas, who still sees uncertain looks around town from UNLV fans who expected him to resurrect the program.
"I've got kind of the luxury of not having seen anything since he came out and was draft-eligible," James said. "He looked great to me."
QB or bust
Adding in his most recent hiatus, Thomas has spent almost four and a half years since 1998 without football. He last played in a competitive setting in the summer of 2003 in training camp with the New York Jets and Atlanta Falcons. Thomas went undrafted after informing teams that he wanted to stick with playing quarterback, despite projections that he could have been picked if he was willing to convert to another position.
He signed a free agent contract with the Jets and tried to play tight end, but asked for his release after finding that he still burned to be a quarterback. The phone never rang, though, not even from the CFL or arena football. It humbled Thomas and it now gives him the mindset of a "walk-on player" fighting for his career.
"Life is about losing sometimes," Thomas said. "And what you do when you lose."
He's willing to do anything, he said. Even if he does not make it with the Gladiators, Thomas will continue to fight for a chance to be a quarterback in the AFL, af2, or basically anywhere with goalposts, and he's not yet ready to consider a position change.
"I'm going to keep playing, keep trying to play," Thomas said. "This is not my last go."
He's realistic, though, and that's why Thomas is pushing so hard while he has a few good years in front of him. His daughter is 3 years old, old enough to understand what daddy is doing, and Thomas wants Jalynn to know him both as a man and as an athlete.
"I know I can play quarterback in the Arena Football League, and I know I can play quarterback in the NFL," Thomas said.
"I just can't see a reason why I won't make it somewhere."
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