SPORTS AOTW: Charles Thomas

Age 18 | School Iouthwest | Grade Senior

Last week was a big one for the Southwest High basketball program.

The Eagles won tight games over Brawley and Central to clinch their first Imperial Valley League title in boys’ basketball since 2012.

In the middle of it all — both literally and figuratively — was senior center Charles Thomas, whose IVL-outlier height and solid sense of where to be on the court give Southwest an innate rebounding advantage against many matchups, particularly on the offensive glass where Thomas gets a lot of his buckets.

Against Brawley, the big man had the game of his life, scoring 31 of the Eagles’ 56 points and grabbing 17 rebounds, as the Wildcats had no answer for his physical presence.

Thomas’s scoring total dropped in the rock fight that was Eagles versus Spartans, but he still finished second on the team with 12 points, most of which came in the second half to help wall off a Central comeback.

For Thomas the experience of winning a league title was “phenomenal.”

It represents a culmination of not only the team’s journey from last season to this one — one that involved a nearly complete roster overhaul after a 2018 CIF-SDS finals appearance, and a 2-9 stretch in December — but also Thomas’s personal road back from a devastating knee injury that wiped out his entire junior year.

According to Thomas, this season has felt especially good, “because I’d been wanting to play.”

“Even (immediately) after my surgery (to repair a torn ACL) I [was] asking my coaches, ‘Can I play, can I play, can I play?’ but I had to be cleared first,” he said.

“I [wanted] to get back but I had to do the extra work … a lot of physical therapy — a lot of exercises, a lot of running (and) using the bicycle to regain strength and get to where I am now.”

If last week can serve as any indication, Thomas’s efforts have paid off.

He confirms that the knee “feels good” and that he’s “not babying it.”

“I’m just going full throttle,” he says. Which is good for the Eagles, who despite having moved up into Division III this year, still aspire to a deep postseason run.

“We want to go back to the finals, like last year,” Thomas said, “And bring something back for the school.”