Healthy Thomas looking to make a major impact
STORRS — Eli Thomas may don the same No. 22 as a member of the UConn football team that he did during his memorable run with the Elmira ( N. Y.) Express. However, that might be the only thing that has remained constant during Thomas’ football odyssey.
It’s not only that Thomas has transitioned from a 185- pound high school running back/ safety into a 218- pound college linebacker. It is the fact that he is on the field at all.
Thomas has suffered three torn ACLs since capping his high school football career by earning New York Sportswriters Association Class AA All- State honors. He has played four games over the last four years and those came as a freshman at Lackawanna College in 2015. Thomas sat out the entire 2014 season after his first serious knee injury, and his sophomore season at Lackawanna was wiped out thanks to another major knee injury.
However, at UConn’s first preseason practice on Wednesday, Thomas found himself working with the starting unit.
“I’m excited,” Thomas said. “It’s a hunger that I can’t even describe. Even if I did describe it, nobody would be able to understand. The journey has been crazy but everything happens for a reason. I’m blessed with an amazing opportunity.”
The opportunity came when Thomas drove from Staten Island to Storrs to work out at a camp being run by UConn. The best- case scenario in Thomas’ eyes was that perhaps a team like Central Connecticut State would be intrigued enough that he would be offered a scholarship. Little did he know that another Connecticut school would step forward.
“He came to our summer camp last year really on his own accord, ran a great 40 time, tested really well and did unbelievable in the drills,” UConn linebackers coach Jon Wholley said. “We got his transcript and were able to get him in, we offered him a scholarship there and he committed to us.”
For all the numbers Thomas put together at the UConn camp, there was another one that must have jumped out to the UConn coaches — his 4.0 grade- point average in his final semester at Lackawanna. Thomas graduated from the junior college in Scranton, Pa., with a 3.8 GPA, an impressive feat considering that he was a non- qualifier coming out of high school.
“Going to Lackawanna, that was a wakeup call knowing that this could end if I don’t get my grades up,” Thomas said. “It means a lot, it shows that if you work for something you can do it. My mother was so proud and she’s my biggest fan. She’s so proud to see that after everything I’ve gone through I’m still fighting and I think it gives her hope and it lets everybody else see that just because you’re down, you’re not out, you can always come back.”
Thomas’ trials and tribulations weren’t over. His third ACL tear came after he accepted UConn’s scholarship offer. It kept him from taking part in spring practice as he was limited to conditioning drills while his teammates went through spring drills. Thomas didn’t have to go through the rehabilitation process alone, as UConn starting center Ryan Crozier was working his way back from his second torn ACL.
“He’s probably my best friend on the team,” Thomas said of Crozier. “We probably don’t have too much in common except for tearing our ACLs, but we bonded. I remember when I first got here, we were crunching pads and our ACL surgeries were a week apart. He drove past me and I was mad at him because he didn’t see me on crutches and ever since then we’ve become best friends.”
Crozier and Thomas have one more thing in common: a place on the football program’s leadership council. Last year coach Randy Edsall decided not to appoint captains and instead have a leadership council. When he made the decision to stay with the council, Crozier was one of three players named to it for the second year in a row. Thomas, even though he hadn’t gone through one practice with the team at that point, was also among the 13 players named to the leadership council for the 2018 season.
“You just watch him work and he reminds me of some of the guys that we had before who were outstanding leaders: Alfred Fincher, Ryan Krug, Uyi ( Osunde) and guys like that,” Edsall said. “He’s one of those guys that all he does is go hard. You watch him during workouts, he’s going hard. He’ll back up what he says and he’s not afraid to confront people if they aren’t doing it the right way and that to me from my perspective, when you have a guy like that, it can change the whole dynamic on your team if you don’t have it.
“He just wants to win, he wants to do the things the right way, work hard, he’s holding himself accountable the way he does and he’s working to hold other people accountable to meet that same standard. That’s what you want. Although he hasn’t stepped on the field for us, you see all these other things there and when you maybe didn’t have other people to explain that, it’s welcome relief to see somebody doing that because that’s what it takes. That one little spark, that one little moment when that particular person does something that gets the attention of everybody else.”
UConn lost all three starting linebackers from last season. Junior Joseph and Vontae Diggs, the top two tacklers, are currently in NFL training camps with Cincinnati and Washington. Thomas will have a chance to try to fill that void.
“I’m an aggressive player, I have a high motor,” Thomas said. “I’m relentless, I’m hungry when I am on the field. I don’t like to lose at all and I take everything really personally, so I’ll do anything to not lose.”