Success in life is a peace within, knowing you are working to be the man or woman that God has called you to be.
ED THOMAS
TUESDAY, JUNE 23, 2009, WAS HOT BEFORE THE SUN EVEN CAME up — hot and humid. A few early-morning thunderstorms rolled through, but the rain did nothing to help with the heat and only amped up the humidity levels. By 9:00 a.m., the heat was nearly unbearable, but that didn’t stop forty of Coach Scott Heitland’s football players from Dallas Center-Grimes High School from showing up for a football lineman clinic. When Scott was a college student, Ed hired him to coach the ninth grade football team at A-P. The next year, Scott did his student teaching under Ed. Once he graduated from college and became a head coach on his own, Scott asked Ed to do a day camp just so that his players could be around Ed Thomas. Ed was more than happy to do it. He tried to do camps for all of his former coaches who had gone on to take head coaching positions.
Scott’s offensive linemen looked forward to the camp every year. When he first arrived at Dallas Center-Grimes five years earlier, Scott had to sell the camp to his team to get them to show up. Not anymore. The first year, players came because the new coach wanted them to and because it was an opportunity to learn from a man who had taught four players who now started in the NFL. Now they came because they loved being around Ed Thomas. It was the high point of the summer for Scott’s team.
“Well, Scott, looks like you’ve got a pretty good group out here today,” Ed said as he arrived. On this particular day, Ed brought along several of his assistant coaches and former players. Ed’s brother, Greg, came over from Humboldt, Iowa to help. Like his big brother, Greg became a football coach. In 2006, his team won Iowa’s class 3A state title. He joined Ed in these camps every chance he got. Even though the two were eighteen years apart, they were close.
“Yeah, Coach, we do. It should be a great day,” Scott replied.
“Now you keep an eye on your guys for me. I don’t want them to get overheated. If you think we need an extra break, you let me know.”
“Of course I will, Coach,” Scott said.
Scott called his players together and introduced Ed.
“All right, fellas,” Ed started in, “I know a lot of you have been with me before. I appreciate your coming out here on such a hot day. Over the next couple of hours I want to show you a few of the things we do over in Parkersburg that we’ve had some success with over the years. I’m not telling you it’s the only way or the right way, but it has worked pretty good for us. Now you juniors and seniors, a lot of this may be pretty basic for you, but that’s OK. I’ve been doing this a lot of years, and I find that you win or lose based on how you do the little things. If you do the small things well, the big things will take care of themselves.
“The first thing I want to show you is the proper way to do a three-point stance.” As Ed continued to speak, he got down into a three-point stance himself. He shifted around a few times, demonstrating the wrong way to do the stance and the bad things that can happen if you mess it up. Then he shifted into a correct stance and took off as if the ball had just been snapped.
“All right, fellas. It’s your turn.” As players went through their drills, Ed paced around them. “Good job there. Hey, buddy, what’s your name?”
“Jimmy Smith, Coach.”
“Yeah, Jimmy, I remember you from last year. You’ve bulked up a lot since then.”
“Yes, sir.”
“What does your daddy do for a living, Jimmy?” “He works for the county, Coach.”
“He does, does he? I tell you what, Butler County over where I live could use some good men to come to work for them. You ought to move over there and come play for me. Whaddya say, Heit?” he said to Scott. “Whaddya think about Jimmy here coming over to play for my Falcons?”
“I don’t think so, Coach. You’re not getting your hands on this one.”
“You’re doing a good job there, Jimmy,” Ed said as he patted the kid of the back. “Keep it up. You’ve got a really good coach here.”
The player beamed. Every player on the field that morning knew this was the coach who had four linemen in the National Football League. Whenever Ed singled out a player in the camp and said he wanted him to come play for A-P, he made that player feel like he had what it took to go far in football.
During the first morning break, the players jogged over to a shady spot to get some water to drink. Ed walked over to his brother, who had found a place to sit down under a tree on the far side of the field. “I want to ask you something,” Ed said.
“Sure. Anything,” Greg replied.
“You need to tell me when I can’t do this the way I need to do it. If you see I’m not getting through to the kids and getting them to give it all they’ve got, you tell me. No one else will. The day I stop getting through to them is the day I need to get out.”
“Of course I’ll tell you. You know I’ll be straight with you. But I don’t think you have to worry. These boys today—they’re listening. When they saw you fire off the line and dive into that blocking dummy, let me tell you, you got through to them, especially on a day like today.”
“Thanks, Greg. You know, I figure I can go another fifteen years and coach all my grandsons,” Ed said with a smile. “That’s the plan anyway.”
“I think you’ll get there,” Greg said. The conversation trailed off, and Ed went over to speak to some of the other coaches. Greg watched Ed walk away. From the time he was a little boy, he had always admired his big brother as the kind of man he hoped he could be. With their age difference, Ed was almost like a second father when Greg was growing up. Once Greg graduated from college and started coaching himself, their relationship became more like the siblings they were. Like any brothers, they were fiercely competitive with one another. They played golf on Greg’s wedding day, but Ed didn’t let up on him. He beat his little brother by two strokes.
Greg never felt any pressure from being Ed Thomas’s little brother, as if his brother’s shadow kept him from being able to shine. Instead he counted himself lucky to have Ed as a brother. Greg sought out Ed’s advice constantly—from how to handle certain game situations to which job he should take. The one thing he admired about his brother above all else was Ed’s peace with his calling and mission in life. Their mother had once told Greg that she had always prayed that Ed would become a preacher, not a football coach. He told her, “Mom, Ed is changing more lives doing what he’s doing than he could ever do as a pastor. He preaches every day in the way he coaches and teaches.” To Greg, Ed understood his role on this earth more than anyone he had ever met.
“Hey, Greg,” Ed called over to him, “you ready to start back, or are you going to take a nap over there?”
“I’m coming,” Greg said as he got up and jogged over to the rest of the coaches.
“Hi, uh, can someone help me?” It was the voice of a person Jan did not recognize. He leaned over the counter of the newly rebuilt city hall. “Wow, it feels good in here. Hotter than blazes outside.”
“Yes. Air conditioning sure is nice. What can I do for you?” Jan asked.
The man reached into his pocket. “I found this lying next to Highway 57 over near the ice cream place,” he said as he laid a card on the counter. “I figure it was from the high-speed chase Saturday night. You hear about that? Can’t believe he didn’t hit anyone when he came flying through town at ninety miles an hour. I figure he must have thrown it out the window to keep the police from figuring out who he was.”
Jan picked up the card. It was a driver’s license. “I appreciate you dropping this by.”
“You know who it was, don’t you?” the man asked.
The question struck Jan as rather odd since she had the driver’s license right in front of her.
“Mark Becker,” the man continued. “Good thing he hit that deer instead of a person. That’s a wild way for a high-speed chase to end. But you know, you always gotta be careful around here. Deer are thick this time of year.”
“Yes, they are. Well, I appreciate you bringing this in. I’ll take care of it,” Jan said. As soon as the man left, Jan picked up the phone and called Joan Becker. The two had been friends nearly as long as Jan and Ed had lived in Parkersburg. Joan and her husband, Dave, had been members of Ed’s Sunday school class since he started it back in the late 1970s. Back then, it had been a young marrieds class, since everyone in the class, including Ed and Jan, were young and newly married. Now it was more like the middle-aged married-forever class.
“Hi, Joan, this is Jan. Hey listen, someone just brought in Mark’s driver’s license.”
“Thanks,” Joan replied. “I’ll come by and pick it up.”
Jan hung up the phone and looked at the license. Dave and Joan’s middle son, Mark, had played for Ed for four years, including during the 2001 state championship season. In the years since Mark had graduated, Ed kept in contact with him. Whenever he saw him at church, and those occasions were becoming more and more rare, Ed always tried to encourage Mark to do the right thing and to make good choices. “Mark, you’ve got your whole life in front of you,” Ed said to him time after time. “It doesn’t matter what’s happened so far. You’ve made a few mistakes, but that’s OK. You can turn it around. I know you can.”
Unfortunately, the talks didn’t seem to have done much good. Joan regularly requested prayer for Mark during Sunday school. Most Sundays, Ed was the one who prayed aloud for Mark. Neither Ed nor Jan knew the details of what had gone on with Mark since he graduated from high school, nor did they need to. They just knew that Dave and Joan had been through a rough time with him.
A short time later, Joan Becker came into city hall. “Hi, Jan, I appreciate you calling.”
“I knew Mark would need his license, and you are probably the best person to get it to him,” Jan said.
“I guess so. I suppose you heard he was in the high-speed chase that came through town Saturday,” Joan said.
“I did. It is a small town, you know.” Jan didn’t see the chase herself, but Aaron and Ellie had. They were in town for Father’s Day weekend. They had walked over to the local ice cream shop when a car flew by, with Chris Luhring’s car and a couple of Butler County sheriff’s cars close behind.
“It is that. After the chase they took Mark to Covenant Hospital.” Joan let out a sigh of relief. “We’ve tried to get him to go for a while now, but he didn’t want to. But now he’s there, finally. I think he’ll finally get the help he needs and get on the right meds for his mental illness.” She paused for a few moments to catch her breath. “I’m so glad he’s finally in a place where he can get some help. He should be there for a while.”
“I’m glad to hear it, Joan,” Jan said. Jan knew Mark had struggled with drug abuse in the past, but this was the first time Joan had mentioned Mark’s mental illness to her. Joan did not elaborate as to the nature of his illness, and Jan did not think it was any of her business to probe further. “You know Ed and I pray for Mark all the time, and for you and Dave. We’ll pray that this works,” Jan added.
“Thanks, Jan.”
Joan took Mark’s driver license and left. Jan went back to work. Later that night, she and Ed prayed for Mark, just as Jan told Joan they would.
During the lunch break at the offensive lineman camp, Scott Heitland invited Ed and the rest of the coaches to his house to eat. His house had a large basement that had been converted into living space, which is where he served lunch. It was the coolest spot in the house. After eating, Ed found a spot on a sofa where he leaned back and fell asleep. Through the years Ed had established a reputation as someone who could nap anywhere and everywhere. Once or twice he had caught some heat for nodding off during faculty meetings. A few minutes before 1:00, he jumped up off the couch, wide-awake, and said, “All right, let’s go.” Scott shook his head in amazement. Even asleep, Ed stuck to his schedule.
At the close of the afternoon camp session, Ed asked all the players to take a seat on a grass berm on one end of the practice field. More than any of the techniques Ed taught, this end-of-camp talk was the primary reason Scott had Ed do football camps every year. “Now, fellas, we’ve had a pretty good camp today in spite of the heat. You all worked hard out there, and I appreciate that, and I know Coach Heitland appreciates it as well. Like I told you, the techniques you learned today are not necessarily the only way to do things, but they’ve worked for me through the years. Now, if your coach tells you to do things different, you listen to him and do what he says. He knows what’s best for ya.”
Scott smiled at that line. He appreciated Ed deferring to him, but he needn’t worry about a conflict in their techniques. Since coming to Dallas Center-Grimes High School, Scott patterned most of his line drills after those he learned as an assistant coach under Ed. In fact, he already used nearly every drill and technique Ed went over on that day. That was another reason he had Ed come in for the camp. During his practices, Scott would bark things like, “Coach Thomas would be embarrassed if he saw you get off the ball like that. Line up and do it again.” Or, “There you go. That’s the way to do it. That’s exactly the way Coach Thomas showed you back in June.”
“You know, guys, I’ve been doing this for a lot of years, for thirty-seven years, to be exact. And I have to tell you that my fire and commitment and enthusiasm for this game are stronger today than they’ve ever been. I don’t know how many more years I’ll get to do this, but I plan on making the most of every one of them.
“And that’s what I want to challenge you young people with today, especially you seniors. Make the most of this opportunity you have to play this game, to leave a legacy. You see, this is about more than the game of football. The way you choose to practice, the way you choose to play each game, the way you choose to devote yourselves to giving your all every play of every game for four full quarters — all of that says a lot about how you will choose to live the rest of your lives.
“Every day that you get up out of bed, every day God gives you on this earth, is an opportunity for you. He gives you each day to do with it whatever you want. You can waste it, or you can use it for good. Just remember, what you choose to do with each day is very important because you are exchanging a day of your life for it, and you don’t know how many days you will have. When tomorrow comes, today will be gone forever. All you will have is whatever you traded this day for.
“You know, I believe the greatest gift God has given any of us is the power to choose. That’s what you get to do with every day you get to spend on this earth. You get to choose how you’re going to use it. I don’t know about you, but I want to choose to use each day for gain, not for loss. I want to choose good, not evil. I want to choose whatever is going to help me succeed and be a better person and make a positive impact on the lives of others, rather than choose things that lead to failure.
“The future is just a long string of right nows.
“I’ve found that football and life really aren’t that complicated. You always get out of it what you put into it. When you make good decisions on and off the field and choose to work hard and do your very best, no matter what you are doing, good things happen. And when you make a mistake and blow it, and goodness knows I’ve made a lot of mistakes through the years, you get back up off the ground and learn from it.
“All right, fellas, thanks for coming out today. Heit, you got anything you want to add?”
“No, Coach. I think you said it all,” Scott said.