DUBLIN, Ga. – Demaryius Thomas’ parents see their son every day.
A picture of the former NFL star hangs against a wall in Katina Smith’s home, and Bobby Thomas, his father, keeps the same image on his cellphone. It depicts a precious moment that now seems foreboding: The two beaming parents surround their son in the moments after his Denver Broncos win Super Bowl 50, while Demaryius looks down with a pained expression and scratches the back of his head.
The receiver was tackled by Carolina Panthers linebacker Luke Kuechly during the game and had such a bad headache that he missed most of the games after the win.
“He said, ‘Hey, everybody, I’ve got to leave and go by myself because I’m not feeling too well,'” Smith recounted. “So, you know, he left and he didn’t even finish the celebration or anything.”
Demaryius Thomas died in December at age 33, just months after retiring from a Pro-Bowl NFL career in which his charisma, humility and team spirit on the field made him a teammate and fan favorite. Those closest to him said his behavior became increasingly erratic in the last year of his life, marked by memory loss, paranoia and isolation that are hallmarks of chronic traumatic encephalopathy, the degenerative brain disease associated with repeated hit his head.
On Tuesday, Boston University doctors announced that Thomas was posthumously diagnosed with Stage 2 CTE, but his life and death were also complicated by seizures triggered by a 2019 car accident. They struck with little or no warning and made Thomas crash other cars and fall down the stairs. The medical examiner’s office in Fulton County, Georgia, has not yet ruled on his cause of death, but doctors in Boston said he most likely died after a seizure.
“He had two different conditions at the same time,” said Dr. Ann McKee, the neurologist who examined Thomas’ brain. She added that seizures are not usually associated with CTE
Because of the dual conditions, Thomas’ CTE diagnosis doesn’t bring the neat clarity that has entwined the deaths of other NFL players. His family, friends and former teammates won’t know how much football was responsible for Thomas’ struggles, and are only now beginning to come to grips with the extent to which he is suffering.
“It amazes me now when we talk about how a young man of that age can be in so much pain and still smile,” said Carlos Jones, Thomas’ pastor, who was with him when a seizure caused Thomas to fall on the stairs at his home in early 2021. “It was just a testament to how strong he was.”
They reunited at the Super Bowl
Football changed the trajectory of Thomas’ life, his achievements on the field helping to stabilize his family, which was broken during his adolescence.
Thomas was born on Christmas Day, 1987, in Montrose, Georgia, a small town between Macon and Savannah. Katina was 15 when she gave birth to him and never married Bobby, who joined the army and was often away.
When Thomas was 11, federal agents raided the family’s home with a search warrant and found money linked to a drug ring run by Smith’s mother, Minnie Pearl Thomas. They arrested Smith for conspiracy to distribute cocaine, and after she refused to testify against her mother, she was sentenced to 20 years in prison. Minnie Pearl Thomas received a life sentence.
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Thomas bounced from home to home for several years before settling in with Bobby Thomas’ sister, Shirley, and her husband, James. Thomas was bullied by classmates because his mother was in prison, but he found solace and validation in athletics, football and basketball. In sports, overcoming pain was the key to his success.
“He had a lot of injuries that he played through and he always said, ‘You know how I was raised, you know how I was trained, I’m not going to let my team down,'” said Paul Williams, Thomas’ high school basketball coach and a close friend. He said Thomas always had a ready smile despite his many challenges off the field.
Denver selected Thomas 22nd overall in 2010, the first receiver taken that year, and his career skyrocketed when quarterback Peyton Manning arrived in 2012, the first of five straight years in which he had 1,000 or more receiving yards. Thomas became a mentor to many teammates, including Bennie Fowler, another receiver, and was a beloved teammate for his kind, workmanlike approach to the game.
Denver reached the Super Bowl the following season and was defeated by the Seattle Seahawks, but Thomas’ 13 catches set the then-record for receptions in the title game.
In the run-up to Thomas’ next championship appearance, his family history has garnered as much attention as his play. After 17 years of appeals and lobbying by the family, President Barack Obama commuted Smith’s sentence as part of the Justice Department’s focus on pardoning nonviolent drug offenders. Their story became a focus in the build-up to Super Bowl 50, with the media widely reporting that Smith would finally be able to watch her son play in person on the game’s biggest stage.
Thomas, who has been meeting with lawyers and who wrote a letter to Obama on his mother’s behalf, has never been happier.
“He loved her to death,” said Jamuel Jones, one of Thomas’ high school friends. “I saw a spark in him when she came out. They talked every day. That was his main goal, to get them out,” he said, referring to Thomas’ mother and grandmother.
(Obama commuted the sentence of Minnie Pearl Thomas in 2016.)
“It’s not easy to leave football.”
As much as football elevated Thomas, it also contributed somewhat to his rapid decline. In the years since that high-water mark shown in the painting, Manning has retired and Thomas’ injuries have piled up. Smith said her son told her his peripheral vision was reduced.
In 2019, Thomas was driving 70 mph in a 30 mph zone in Denver when he lost control and flipped his car several times. His head smashed the windshield and it took the Jaws of Life to extricate him from the vehicle. Jamuel Jones, who also played college football, was riding in the passenger seat and said doctors told both players that their ability to take hits may have saved their lives.
Thomas played one final season with the Jets, then returned home to Georgia, his life at a crossroads. He was out of contract and unsure if he would play during the pandemic, but was still determined to get 237 more yards to reach 10,000 career receiving yards. So he trained five days a week, but his return was halted by seizures that began in the fall of 2020.
As the number and intensity of seizures increased, neurologists told him they might be stress-related. The anti-seizure medication Thomas was taking made it slow, and the second prescription didn’t stop them, so he tried ozone therapy, a hyperbaric chamber, massages and other treatments that didn’t last long.
“He spent a lot of money on his body and look what happened, you know?” said Bobby Thomas, who fell into a depression when Demaryius died that deepened when he learned the severity of his son’s condition.
“I didn’t know it was that bad.”
In a video announcing his retirement last June, Demaryius Thomas admitted he was trying to find his way. He said he is still deciding what to do next and wants to build relationships with anyone who can help. “It’s not easy to leave football,” he said. “Because that’s my main thing, just trying to find myself and put love out.”
Thomas plans to create a foundation to help single mothers. He had earned $75 million playing football and invested some of it in various businesses. He wanted to build a compound where his whole family could live.
But he also isolated himself and was used by former friends.
His parents said Demaryius stopped returning their texts and calls, and Bobby remembers his paranoia growing to the point that he never left home without a gun.
After Thomas died on December 9, family members discovered that money, guns and football memorabilia had been stolen from his home. The police arrested several men who were fraudsters in the last year of his life.
Thomas’ death shocked his former teammates, who sought ways to publicly remember him. Manning started two scholarships — one for Denver-area students, another at Thomas’ alma mater, Georgia Tech. Von Miller, who played for the Los Angeles Rams last season, wore a T-shirt with Thomas’ picture during playoff warmups and dedicated the team’s Super Bowl victory to him.
Fowler, Thomas’ former mentor, said he and many players believe they have some form of CTE. “It comes with the game,” he said, acknowledging that they all balance that risk with the life-changing benefits of football. Thomas was supposed to attend Fowler’s wedding this year. Instead, Fowler ended up being one of Thomas’ pallbearers.
Thomas’ parents are only now finding catharsis in talking about their son. Smith is helping Dublin city officials plan Demaryius Thomas Day on July 16, during which residents will release 88 balloons — Thomas’ Broncos uniform number. She hears about the many anonymous donations her son has made around town: shoes for children, turkeys for Thanksgiving.
Parents here also look to her for advice on whether to let their children play football. Remembering that photo of her son after Super Bowl 50 and how he reached the top of his profession only to slip away, she warns them to be careful.
“It’s a once-in-a-lifetime dream come true,” she said. But “now I’m more adamant about, hey, educate yourself about it.”
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