'The Youngin Could Play': Coaches Remember Life Of Derrick Thomas

TUSCALOOSA, AL — Former Alabama Crimson Tide head football coach Bill Curry recalled meeting two or three times with Kansas City Chiefs head coach Marty Schottenheimer and a young defensive coordinator named Bill Cowher in the lead-up to the 1989 NFL Draft.

The now-legendary pair of NFL coaches expressed concern over using their fourth-overall pick in the draft on a 230-pound Crimson Tide linebacker. Derrick Thomas was already a household name following the 1988 season under Curry, which saw him break the NCAA record for sacks in a single season with 27 — a record that stands to this day. He also carried plenty of hardware, winning the Butkus Award and finishing 10th in voting for the Heisman Trophy.

"I said you won’t be wasting [the draft pick], buddy," Curry said. "I said 'you can take somebody else if you want to but he’s going to beat your brains out for the next 15 years.' You don’t even have to be smart to see that."

Curry spoke candidly to Patch this week about Thomas, with Monday marking 21 years since the Crimson Tide legend and NFL Hall of Fame linebacker died several days after a vehicle wreck left him paralyzed from the waist down.

"It's hard to believe that your former players are in their 50s and that some of them are gone, but that’s the tragic case with Derrick," he said. "Derrick was the best football player I’ve ever coached and one of the two or three best I’ve ever seen, with Walter Payton, Willie Davis and Jim Brown. I had just never seen anyone that could play that hard, that long, without ever letting up."

By Curry's own admission, he and his star linebacker did not always see eye-to-eye, namely on class attendance and Thomas' love of driving fast in his early years with the Crimson Tide.

"He never did anything that was major trouble at all," Curry pointed out. "He cut some classes and had some traffic tickets, but I took his car and he didn’t like me much after that. But we could not think about the possibility of him not being available when we played and I said 'you’re not getting another ticket this week.' At the time, he agreed but after a while, he wasn’t too happy about it. But I gave it back eventually."

'He could literally wrap his body around a flagpole rushing the passer. He could make his feet go one way and his head and shoulders another. I don’t know how he did it, he just had a great knack for rushing the passer.' - former Alabama defensive coordinator Joe Kines.

Former Alabama defensive coordinator Joe Kines was on the Alabama coaching staff for two seasons with Thomas, who he said was ready to play at a high level the second he set foot on campus in Tuscaloosa.

"Sometimes it takes them 3-4 years to develop," he said in a phone interview with Patch. "He came on board with a lot of natural ability. He could literally wrap his body around a flagpole rushing the passer. He could make his feet go one way and his head and shoulders another. I don’t know how he did it, he just had a great knack for rushing the passer."

Kines was on the sidelines with Alabama head coach Ray Perkins for Thomas' first game as a sophomore starter as the No. 5 Crimson Tide took on No. 9 Ohio State in Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey on Aug. 27, 1986. Playing in the place of legendary Crimson Tide linebacker Cornelius Bennett, who had suffered a minor injury in practice, Thomas would immediately set out to forge an unforgettable legacy at Alabama.

"Cornelius pulled a hamstring in practice and it wasn’t tremendously serious, but he missed one or two games," Kines said. "But that threw it to Derrick to have to start and he wasn’t a bit worried. The youngin could play."

Kines departed to the NFL ranks with Perkins following the 1986 season and Curry would be the man hired that would see Thomas come into his own and become one of the most iconic players in college football history.

Curry described Thomas during those years as "almost superhuman"

"We were down at LSU one night, it was a real tight game," Curry recollected. "They had a really good team and he blocked a punt, but he wasn’t supposed to. He was supposed to be checking the punter to make sure he punted and if he tried to do something weird, he was supposed to tackle him. Derrick comes up field, blocks the punt, we take it in and win the game."

Following the play and the ensuing celebration, Curry asked his star linebacker why he rushed the punter instead of watching him.

"I said it was a great play, but you weren’t suppose to do that," Curry said. "And he said 'I got there early and just decided to take it off his foot.' He was not a regular mortal. He just had reaction times and endurance and that cheerful attitude that none of the rest of us have."

The Chiefs would roll the dice on the linebacker, who went on to win AFC Rookie of the Year in 1989, before playing in nine consecutive Pro Bowls.

When asked if Thomas would be a fit in today's professional game, Curry said the elite pass-rusher would be much more valuable due to the emphasis now placed on the passing game.

"If we were lined up to play against Derrick in the NFL when I was an offensive line coach, we would not be talking about a seven-step drop to pass the ball," Curry said. "Because we wouldn’t be able to protect our quarterback. We would have to run the ball at him because if you tried to run away from him he would run it down.

"They have to sub those defensive lineman out because they get tired," Curry added, underscoring the pressure-heavy approach of NFL defenses today. "You wouldn’t have to with Derrick, he would just stay out there, and in fact, if you tried to take him out, he would be furious."

To reinforce his point, Curry provided an example from Thomas' college days, citing a performance in 1988 against Penn State and coach Joe Paterno where the linebacker wreaked absolute havoc on the Nittany Lions, snaring an eye-popping 25 tackles in an 8-3 win at Legion Field in Birmingham.

"They had a freshman quarterback who didn’t know how to audible and we won that game, all because we had a brilliant coordinator Don Lindsey, who lined Derrick up in the right place every time and he made every tackle," he said with a laugh. "That poor kid, he was just kicking himself because he didn't know what to do to stop [Thomas]."

Curry then said in today's game, Thomas — who ranks 17th in NFL history for career sacks with 126.5 — would far surpass those numbers and other major records.

"He would have so many sacks now that he would be so far ahead of LT [Lawrence Taylor] and the rest of them, Deacon Jones, the rest of them, and I'm serious," he said. "He was just a phenom, there’s no other way to describe it."

Despite a long, successful professional football career, Thomas' life was cut short after he flipped his 1999 Chevrolet Suburban on an icy Interstate 435 on January 23, 2000 as he and two friends drove to the Kansas City International Airport. Police reports from the time said Thomas and another passenger were not wearing their seatbelts and were thrown from the vehicle, while a third passenger was wearing their seatbelt and walked away from the accident.

Thomas died from complications of his injuries on Feb. 8, 2000.

Curry said he admired that Thomas was always honest with him, including when confronted about his driving. The now-retired coach, though, lamented the loss and said he wished he could have done more.

"I was just sick because I had tried to talk to him about cars and tickets and reckless driving," he said. "I felt like I had a mission, a very important job to do to get him squared away about driving a car. We spent time on that and obviously I didn’t get the job done. I think if I had worked at it better, had we done something really special, maybe we could have talked him out of it. I wish we had done better."

But as the memories, both cheerful and heartbreaking, came to the surface, the positive impact had by Thomas on so many became evident, with one anecdote in particular standing out.

Years after the conversations ahead of the 1989 NFL Draft, Curry said he was approached again by Bill Cowher, who won a Super Bowl with the Pittsburgh Steelers in 2006 and was inducted into the NFL Hall of Fame in 2020.

"He confessed he would have never become a head coach in the NFL had I not talked to them about Derrick Thomas," Curry said. "I didn’t have to talk to them, though. I can’t take credit for it, but just told them to watch the film ... There’s never been another like him and there won’t be again. He was the best."

Ryan Phillips is an award-winning journalist, editor and columnist who is the community publisher for Tuscaloosa Patch. To reach Phillips with comments, news tips or sponsorship inquires, email ryan.phillips@patch.com.