Thurman completes hall calls
Will join Dombrowski for college induction
By Allen Wilson
NEWS SPORTS REPORTER
Updated: 05/02/08 6:39 AM
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- Thurman Thomas will be enshrined in the College Football Hall of Fame in the summer of 2009.
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Thurman Thomas is in a lot of athletic halls of fame. Now he’ll join the only one that has escaped him.
The Buffalo Bills great was named to the Bowl Subdivision (formerly Division I-A) College Football Hall of Fame, the National Football Foundation announced Thursday.
Williamsville native and former University of Virginia and NFL offensive lineman Jim Dombrowski also is part of the 2008 class, which includes 13 players and two coaches. They will be inducted at the NFF banquet in New York in December and enshrined in the summer of 2009 at the Hall of Fame in South Bend, Ind.
Thomas was inducted to the Pro Football Hall of Fame last year, culminating a 13-year NFL career that included 12 seasons with the Bills, who selected him in the second round of the 1988 NFL Draft.
He wasn’t too shabby at Oklahoma State, either, which is why he’ll be joining the greats of college football.
“I wish this would have come first and pro football was the last one just to go through the progression of my whole career,” Thomas said Thursday. “But this is obviously a great honor. There have been so many great college football players to come through the ranks in Division I, II, III and so on. To be up there, especially as part of the class I’m going in with, it’s a great feeling. It’s just awesome. It just solidifies some of the things I did in my life and my career.”
Thomas was a two-time first-team All-American. He was first honored in 1985 and was a consensus choice in 1987, a year after returning from a serious knee injury. He rushed for 4,595 yards and 44 touchdowns at Oklahoma State despite missing much of his junior year with the injury. The native of Missouri City, Texas, had 21 100-yard games and was named MVP in the 1984 and ’87 Gator Bowls.
“My expectations were real high coming into Oklahoma State,” Thomas said. “In my freshman year, I wanted to be on a team that was on the rise, sort of like the Buffalo Bills were when I got drafted here. I think that’s every kid’s dream, to get to a major program and you’re the star. That took a back seat back in 1986 when I hurt my knee. I didn’t know how my career would turn out after that. But I hung in there, and with a lot of hard work and a lot of determination, I worked my way back up to maybe playing in the National Football League.”
Thomas gives a lot of credit to his Oklahoma State coach, Pat Jones, for much of his college success. Thomas was so good that Barry Sanders couldn’t get much playing time at tailback until Thomas headed for the NFL.
However, Thomas said he might not have achieved what he did in college if he didn’t have Sanders looking over his shoulder.
“He was a guy who pushed me to a level where I had to get better and I had to stay above him because we all know how he turned out, winning the Heisman Trophy after I left and getting into the [Pro Football and College] Hall of Fame,” said Thomas, who moved back to the Buffalo area last year. “I was a better football player because of him.”
Growing up in Williamsville, Dombrowski’s sports passion was ice hockey. But he turned into a pretty good football player. He was a first-team All-Western New York selection as a senior at Williamsville South. Local high school football maven Dick Gallagher gives out an award bearing Dombrowski’s name to the area’s top offensive lineman at his annual banquet.
Dombrowski went on to Virginia, where he anchored the offensive line for four straight seasons (1982-85) and finished his career as the Cavaliers’ first-ever unanimous All-American.
He was a first-round draft pick (sixth overall) by New Orleans in 1986. He spent 11 seasons with the Saints (1986-96) and played in a club-record 147 consecutive games. He was inducted to the Saints’ Hall of Fame in 2003. Dombrowski is a certified financial planner in Mandeville, La., but his parents and many other relatives still live in the Buffalo area.
“I always enjoyed athletics, no matter what sport I was playing when I was growing up, and I just wanted to go out, have fun and do the best I could,” he said during a conference call. “I never even thought about getting a college scholarship until I started getting recruited after my senior year. When I was at UVa, I was just trying to find a spot on the team and find a spot on the field to play.
“I never thought about being drafted in the NFL until after my junior year. When some of the guys I played against were going pretty high in the draft, I said, ‘Hmm, maybe I can do this as a career.’ But I never looked beyond where I was. I always wanted to enjoy where I was and take full advantage of it. Do the best you can, have fun while you’re doing it and then let the chips fall.”
Syracuse quarterback Don Mc- Pherson (1984-87) also will be inducted. He led the Orange to an 11-0-1 record in 1987 while finishing second to Notre Dame receiver Tim Brown in the Heisman Trophy voting.
The other players selected for enshrinement are: quarterback Troy Aikman (UCLA, 1987-88), Heisman Trophy-winning running back Billy Cannon (LSU, 1957-59), linebacker Pat Fitzgerald (Northwestern, 1994-96), linebacker Wilber Marshall (Florida, 1980-83), running back Rueben Mayes (Washington State, 1982-85), offensive guard Randall McDaniel (Arizona State, 1984-87), tight end Jay Novacek (Wyoming, 1982-84), receiver Dave Parks (Texas Tech, 1961-63), nose guard Ron Simmons (Florida State, 1977-80) and quarterback Arnold Tucker (Army, 1944-46).
The coaches going in are Lou Holtz and John Cooper. Holtz had 249 victories in a 30-year coaching career at six schools. He led Notre Dame to the 1988 national championship and is the only coach to guide six programs to bowl games. Cooper recorded 192 victories in a 24-year career at three schools, including Ohio State.
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The Bills claimed quarterback Matt Baker off waivers Thursday. The 6-foot-2, 212-pounder, who spent the last three months with the Dolphins, signed with the Texans as an undrafted free agent from North Carolina in 2006. He has been on the practice squads of the Cowboys, Cardinals and Saints.
