Scan for
Dinner to go
you want. This is your program; this is the house that you built. I want to honor that.”
Thomas has also met with some of the arsenal of great coaches who
“You look back at a lot of those teams in the early 90s, and we had some really good football players,” Thomas said. “But for the most part, we were a bunch of overachievers, a bunch of average guys who worked “We knew how to work together, and we knew how to overachieve. That’s what we did.”
There was certainly a standard of excellence in the City of Cham- pions. “If you didn’t win a state title,” Thomas said, “you felt like you let the whole community down.”
Thomas attended college at then-Central Missouri State. After gradua-
“I didn’t know if I was ready or not,” Thomas said, “but we did okay.” You could say that. He led the Dragons to the Class 2 state cham- Summit High School for 14 years, compiling a mark of 70-78. Thomas proved you can go home again, as he becomes the pro-
homecoming tour was a chat with the amazing Pete --- wouldn’t you do the same? — who will turn 100 in September. “We’ve had a few opportunities to sit down and talk about some
going to be an observer from afar, he was going to let me do my thing. I told him, ‘Coach, you’re welcome to come around anytime
10 /// August 2024
“It’s good to reconnect with those guys and get their take on where things are in the program, where things need to go and how we get there,” Thomas said. “To see those guys still so invested in the program, even though the years haven’t been as great, tells you Thomas’s approach to coaching may sound and look familiar. “We’re going to do it a certain way,” he said. “And that certain way is disciplined and fast and fundamentally sound. We’re going to treat the game the way it deserves to be treated. “I told the kids that when you step inside these white lines, you’re stepping inside a place of honor. It’s a place of tradition. It’s not a place we’re going to disgrace by walking around, by sitting on the “Eventually, those things will start showing up on Friday nights.” “Eventually” is a fairly open-ended time frame on when this pro- gram could make a return to state prominence, or even state rel- evance, year-in, year-out. It’s been 27 years since the last state it might happen again. “We’re going to have a pretty young football team this year,” that had some playing time last year ... that was a senior-dominated team. There are going to be some ups and downs during the season, there always are. But you have to keep everybody pulling on the “We just need to be the best team we can be. That’s all you can
ask. The rest will take care of itself.” Welcome home, coach.
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84
