Thomas touted as one of nation’s best

When he was little — about half his current height of 6-foot-6 and a quarter his weight of 235 pounds — Logan Thomas would wait intently for his grandfather, Cliff Thomas, to take him outside and play ball.

“My dad would be sitting there reading the newspaper and he’d have just gotten home from work,” said Dina McCray, Logan’s aunt and teammate Zack McCray’s mother. “Logan would go pick his shoes up in the closet, bring them over and set them in front of him and just stare right at the newspaper until he would get up. It was really priceless.”

Now, all eyes are on Thomas, Brookville’s senior quarterback and safety who has developed into one of the nation’s most prized college receiving prospects, ranked No. 24 in the nation and first among tight ends by Rivals.com.

As the five-star recruit entertains offers from various Division I programs — visiting his seven finalists on Saturdays this fall — Thomas will entertain multitudes of high school football fans, starting with tonight’s anticipated standing-room-only crowd at two-time defending state champion Amherst.

“Logan Thomas is one of the most rare athletes you’re going to find in this year’s recruiting class because of his size and speed combination,” said Mike Farrell of Rivals.com who nominated Thomas to play receiver in the Army All-American Bowl, the nation’s most prestigious high school all-star game, set for Jan. 5 in San Antonio.

Thomas showcased his athletic skills this summer at individual camps at Virginia, Virginia Tech and West Virginia and an elite Top Gun camp last month in Orlando, Fla.

“I met the top 60 players in the nation and played against them and it just showed me what I had to work on,” he said.

But at the same time, Thomas schooled many of his peers at the camp, playing with poise under pressure.

“He was just a dominant performer there,” Farrell said. “He really has a very competitive streak to him and a confidence and an air about him that he knows that when the football’s coming his way, he’s going to catch it.”

Thomas is looking forward to his all-star trip to Texas, where he will be accompanied by the majority of Brookville’s coaching staff.

“That game should show me what I have to be prepared for when I step foot onto a college campus for the first day of practice,” he said.

Some words of wisdom from the leader of the Bees, who is 18 years old and sports size 18 shoes — a man child preparing to enter the ultra-competitive world of college athletics:

“Be as kid as long as you can be,” Thomas said. “Take your childhood as long as you can take it because it’s going to shut down quick when you get to college.”

Sharing the spotlight

Thomas has shortened his potential play list to seven schools — Virginia, Virginia Tech, Tennessee, West Virginia, Clemson, Wake Forest and North Carolina — shrugging off offers from traditional powers Alabama and Notre Dame, among others.

“The amount of publicity he has received is something I’ve never seen before,” said Brookville fourth-year head coach Jeff Woody, who ventured that the last area player to attract anywhere near the amount of attention might be former Jefferson Forest quarterback Anthony Poindexter, a UVa recruit in 1994. “He’s had over 20 scholarship offers to Division I schools as far away as Stanford as well as others from Colorado and Oklahoma.”

Woody said the looks Thomas gets will bring more attention to the Seminole District as a whole.

“With all these college coaches coming in, they will see some of the talent we have in Central Virginia,” he said.

“The spotlight on Logan will provide more opportunities for other players to be seen,” added Charles McCray, Zack’s father.

Thomas is not the only Bees’ senior on college scouts’ radar screens. McCray is

considering Division I scholarships from many of the same schools, with six verbal offers on the table. Six-foot-five, 275-pound left tackle Devon Bolling, who will provide pass protection for Thomas’ blind side on offense and start opposite McCray at defensive end, has emerged as another of the area’s top recruits with 10 Division I offers — eight in the past two months.

Other potential DI, II or III prospects include running backs Lorenzo Smith and Stacey Houston, who is being recruited by a number of Ivy League schools, and wide receivers Corby Weiss and Chad Mason.

The wave of national publicity didn’t blindside Thomas, or serve as too much of a distraction in the offseason.

“Everybody pretty much knew that I had athletic ability just since Little League,” he said. “I didn’t really expect to be as big as I am now — not height-wise, but publicity-wise. Everything just blew up for me. It’s been good ever since then. God has blessed me.”

For a player embracing his youth as long as possible while looking forward to making a name for himself at the next level, Thomas has weathered being in the eye of the recruiting storm gracefully.

“Logan doesn’t get distracted,” Woody said. “He handles the situation well and never really gets overwhelmed or flabbergasted. He stays Logan. Nothing changes.

“Distractions are what you make of it,” he added, noting the team hasn’t lost its focus amid all the limelight. “We’ve been doing a good job of keeping the guys focused on the task at hand.”

Thomas has his sights set on his senior year, when he plans to play football, basketball and track and field as he did as a junior.

“Last year went by really fast and I know this year is going to go by just as fast,” Thomas said. “I’m just going to work as hard as I possibly can, to work hard and try to lead my team to a state championship.”

The making of a five-star prospect

There are at least five qualities and factors in Thomas’ upbringing and development that have transformed him into the multi-dimensional blue chip athlete he is today.

1. Family:

Thomas ranks his faith in God and his family and friends high above football on his list of values in life. Growing up in a broken home, those relationships were crucial in fostering a positive self worth and giving him a solid foundation on which to build his future.

“You know how they say it takes a community to raise up a child?” Logan’s mother Kim Thomas said. “Certainly in my case, it was very, very true. I had a lot of help.”

“He has the best supporting cast that’s ever been put together,” added his father, Eddie Tarazona, who married Kim when Logan was 9 and has played a pivotal role in molding him, as a mentor and disciplinarian.

Thomas’ positive attitude and character traits testify to his healthy upbringing.

“Kim did a great job with him while she was a single mom and had good help from family members and he’s turned out to be a fine young man,” Dina McCray said. “He’s a good kid, a great kid, very well mannered. He’s had a lot of help — great coaches and mentors, great families that take him in.”

That included Kim’s parents, Cliff and Cheryl Thomas.

“I don’t think any grandparents could be more supportive,” Logan Thomas said. “They’re sitting right here (and) they watch practice.”

He considers his teammates part of his extended family.

“I used to play Little League with everybody around here,” said Thomas, who transferred from Timberlake Christian School to Brookville as a freshman at the urging of his cousin, Zack.

The dynamic duo has played on the same basketball and football teams since their days with the Timberlake Lions and see each other more as brothers or best friends.

“I’ve got a room in Zack’s house,” Thomas said. “I’ve got a room in Corby (Weiss’) house. I’ve got a room in pretty much everybody’s house. We take turns spending nights at peoples’ house.”

“They hold each other accountable, which I think all of us parents really appreciate,” Kim Thomas added.

Thomas credits his mother for keeping his head on straight, and his father, Tarazona, for enabling him to put things in perspective and stay out of trouble.

“What’s neat about it is that he understands what he has,” said Tarazona, who had to grow up fast living in the ghettos of Miami, Fla., before graduating from Liberty University and opening Tarazona Tobacco and Coffee, Inc., in nearby Wyndhurst. “He understands the opportunities that are before him, so to get in trouble, it’s not worth it. Logan is a guy, he’s almost always going to do the right thing. He just is. He just knows better.”

At 5-foot-4, Tarazona, son of an immigrant from Peru, is dwarfed by Thomas. But he has had a profound influence on his son’s growth, challenging him to push his limits and pursue his dreams.

“I look at it like this. Anything you do in life, if you want it, you’ve got to work hard for it,” Tarazona said. “There are going to be ups and downs. Some people get it easy, but for the most part a lot of us have to sweat through what we want to get, if we want to accomplish a big goal or a big dream or something like that. If you’re weak, you’ll never get there. If you’ve got your dreams, go out and do it.”

2. Fortitude:

Tarazona says Thomas exemplifies Miami Heat star Dwyane Wade in the Gatorade commercial with the message “If you fall seven times, stand up eight.”

“Logan loves that commercial,” said Tarazona, who expects Thomas to pick himself up when he’s down, rather than coddling him as a favored son. “People can be weak, and they can have weak moments, that’s fine. But around me, I do not want weak people. I cannot stand weakness. For me, it’s a mindset.”

He witnessed Thomas take a beating at quarterback in last year’s Group AA, Division 3, semifinal game at Richlands, a punishing, season-ending defeat.

“Did it kill me inside?” Tarazona said. “You’d better believe it, but if he would have come to me and said, ‘I’m hurting,’ you know what I would have said? ‘I don’t care. You chose to do this, this is your job, go out and hurt some more, the game’s not over yet.’”

He has helped fuel Thomas’ fiery intensity by forcing him to accept responsibility for his failures and find the determination to overcome any obstacle in his path to success.

“If you want something, you go after it,” Tarazona said. “If you want it that bad, you make sacrifices. There are people that are going to get hurt. You’re going to hurt other people, but I don’t care, because that’s what sacrifice is all about.

“In our family, failure is not an option,” he added. “It’s OK to fail. We’ve all been failures at something. But a complete failure is one that quits, one that says ‘Screw it, I can’t do it.’ For me, that’s complete weakness.”

In Thomas, Tarazona sees a hunger and a drive to succeed as strong as that in players he once watched who used football as a means to escape the Carroll City, Fla., ghettos.

“I expect a lot of him (because) he’s been given more than I ever had,” Tarazona said. “And the thing is, it’s not for me, it’s not for his mom … not for Zach. He does it for Logan. He does it because there’s a fire in him. I thought I was stubborn. But that fire to succeed, that competition, he has it 1,000 times more than I ever will.”

Thomas is continually in the process of preparing himself, both mentally and physically, for college football, and possibly basketball as well.

“I’ll be ready,” he said. “In college, everything will be eight times tougher, eight times faster, eight times stronger. I know I’ve got a lot more experience (to gain), a lot more stuff to work on. Nobody’s perfect, you always can find something to work on. I’m just trying to do that, to make myself the best player I can possibly be and make the team the best team we could possibly be.”

3. Size, speed and skill:

Farrell said Thomas’ size and speed separates him from the rest of the best tight ends in the country.

“He’s got a basketball player’s build, 6-foot-6, he’s probably going to play at around 245, 250 pounds,” Farrell said on Rivals.com. “That means you can slot him out, you can even put him out wide if you want and he’s a mismatch for anybody trying to cover him — safety, cornerback, linebacker, you name it.”

Behind center, Thomas doesn’t shy away from contact, but often initiates it, even when scrambling with the ball in his hands.

“Look, he’s a bruiser, he plays pretty hard-nosed football, and he’s just a quarterback right now,” Tarazona said. “He’s pretty aggressive.”

Tarazona is excited about the prospects of watching Thomas play at tight end, as a slot receiver or at the hybrid back position made popular by Dallas Clark of the Indianapolis Colts.

Woody moved Thomas from receiver to quarterback after the second game last season to maximize his athleticism and leadership ability.

“Logan’s one heckuva athlete and wherever you put him on the field, he’ll be successful,” Woody said, adding that he has plenty of untapped potential at the position. “He did emerge as a pretty good quarterback last year, and he’ll only improve. He’s a year older, he’s bigger, he’s faster, he’s thicker, he’s smarter.”

Thomas seems to pick up things naturally, as he proved this past spring in track and field.

“What Logan accomplished on the track demonstrates his ability to excel at anything he puts his mind to, and tries his hand at,” Woody said. “He had never run the hurdles or thrown the discus or the shot put.”

And he outperformed athletes who have been doing those events for years.

Football and basketball came even easier to Thomas, who had a ball in his hands nearly from the time he was born.

“When he was real little, as a baby, he was always ‘Ball, ball, ball,’” Charles McCray said. “When he’d come up, if you’d see him, he was bouncing a ball, throwing a ball, catching a ball. In everything, he always had a ball.”

As quickly as he learned the position, he still sees plenty of room for improvement at quarterback.

“I have a lot of arm strength (but) I’ve got to get touch on my ball,” Thomas said. “That’s what I lack mainly and I don’t have the greatest accuracy.”

However, he is now much more adept at reading defensive coverages and finding the open man, and can run through the secondary even more efficiently than he throws the ball through it, with his powerful, lanky stride.

That speed, combined with his size, is one of the things that has impressed scouts the most.

“They say 40(-yard-dash times) don’t really matter,” said Thomas, who has clocked a 4.65 in the 40. “It’s field speed and they say I’ve got great field speed.”

4. Intelligence:

As bright a student as he is in the classroom, sporting a 3.4 grade-point average, if he would apply himself more in school, Thomas might be Brookville’s valedictorian.

“I’ll admit, I’m not one to crack down on the books hard,” he said. “I mean, I have a good GPA, but I’m not one that reads every night. Not like Stacey (Houston). Stacey’s just a genius. He just works hard at it.”

But Thomas is unsurpassed among the Bees in his understanding and knowledge of football.

“We all have different gifts and abilities and qualities that God’s given us and Logan’s just been given a talent to be an athlete, and a smart guy,” Tarazona said.

“He’s a great athlete, and he’s coachable, too,” Woody added. “You only have to tell him one time and he picks it up.”

That grasp of the game has been sharpened as much from playing PlayStation as running drills in practice.

“You should see me and Logan when we play football on NCAA,” said Tarazona, who has a video game station set up in his shop. “Logan doesn’t want to outplay you, he wants to outthink you. I’ll see how he lines everything up and I think and I get into his mind — and it’s a struggle.

“He and I go at it, and it’s like a game of RISK, or Axis and Allies,” he added. “He moves his troops, I move my troops. He flanks them, I cut them up the middle. That’s how it is and that’s what’s beautiful about Logan’s mind in football. I may be older, and I’ve seen more football than him and all that, I’ve seen more film on players than I care to even guess, but even I learn things from Logan. That’s why I love playing with him.”

5. Leadership:

Tarazona said people admire Thomas for his positive outlook on life, and want to be around him to have it rub off on them.

“Kids and even adults look up to Logan because he’s a good kid,” Tarazona said. “He’ll always be God first and then family. I don’t think it’s really football or anything. I think he just loves to win.”

“Logan’s a heckuva athlete,” senior fullback Jarrett Bateman added. “He knows what he’s doing, on the field, too, but I think he’s a better athlete off the field as well. He’s always doing the right thing, helping people out. People look up to him.”

Tarazona said Thomas has the rare blend of humility and confidence that make him a tremendous leader on and off the field. That has helped him to establish a positive rapport with his peers.

“He’s such a natural born leader,” he said. “That’s what I always wanted out of Logan. I didn’t want to think he was special. He is no more special than the kid that he sits in class with or the person he’s sitting in church with.”

To his teammates, he certainly is special, almost larger than life. But he’s never condescending.

“Logan is our biggest leader on this team,” Bateman said. “He’ll tell you if you’re doing something wrong — he ain’t going to be quiet about it. He’s not the jerk on this field. He’s a nice quiet guy, but when you mess up, he’ll help you out.”

Thomas has endeared himself to college recruiters by showing them the same level of respect that they have for him after watching him play.

“What’s really neat about Logan is the way he engages adults,” Tarazona said. “Logan looks at you, he talks to you. He says, ‘Hey, let’s form a relationship.’ And he does that with everybody. He’s always been like that. It’s not about the awards for Logan. It’s the enjoyment. He meets people, he talks, he’s a natural at it, and he’s good at it.”