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People SearchFind an individual who either played a sport or was a member of a support group. Search by last name by clicking on the first letter of the person's last name.
Mr. Orlando Thomas (Deceased)
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Home Phone: -- Former Football: Football great Orlando Thomas laid to rest today – DOD Nov. 9, 2014 Go to Archived News (November/2014 for more articles on his passing. Megan Wyatt, The Advertiser, November 15, 2015 Click here for video. Former Crowley High, Louisiana Ragin’ Cajuns and Minnesota Vikings’ defensive back Orlando Thomas was laid to rest today, surrounded by friends, family and neighbors. The football great succumbed Sunday to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis – better known as ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease – at the age of 42 after a 10-year battle with the progressive neurodegenerative disease that attacks nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord. Hundreds of people poured into St. Theresa Catholic Church in Crowley today for the 10 a.m. Mass, with dozens of people lining the side aisles and back of the church to pay their tributes to Thomas. MORE: Thomas dies after battle with ALS MORE: Retired No. 42 to be worn during Ragin’ Cajuns game today In the memorial service program, Thomas had written a special message to his family: “When tomorrow starts without me, and I’m not here to see, If the sun should rise and find your eyes, filled with tears for me. I wish so much you wouldn’t cry, the way you did today, While thinking of the many things we didn’t get to say. I know how much you love me, as much as I love you, And each time you think of me, I know you’ll miss me too. When tomorrow starts without me, don’t think we’re far apart. For every time you think of me, I’m right there in your heart.” * * * * * * * * Former Football – Orlando Thomas: Spirit burning bright Crowley native, former UL and Vikings star has unique perspective on life, NFC title game Bruce Brown • bbrown@theadvertiser.com • January 23, 2010 A star on the gridiron for Crowley High, UL’s Ragin’ Cajuns and the Minnesota Vikings, Orlando Thomas faced many challenges. Today, he battles Lou Gehrig’s Disease with the same fierce determination that defined his athletic career. (Advertiser file photo/Brad Kemp) Like most Louisiana natives and blissful transplants, Orlando Thomas will be watching on Sunday as the New Orleans Saints host the Minnesota Vikings in the Superdome. The stakes are as high as they can get in the NFL as both clubs seek an NFC championship and berth in the Super Bowl. Thomas has been there. He helped Crowley High to the Class 3A state championship in the Superdome in 1989 and was a member of the UL Ragin’ Cajuns squad that beat Tulane in the Dome in 1993. He also played in the NFC Championship Game as a member of the Vikings after the 1998 season, falling one step shy of a Super Bowl berth in an upset loss to visiting Atlanta. Don’t tell Thomas that the game’s outcome is a matter of life and death, though. He knows better. The 37-year-old former All-American and Pro Bowl safety will watch Sunday’s game from bed. He’s there every day, suffering from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis — also known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease, or more simply, ALS. A progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord, ALS has no known cure. But the same spirit that drove Thomas to the heights of his sport remains with him today. “My dad made me mentally and physically strong, and my mom taught me to love,” said Thomas, who was interviewed with the help of his wife, Demetra. The two met in 1997 and married within five months in 1998. “Not long after we met, Orlando told me, ‘You’re supposed to be my wife,'” Demetra said. By then, Thomas had taken the NFL by storm as a rookie in 1995, leading the league in interceptions and being named to the Pro Bowl. The second-round draft choice had led the nation in his All-American junior season at UL in 1993, and the transition proved to be a smooth one. The 1998 Vikings lost just one game, finishing 15-1, and scored 556 points. If ever there was a team poised for the Super Bowl, they were it. But they were upended by a Morten Andersen field goal after Minnesota kicker Gary Anderson suffered his only miss of the season. Thomas played through 2001. By then, elements of ALS were in place. Now the legs that churned to 48-second 400-meter times in high school track and helped him rove in the secondary and explode into 347 career tackles at UL are still. “He has a young, strong mind trapped in a cage,” said Comeaux High assistant coach Ronald “Big Cheese” Gunner, a UL teammate and longtime friend. “When he found out he had ALS, he said he just wanted to see his son reach 5, and he’s already past that.” Daughter Philamisha, Demetra’s daughter from a previous relationship, is 16. Daughter Alexis is 13 and Orlando Jr. is 9. “He’s a great person,” Gunner said. “We started our friendship at UL and he’s been that way since then, since he became a millionaire and when he coached at Comeaux. He’s still an honorary coach here. “I’m glad he’s my friend.” Thomas, too, cherishes that friendship, as well as the chance to coach with Gunner before illness took that away. “It was a dream come true,” Thomas said. “I always wanted to coach, and when I coached with Cheese, I had the time of my life.” His own career moments remain fresh for Thomas. “I remember winning the state championship at Crowley because it took a lot of hard work,” Thomas said. “I remember the first practice I had. I weighed 95 pounds, soaking wet, and I was so weak I couldn’t bench press the bar. By the time I was a senior, I was twice the size and was able to bench press over 300 pounds. “While I accomplished many things on the football field at UL, my greatest accomplishment was getting my degree. (Academic counselor) Danny Cottonham had a lot do with me accomplishing that. “With the Vikings, the greatest part was leading NFL in interceptions as a rookie, and to play for seven years. There are many great moments that I can recall. The best one was winning the state championship and getting drafted.” Lewis Cook has been by Thomas’ side for much of his career, coaching him at Crowley High, serving on the UL staff for three of Thomas’ years there and even helping him settle on Mark Bartelstein as his agent. “I got to know him when he was in the eighth grade, and he seems like a son to me,” Cook said. “It’s hard to see him going through that (ALS). The drive and the pride that he had is what made him succeed. He always wanted to prove himself to everybody else. “Whatever you told him he needed to do to help himself, he would do it. And, if he did something wrong and you told him about it, he wouldn’t do it again. “He was such a competitive person with a lot of pride. He always wanted to be a champion. That’s why he’s still alive today. He’s not letting go.” Thomas would not claim to be perfect, Incidents in his past include disturbing the peace in Crowley in 1997 and assaulting Demetra in 1999. But he has grown into a role model for his family. “Overcomer — that’s what Orlando’s legacy will be,” Demetra said. “He is a great example of what it means to live life. He represents life and life’s energy. A lot of people don’t understand life. He somehow understood that every day is an opportunity to live life, to overcome obstacles. He once told me, ‘Some people climb mountains. I was created to move mountains.’ I’ve always seen him overcome whatever situation he’s had. “He is still able to light up the room. It’s just who he is. He’s taught me how to live life. All the things that consumed my time and energy really weren’t that important. You don’t have to do things by the book, how you’re taught.” Demetra Thomas, a trained nurse, admitted she welcomes the help of others in managing the family. “I have really good family support and great neighbors,” she said. “My sister is really wonderful. She definitely has been there in every way. She’s here from California now. She comes often. Three times last year she traveled. She was worried about flying one time, so she packed in a car and drove down. She’s definitely a major part of my life and a safety net for my kids. She has counseled for 20 years.” The Thomas children have grown in unexpected ways while dealing with their father’s battle with ALS. “This experience has really allowed my family to bond in a way that most families don’t get to bond,” Demetra said. “Because Orlando is in the bed, we all have to be in one area. The master bedroom has become the living room, dining room and activity room. When it’s a situation like that, it forces you bond and come together. “So, the children have learned life skills by learning how to care for their dad. Our oldest wants to be a cardiologist. She’s getting lot of medical skills. I’m a nurse, and I’m able to train her. They actually have an advantage in life, learning how to deal with stressful situations. “We are learning things that are important but that are often overlooked.” The focus, not surprisingly, remains the man who was a force of nature on the field. “His personality hasn’t changed,” said Demetra. “Every day is a holiday. He’s made life easy for us. He’s just in the bed. Everything that’s inside of him, we’ve had the chance to absorb that. Before, that got spilled everywhere he went. We see why he’s been able to affect so many people. Now, we’re able to absorb things we needed and didn’t even realize we needed. “ALS takes from you, but we’ve been able to take more from it than it has taken from us. We have great neighbors. When they come by, they’re always really shocked. They have a perception of how it will be, and it’s just not that. They’re always leaving inspired in some way.” Thomas was asked what his legacy will be. “I would like to think I played every play like it was my last play and that my teammates enjoyed playing with me,” Thomas said. “As a husband and father, I want my legacy to be that of being a fighter, of my faith and the importance of having a relationship with God.” Orlando Thomas will watch Sunday’s NFC Championship Game, like the rest of Louisiana. But his is a perspective like none other. “I do still watch the NFL,” he said. “I follow both teams. I’m happy for the city of New Orleans and the state of Louisiana, but I’m a Viking for life.” * * * * * * * * * * Second Wind: UL won’t forget Thomas September 23, 2006 – Dan McDonald, Daily Advertiser Human nature being what it is, we tend to remember people by last contact. The most recent vision is the most vivid. We need to remember when he had the prototype NFL safety’s body, lean and strong and hurtling at opposing ball carriers with unabated enthusiasm. We need our vision to be a streak of red or purple, whether for the University of Louisiana or the Minnesota Vikings. We need to remember the Orlando Thomas that came back home after his NFL career, the one that went back to school and earned his degree, and lent his considerable football expertise to the kids at Comeaux High for a too-short period. At halftime of today’s UL-North Carolina A&T game, Thomas will be honored for his efforts and accomplishments during his career, and he’ll be the honorary game captain for today’s coin toss that will be handled by wife Demetra and his three children. He won’t be there in person, a nearly two-year battle with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) having now reached a stage where he needs help breathing and sitting up in bed. But for the rest of us, that may be a blessing. We need those other visions in our memories, the ones of him breaking on the ball from his safety position, a finely-tuned 210 pounds instead of a body that’s barely half that now because of Lou Gehrig’s disease, a malady that doesn’t deserve the honor of that name. Dennis Green, now the head coach of the Arizona Cardinals and for over a decade the Vikings’ head coach, has those visions in his mind’s eye. “He’s one of my favorite people and one of my favorite players,” Green said. “The success he had, the way he stormed the NFL and had the most interceptions for a rookie in a long time, was pretty amazing. My thoughts are never very far from him.” In a way, Thomas’ life has come full circle for Louie Cook, who became his football mentor in his eighth-grade year and became his life mentor and friend shortly after. “People don’t realize how far he came to end up as an NFL player,” Cook said. “He weighed 98 pounds when he was 13 years old, when we’d run a bus to the junior high and bring those kids over for football. He wasn’t much to look at, but he had an unbelievable drive to succeed.” It was a couple of years later, after his sophomore season at Crowley High, that Thomas informed Cook he was going to play college football. At that time, he wasn’t that far removed from his 98-pound weakling status. “I told him he wasn’t going to be able to do that,” Cook said. “He wasn’t big enough, fast enough or strong enough, and he wasn’t doing everything it takes to get yourself better.” The next day, he joined Crowley High’s track team. Two years later, the Gents won a state football title and Thomas started running sub-50-second quarter miles. He finally signed a scholarship with then-USL at the end of his senior track season, since no school was offering on the spring signing day. All-America honors with the Cajuns followed, as did seven seasons with the Vikings before he retired in 2002. During those NFL years, UL Student-Athlete Center director Danny Cottonham continued to press Thomas to finish his degree. “When he came home, he sought me out, kind of like I’d been seeking him out,” Cottonham said. “He wanted to be involved in education, and he needed a degree to do that. That was the catalyst … he wanted to do that as an example for others.” “Getting into coaching is something I always wanted my favorite players to do,” Green said. “I really looked forward to him doing that.” That process was well on its way, and Thomas was nearing his degree and working with students at Comeaux two years ago when he began experiencing physical problems. “He spoke to one of my freshman classes and did an awesome job,” Cottonham said, “but you had an indication that something was not right. Physically, he looked healthy, but…” He was diagnosed with ALS that fall, but Cook was among the few that knew his diagnosis. Thomas spared his mother that heartbreak until late in the year when he couldn’t hide it any longer. “He came to my office the day before Thanksgiving,” Cook said, “and said he’d told his mom that day. We talked for a long time, and he said he was going to do what he had to do to be here as long as he could and he wasn’t going to miss a step worrying about it. He didn’t want any pity or special treatment from anybody.” “His dad died real young, and he made a comment to me one time that he didn’t think he was going to be around here that long and that something was going to happen. You kind of blow that off when somebody says that, somebody that young, but you got the feeling that something was telling him that.” Cottonham presented him with his diploma last December, but he couldn’t attend the ceremonies because of treatment schedules. “He finished that degree for his kids,” Cottonham said. “He said that was one of the greatest things he ever accomplished. It set the bar for his kids. They’ll have to do that because daddy did. It raises expectations.” Cook was the man who took Thomas to get his driver’s license as a senior in college, was at his house the day he was drafted by the Vikings and went with him to Chicago to sign with an agent before he began his professional career. He’s still close by, no matter how much it hurts to see how far the staircase has spiraled downward. “He was smiling the last time I went to see him,” Cook said. “It was hard to understand him, but he still had that wide-eyed look. His mind’s still perfect … the muscles just don’t work.” Demetra, daughters Philamesha and Alexis and son Orlando, Jr., will take his place today. They’ll provide the muscle to stand in for their husband and father, and have to chance to see how much he’s meant to so many. “It’s a private and personal time for them,” Cottonham, “but it’s important for those kids to see the contributions he’s made to the school and community, things they may not know about their father. This is for them.” Originally published September 23, 2006 Football: Orlando Thomas �honorary game captain’ at Heymann Classic September 22, 2006 – Thomas played as safety for the Ragin’ Cajuns from 1991 to 1994. He was an All-American performer who led the nation in INTs during his junior season in 1993. He was selected as a second team All-American by UPI and a third team selection by the Associated Press. He finished second on the Ragin’ Cajuns all-time career tackle list with 347 stops and ranks first among all Ragin’ Cajuns defensive backs. His 18-career interceptions rank third in school history. Thomas was drafted by the Minnesota Vikings in the second round of the 1995 NFL Draft. He spent seven seasons with the Vikings before retiring following the 2001 season. Since returning to his Acadiana home, Thomas has been a successful assistant coach and mentor for the gridiron members of Comeaux High School. Originally published September 19, 2006
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