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PAGE 9 - THE HOMETOWN PRESS
Sports
May 3, 2012
BACK TO BEING A BUC! Tremain Thomas to play for Tampa Bay Buccaneers SCOTT REESE WILLEY Hometown Press When Tremain Thomas of Stowell was in grade school, his father had to drive him all the way to Beaumont each week to play afterschool football. There was no league or team in the Winnie-Stowell area back then, Billy Thomas recalled. By the time Tremain was ready to play junior high football in school, he was head and shoulders better than all the other players. The expense and time of driving Tremain to practice in Beaumont paid off big time for the Thomas family. Tremain earned all-district and all-state honors in high school, and went on to have a successful football career with the Arkansas Razorbacks. And, on Saturday, he signed a free agent contract to play for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. “I knew I would be playing for some team I just didn’t know which one,” Tremain said as he wanted the NFL draft on a big screen television inside the East Chambers High School gymnasium. “I knew several teams were interested in me, and I knew I would get a call. I just didn’t know who or when. I just knew I would be putting on pads somewhere this summer.” Tremain said scouts sought him out after the much-hyped, muchwatched bowl game between his Razorbacks and the LSU Tigers last season. Arkansas lost the match-up, but Tremain caused one fumble that was run back for a touchdown and had one interception. “It was the high-point of my college career,” he said. The Thomas, Leday, George and Guillory families hosted the draft party and served up steaming hot plates of barbecue and boiled crawfish. What must have been the entire population of Stowell showed up to support Tremain. Winnie fans showed up in force as well, including most if not all of his former high school coaches. EC coach Daniel Andrews rememered coaching Tremain in high school football. “What a lot of people didn’t
Scott Reese Willey photo
East Chambers High School graduate Tremain Thomas, who went on to play football for the Arkansas Razorbacks, signed a free agent contract with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers last weekend. He is the son of Billy and Carla Thomas of Stowell. His friends and family threw him an NFL draft party on Saturday. Hundreds of former classmates, coaches and friends and family showed up to congratulate him on an incredible college career and wish him well in the NFL draft. know was that several times we had to take Tremain to the hospital right after the game because he was completely exhausted and dehydrated,” recalled Andrews, who coached Tremain in basketball in junior high. “He left everything on the field. He gave it 110 percent on the field and by the end of the game he had nothing left to give. Sometimes we had to give him IVs he was so dehydrated.”
Former EC head coach and athletic director Tony Valastro said he followed Tremain’s college career closely. “When he made a good play (for Arkansas) I would text him and congratulate him – sometimes
while he was still on the field,” said Valastro, who is now the athletic director and head football coach at Galveston Ball. “He deserves this recognition. He’s earned it. He’s worked hard for it.” Tramain is the first athlete from
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the Stowell community to be drafted into NFL, as well as the first African American student athlete from East Chambers to be drafted into the NFL, said family friend Jesse Evans. “Glenn Gaspard was drafted by
the San Francisco 49ers, but elected to play in the World Football League,” Evans said. “Allen Koch was drafted by the Chicago Bears but gave up the opportunity to play in the NFL, so, generally speaking, history was made with Tremain being drafted and playing in the elite National Football League as he is the first from the Winnie-Stowell communities.” Some of the outstanding accomplishments of Tremains high school years was being the winner of the Willie Ray Smith Award as the top Defensive Player in the Golden Triangle, the Defensive Player of theYear of the Beaumont Enterprise Super Gold Football team, the Port Arthur News MVP of Football, being selected to the 2AA All State football team, and the District 24AA MVP. Tremain could not only play football but he was very good in basketball as well, Coach Andrews recalled. “He had a vertical leap of 39 inches,” Andrews said. Tremain was selected as the district Most Valuable Player, selected to the All Region Team, selected as a member to the Beaumont Enterprise Super Gold Basketball team and named Mr. Outside in the Golden Triangle and Southeast Texas. “Lets not forget that at the age of 10, he set and it still stands today as the Little Dribblers national record holder for most points scored in a single game (64) in the Jr Division,” Evans recalled. “The entire Winnie Stowell, East Chambers community is proud of what Tremain has accomplished and made the community and school proud to know that he will play in the National Football League.” Tremain’s mom, Cathy, blinked back tears at her son’s NFL draft party on Saturday. “I am so proud of you and all you’ve accomplished in life, ” she told him. “And I know you will always make your family, friends and community proud.”