by Mark Tabb
Rusty never started a game as a freshman. In fact, over the course of his high school playing career, he only started one game, and that came during his senior year. Even then, he started against the worst team in the conference. Rusty wasn’t what one might call athletically gifted in high school. However, he never quit football. When it came time for two-a-days a couple of weeks before school started for his sophomore year, he was there. And the next year, and the next. He still didn’t like football any more than he did as a freshman, but he could not walk away from Coach Thomas. Quitting the team would let his coach down, and that’s something Rusty could not do, not even after breaking his hand during practice as a freshman. Rusty never quit, and Coach Thomas never quit on him.
Coach had reason to quit on Rusty. During his junior year, Rusty and his friends decided to break into the school after a night of drinking. They didn’t do anything malicious. Instead, they went to the gym, where they threw the large, foam, pole-vault landing pads into a pile. When the police arrived, Rusty and his buddies were diving off the bleachers onto the pads. No charges were filed, but he was suspended from school for three days. Not long after that, he was suspended again for skipping school, and then a third time for getting into trouble for doing something stupid. Even so, he had the good sense not to get himself suspended during football season. He may have spent most of his football career riding the bench, but he still didn’t want to do anything to jeopardize his spot on the team.
Each time Rusty found himself suspended, a visitor came to his house to talk to him about the choices he kept on making. That visitor was, of course, the one man he did not want to disappoint — Coach Thomas. Like Coach’s father, Rusty’s dad was an alcoholic and his mother a teetotaler. His parents tried to hold the family together as long as they could, but eventually Rusty’s dad moved out, and the marriage ended. Coach Thomas filled the void for Rusty. Ed didn’t treat him any differently than he did any other player, but Rusty saw in him the man he hoped to become. Like a father, Coach constantly pushed Rusty, yelling at him during practice, “Come on, Falcon, push yourself; get the lead out!” and then patting him on the back and telling him what a great job he had just done on a block or a tackle.
That is why when Rusty found himself in trouble, Ed was there. “You can do better than this, Rusty,” Ed said. “I know you can. You can do anything you set your mind to doing. But not like this. Not with these choices. You can do better.” When Ed came by his house, Ed never said anything to Rusty that he didn’t say to the entire team during practice, but somehow it had a lot more impact coming from him one-on-one.
Early on a Friday morning toward the end of his junior year, Rusty awoke to the sound of a woman calling his name. He got up, walked to the stairway, and looked down to see one of his mother’s closest friends standing at the bottom of the stairs. “Rusty,” she said, “your father died last night. He killed himself.” She didn’t elaborate. As soon as she told him the news, she turned and walked away. Rusty could hear his mother sobbing at the kitchen table.
Rusty stumbled back into his room and collapsed on his bed, numb from head to toe. A few minutes later, he heard another voice —that of Coach Ed Thomas. There was no mistaking that voice. Ed came up to his room and sat down on the bed next to him. The two of them sat in silence for a few minutes, staring off in the same direction. Tears welled up in Ed’s eyes as he fought to hold himself together. Finally he said, “Rus, I’m sorry to hear about your dad. From what I hear, he was a good person and had a lot of friends around him. I wish you didn’t have to go through this, and I wish there was something I could say to make you feel better. When you need me, I’ll always be here for you and your brother. I love ya.” Rusty was all of sixteen years old.
Ed was right about Rusty. His life turned out dramatically different from his father’s. Today he is a social worker and counselor, working to make a difference in the lives of others. A lot of factors contributed to Rusty’s turnaround, not the least of which was a high school football coach who believed Rusty was more than the son of an alcoholic, the product of a broken home, and a survivor of a parent’s suicide. Coach saw potential in Rusty Eddy and refused to give up on him, even when Rusty wanted to give up on himself.
In his thirty-four years of coaching, Ed worked with a lot of Rustys—kids who provided the reason he was there, being a coach, a teacher, a counselor, a father figure, just as his high school coach had been all of those things for him.
*For video of the players digging the graves, go to www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2Cj08vktG4&feature=related.
†For raw video of interviews with Coach Thomas, go to www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3Lq95Kg9Ug.
CHAPTER 7
“YOU WOULD DO THE SAME THING FOR ME”
We never talk about winning to our players. We talk about doing the little things correctly, about doing what is right, about being first-class on and off the field.
ED THOMAS
ED KNEW THEY WERE COMING, BUT THAT DIDN’T PREPARE him for the emotions that swept over him as he watched the two school buses pull into the parking lot of the Methodist church that overlooked Ed Thomas Field. “Two buses,” he said to anyone who happened to be nearby. “Wow, two entire buses.” Tears welled up in his eyes at the sight of the long line of students filing off the buses, one after the other. When road teams came to Parkersburg, Ed always looked at the visitors’ side of the field and said, “Hmm, I thought they’d bring more.” He didn’t think that on this day. The line of high school students made their way down from the church to the football field. At the end of the line came Coach Tom Wilson of Dowling High School in West Des Moines, over one hundred miles away. Tom and Ed had a long history together. Tom coached high school football in Iowa for five years before taking a graduate assistant position at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana. A few years later, he decided to return to Iowa. Three high schools offered him jobs. Tom chose Dike-New Hartford High School, twelve miles straight east of Parkersburg. At the time he knew Ed Thomas only by reputation, but he chose that particular job because of him. Tom always said that to be the best, you have to beat the best. What better place to measure himself in than by taking a job where he had to play Parkersburg every year?
Up until that time, Dike-New Hartford’s football program resembled Parkersburg’s before Ed arrived. In the twelve years since Dike and New Hartford consolidated, they had yet to have a winning season. Worst of all, they lost nearly every year to A-P, and the people in both Dike and New Hartford were sick and tired of it. When Tom interviewed for the job, all the superintendent, principal, and athletic director talked about was beating Ed Thomas and Aplington-Parkersburg. Tom thought they needed to learn how to beat anyone before they worried about beating one of the best teams in the state. Because the two schools were so close together, Dike-New Hartford and A-P should have been fierce rivals, but A-P so dominated the series that the rivalry only went one way.
All that changed during Tom’s second season. Dike-New Hartford came into Parkersburg and beat A-P on its home field. At long last, a rivalry was born. Over Tom’s next eight seasons, the Dike-New Hartford versus Aplington-Parkersburg game became one of the most competitive and hardest-fought games of the year for both schools. Most years, both teams came in ranked at or near the top of their respective divisions. While fierce rivals on the field, Tom and Ed became close friends. Each had the utmost respect for the other. Ed admired the way in which Tom prepared his teams and the amazing turnaround he brought to Dike. Tom looked at Ed as the standard by which he measured his own coaching career, not just in terms of wins and losses, but by the integrity and class Ed displayed in everything he did.
Tom heard a lot of coaches talking about how faith should come before football, but for most it was only that —talk. Tom watched Ed closely. He knew Ed was a Christian — Ed never kept that a secret. Yet Tom, along with everyone else who knew Ed, marveled at how Ed never shoved Jesus down anyone’s throat. Ed saved his sermons for the occas
ional times he filled in for his pastor at his church. Instead, Ed’s life was his sermon. Saint Francis of Assisi once said, “Preach the gospel at all times. If necessary, use words.” If Saint Francis had lived in northeastern Iowa, no doubt he would have had Ed Thomas in mind when he said this.
Tom Wilson and Ed remained friends after Tom left Dike-New Hartford to move to a larger school in West Des Moines. He even sought Ed’s advice when considering his new position. A lot of coaches throughout Iowa sought Ed’s advice on a regular basis. Although Ed and Tom did not play against each other any longer, they kept in touch.
The moment Tom heard the news about the tornado, he knew what he wanted to do. He called Ed and told him he planned on bringing some students to help with the cleanup. He then sent out e-mails to parents and had an announcement made at school during the last two days of classes. Ninety-six students signed up to go to Parkersburg and help. The students laughed and talked throughout the two-hour bus ride. However, the moment they topped the hill on Highway 14 and saw the destruction, they grew silent.
Tom followed his students over to Ed Thomas Field. About a quarter of the way across the field, he came face-to-face with its namesake. Ed bit hard on his lip and shook his head, fighting to control his emotions. He grabbed Tom’s hand and put his other hand on his friend’s shoulder. “I can’t tell you how much this means to me, Tom.” Ed paused and looked down for a moment. His voice cracked. “Thank you for coming.”
“Coach, I know you would do the same thing for me,” Tom replied. “Now what do you want us to do?”
Ed stepped back and looked over the field. “We’ve picked up all the big stuff off the field, but it is still a mess. There are nails and glass and everything else you can imagine driven down into the turf. Let’s get your kids down here and put them on it. They’ll have to crawl on their hands and knees to do it; some of the debris is driven down really deep.” He looked Tom in the eye and broke out into a grin. “You know, Tom, there’s no one I can think of that I would rather have down on their hands and knees on my field than you.”
“Well, don’t get used to it,” Tom said and slapped Ed on the back. He then started barking out orders to the students. Tom had his students line up side by side and slowly work their way across the field. Once they worked their way across, they went back over it, then over it again. In all, the Dowling students spent six hours combing through the grass of the field, pulling out every last nail and shard of glass.
A few minutes after Tom and his students arrived, Ed’s cell phone rang. Up until his landline phone blew away with his house, Ed refused to get a cell phone. However, after the storm, so many reporters, contractors, and well-wishers called the school administration building that secretaries hardly had time to get anything done. Finally, the school superintendent had enough. He drove over to the football field, found Ed, and slapped a cell phone in his hand. “It’s time you enter the twenty-first century, Ed,” he said. Four days later, Ed had the hang of it. He answered his phone and talked for a few moments. Then he handed the phone to Tom Wilson, who was standing next to him. “Here. Peter King of Sports Illustrated wants to talk to you.”
“What? Why?” Tom said. He couldn’t understand why one of the most popular writers from the top sports magazine in the country would want to talk to him.
“He’s writing something about the tornado relief efforts. I told him you brought some students over, and now he wants to talk to you.”
Tom shook his head and rolled his eyes. He took the phone, gathered himself for a moment, and said, “Hello.” After talking to King, he handed the phone back to Ed. “I don’t see what the big deal is,” Tom said. “What were we supposed to do? Sit at home in Des Moines and pretend we didn’t know you? Like I said, you would do the same thing for me.”
Two other teachers came over from Dowling with the students. Tom put them in charge of clearing the field and then asked Ed, “How is Teep doing?” Teep was Tom Teeple, a fixture on the sidelines at every A-P home football game. Ed and Teep had been friends since the day over thirty-five years earlier when Teep and Sue moved from Parkersburg to What Cheer, Ed’s hometown. Teep had pulled his moving truck into the local gas station, when an eighteen-year-old kid with hair down over his ears and wearing a blue leisure suit looked up from the paper he was reading and yelled out, “So who are you?” Teep told him who he was, then asked the kid who he was. “I’m Ed Thomas, and this is my hometown. I go to college over at William Penn.” The two hit if off immediately. They were close in age and shared a love for sports. While Ed was in college, they played softball and basketball together. Not long after Ed moved to Parkersburg, Teeple moved back to town and bought out the local barber. He soon became one of Parkersburg High School’s biggest supporters. That is how Tom Wilson got to know him. Teep worked the first-down chains and spent a lot of time standing next to the opposing team’s coaches. He and Coach Wilson hit it off from the start.
“We nearly lost him,” Ed told Tom Wilson. “You know Sue is in a wheelchair because of her MS. When the sirens went off, Teep tried to take cover, but he couldn’t get her in the basement. He pushed her chair onto a landing near one corner of their kitchen, covered her with a blanket, and held on for dear life. When the tornado hit their house, he held on to her as best he could. He said the wind straightened him out like Superman before it finally sucked him halfway out of his house.”
“My gosh, how bad was he hurt?”
“A few cuts and bruises, but other than that, he was fine. Sue came through untouched. Rescuers found her under the blanket in that corner.”
“All right, I’ve got to go see him,” Tom said.
When they arrived at what once was the Teeple house, they found Teep working away, sorting through rubble. Tom and Ed, along with a handful of students, jumped in and helped Teep the best they could.
Tom Wilson was the first coach to bring a busload of students to Parkersburg, but he was far from the last. Dike-New Hartford brought a group, as did West Marshall and most of the other schools A-P played every season. University of Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz brought sixty players over later in June. Ferentz shared a special bond with Coach Thomas. Three former A-P players had suited up at the University of Iowa and gone on to play in the National Football League. Through these three players, Ferentz saw firsthand the fruit of the A-P way. Yet that wasn’t what endeared Ed Thomas to him. Ferentz’s first few teams after he came to the University of Iowa struggled. In his first two seasons he won all of four games while losing nineteen. Yet during those losing seasons, he received regular letters and calls from Ed, encouraging him to hang in there. A lot of people called when the Hawkeyes did well, but Ed was one of the few who called when Ferentz’s team was down, and he never forgot that.
Other coaches throughout the state brought students to Parkersburg or sent letters of encouragement to Ed. They did it out of their respect for him. Every coach in the state of Iowa, and those around the country who knew Ed, pointed to the class and character he displayed on and off the field as the reason they brought busloads of students to Parkersburg.
Fellow coaches and their teams were not the only ones who rushed to Parkersburg to help. Green Bay Packers defensive end Aaron Kampman and his wife, Linde, were in Kansas City, visiting family the day the tornado struck Parkersburg. Aaron had just completed his most successful season as a pro, being named a starter for the National Football Conference in the 2008 Pro Bowl ten years after graduating from A-P. Aaron showed his appreciation to his coach by giving him his jersey from the Pro Bowl, which Ed proudly displayed in his classroom.
When he heard the news of the tornado, Aaron called his coaches in Green Bay and told them he would be a little late for the minicamp scheduled to begin that week. By 4:30 on Monday morning, May 26, he and his brother-in-law were in Aaron’s car, headed to Parkersburg. Along the way they stopped and bought chain saws, work gloves, boots, and anything else they might need. Aaron grew up in Aplington, but his wife’s parents
lived near the Thomases’ home in Parkersburg, as did Aaron’s grandfather. His grandfather went down into his basement when the sirens went off. He thought the storm had passed and went upstairs to see what was left of his house. He left the basement too early. The tornado carried off his house — with him in it. He woke up in the hospital, and the first words out of his mouth were “God is so good to me.”
Word of his grandfather’s injuries had not yet reached Aaron when he drove into town. “It looks like someone threw the entire town into a blender,” he said to his brother-in-law. He was headed to his grandfather’s house when he turned a corner. Ed and Jan were right in front of him, digging through the rubble of their house. Aaron jumped out of his car and started walking toward his old high school coach. Ed turned and saw him. The tears started once more. Aaron gave his coach a huge hug and told him, “Coach, everything will be OK.” Aaron spent that day and the next in town, cutting up fallen trees and hauling brush away.
Former A-P offensive lineman Casey Wiegmann* had just signed with the Denver Broncos and could not leave their mandatory off-season workouts when the tornado struck. However, at the end of practice on the day after the storm, head coach Mike Shanahan called the entire team together. He explained what had happened to Casey’s hometown. “Casey’s high school was wiped out,” the coach said, “and they need a lot of help rebuilding it. The NFL has a program where they will match anything you choose to donate. You guys can do whatever you want, but I’m giving the first $5,000.” As soon as the mandatory practices were over, Casey went back to Parkersburg, as did the other two NFL players from A-P—Jared Devries of the Detroit Lions and Brad Meester of the Jacksonville Jaguars.