About Damn Time: Derrick Thomas Inducted Into College Football Hall Of Fame

Pardon the language in the title but that’s how most fans of college football feel and today it was announced that something that should have happened years ago finally happened. Reports came out yesterday but today it was made official. Former Alabama great, linebacker Derrick Thomas, was inducted to the College Football Hall of Fame.

Thomas was a 1988 consensus All-American during his time at Alabama as well as the winner of the 1988 Butkus Award and SEC Defensive Player of the Year. He set records that may never be broken, especially the one where we recorded 27 sacks in a single season with 52 for his career. Just as equally impressive is that he also holds the school records for tackles for a loss in a game (7, vs. Texas A&M in 1988), season (39 in 1988) and career (74). He was a complete beast coming off of the edge at times almost parallel to the ground with his lean heading to wreak havoc on opposing quarterbacks with also one of quickest first steps you would ever see.

Thomas carried that intensity and play to the next level in the NFL with the Kansas City Chiefs after being drafted the 4th overall pick in the 1989 NFL Draft. He was named the 1989 NFL Defensive Rookie of the Year, played in nine consecutive Pro Bowls from 1989-1997, and was elected to Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2009. Below are some numbers listed on KCChiefs.com.

Derrick Thomas: By the Numbers

• 169 – games in a Chiefs uniform
• 126.5 – total sacks, Chiefs all-time record
• 110 – victories in a Chiefs uniform
• 45 – forced fumbles
• 43 – different NFL quarterbacks sacked
• 26 – sacks against Denver Broncos QB John Elway (his most-sacked QB)
• 9 – straight Pro Bowl berths (1989-97), the most of any player in Chiefs history
• 7 –  sacks earned against the Seattle Seahawks (single-game record) on Veterans Day in 1990. “I was on a mission today,” said Thomas. “I read in the paper that Derrick Thomas was in a sack slump.”
• Thomas is the only player to make a regular season game appearance in three different decades (1980s, ‘90s and ‘00s) for the Chiefs.

Not be outdone by his work on the field, his compassion for others came out in his off the field work.

In 1990 Derrick Thomas founded the Derrick Thomas

Third and Long Foundation

. The foundations mission is to ‘sack illiteracy’ and change the lives of urban children facing challenging and even life-threatening situations in the Kansas City area. He also founded the Derrick Thomas Academy in 2002. It was a charter school that was located in Kansas City and served more than 1000 children from kindergarten to 8th grade until it close in 2013. 

Tragically, Thomas’ life ended in 2000 after suffering a pulmonary embolism a few weeks after wrecking on an icy road in Missouri. Even though he is no longer with us, his legacy lives on in the hearts of Alabama and Kansas City fans as well as just fans of football in general and now since they finally got it right, in the College Football Hall of Fame.