By Chris B. Bennett
The Seattle Medium
A few days after Christmas, Joey Thomas, Garfield High School’s Head Football Coach, and his wife, Nicole, are in the equipment cage at Garfield taking inventory of helmets, jerseys, shoulder pads, and washing practice gear.
I hate inventory, it’s the worst,” says Thomas, as his youngest son, Josiah, finds a football to play with.
A few weeks removed from a semi-final loss to Rainier Beach in the state football playoffs, Thomas’ job is far from complete.
“It’s not all glamorous,” says Thomas. “People don’t see this part of the job.”
“People don’t see me chasing kids down during the school day, and saying ‘hey man, what’s going on? Why aren’t you in class?’” continued Thomas. “They don’t see the day –to-day grind. I don’t just do this during football season, I do this all year long.”
On paper, Thomas’ credentials point to nothing but success. He was a standout player at Kennedy High School, went to the University of Washington on a football scholarship and later transferred to Montana State where he was a three-time All-American. A third-round draft pick by the Green Bay Packers, Thomas played five years in the NFL before he retired due to an injury in 2010.
However, Thomas is no stranger to overcoming adversity, and the 2017 football season was no different. The Bulldogs entered the season with high expectations, as Thomas guided the Bulldogs to an 8-2 record in 2016 and fielded a 2017 team that was loaded with talent. But the Bulldogs stumbled out of the gate dropping their first two games to Bellevue and Archbishop Murphy (Everett) by a combined score of 71-34.
In addition, Thomas was grieving the death of his cousin, Latrell Williams, who was murdered in April, and Garfield’s football program was under investigation for alleged recruiting violations.
It was a tough time for Thomas as he not only had to manage the impact that the allegations could have on his team, but he also had to manage the impact that it could have on his family – including his 16 year-old daughter and 10 year-old son, who both read the paper and had to deal with the ramifications of negative press about their father at school.
“It was tough for the kids [his players] because they saw their program being torn down from a character standpoint,” said Thomas. “And they knew this was everything that we didn’t stand for, so it was tough to watch them struggle.”
“It’s never easy to be vilified publicly… but the truth prevailed and we beat it,” Thomas continued. “But the one thing is that you can’t get back what they printed, you can’t get back the pictures that they put of you in the paper looking like a criminal.”
“You don’t get that back,” said Thomas. “You just gotta move forward and continue to try to make a difference in these young men’s lives.”
As a coach, Thomas describes himself as a builder, and according to Thomas his philosophy of totally optimizing potential (TOP) is a blueprint for success both on and off the field.
Prior to coming to Garfield, Thomas revitalized the football program at Ballard High School that had not seen success in years. The job was a perfect fit for Thomas, who strives to do what other believe are impossible. Prior to Thomas’ arrival the team had won three games in three years. During his last two seasons at Ballard, Thomas guided the team to a 12-4 record, won two division titles and advanced his team to the state tournament.
Daymon Tullis, whose son, Davine, played for Thomas at Ballard and now plays for the University of Hawaii, says that Thomas is not your typical high school coach. According to Tullis, Thomas practices what he preaches, and is going to do whatever is best for the kids but will not sacrifice what is best for the team in the process.
“He wants to win, but he’s more concerned with getting the kids to college,” says Tullis. “If he lost every game but got every kid a scholarship, he’d take it.”
Reggie Witherspoon, an assistant coach at Garfield, agrees.
“We both have the same drive and same hunger for youth and that’s simply is getting them to the next level which is college,” says Witherspoon. “That’s how we see our kids win. It’s not necessarily what the scoreboard says but more so how many kids get in to college and how many scholarships kids are getting.”
The focus on academics and getting kids in college is evident when Thomas talks about his Ballard team having a team GPA of 3.0 as his “greatest coaching accomplishment.”
“To have a team GPA with 3.0 will always be my favorite accomplishment,” said Thomas. “To walk out of there with a 3.0 GPA just spoke to how they bought into the program academically and them understanding. It took us five years to get there, but in my 5th year they knew the culture. They knew how to totally optimize themselves in the classroom.”
“There’s nothing accidental about success, success is a very intentional act,” said Thomas. “Systematically we build certain things into our program, if kids just follow the blueprint they’re going be successful. It’s no accident that our kids go to college… there’s nothing accidental about what we do.”
Thomas’s advocacy to get kids into college stretches far beyond the kids in his programs, as those who know him say that he is constantly trying to connect kids with schools and coaches in an effort to get them to the next level.
“Joey has a big heart,” says Paul Arnold, head football coach at Cleveland High School, who has been friends with Thomas since 5th grade. “I’ve seen him help kids that have graduated from other schools and help them get scholarships when their own coaches couldn’t do it for them.”
“I’ve seen him do so many things for kids and he doesn’t ask for anything in return,” added Arnold. “For every kid that you hear about that he helps, there might be 5 or 6 kids that he helped that he’ll never tell you about.”
Thomas truly believes that his life’s experiences have put him in a position to help others succeed. He knows first-hand how encouragement and support at the right time in a person’s life can catapult them to success. During his freshmen year at the University of Washington, Thomas thought about quitting football, the game that he has loved since he was a little kid playing for CAYA. But a conversation with his best friend, former UW football player Paul Arnold, got Thomas to refocus and pursue his life’s dream at Montana State University.
“It was a frustrating time for him. He loved football so much and he put everything he had in it,” said Arnold, who also played for UW at the time. “I don’t think it was an ability issue, I think he just didn’t fit into what they were looking for. That probably was the lowest point in his sports career.
According to Thomas, Arnold encouraged him not to “let these folks break your spirit,” and to go somewhere else if he had to but to keep grinding. He went on to play for Montana State, but the impact on his life is something that helps motivate him to encourage his players to keep working and make a way to live out their dreams.
“They broke me,” said Thomas of his time with the UW football program. “They weren’t feeling me and I got no love.”
“To be that broken to feel like I had to quit the game that I loved… that was a huge low point for me,” Thomas continued. “So, when I coach, I try to bring life into people. I try to give them hope because I don’t want nobody to feel that way that I felt.”
Things at Garfield have not been without growing pains. Admittedly, Thomas has had to show tough love to some of his better players. But in order for the team to grow and for the program to flourish he had to make tough decisions that may not have been popular at the time but paid great dividends in the long run.
“We’ve had several come to Jesus moments,” said Thomas. “But no one is bigger than the team. I don’t care who you are. No one is bigger than the team including me.”
“I’ve always said what they were missing [at Garfield] was discipline and structure,” said Thomas. “I think kids want discipline, and once you give them discipline and structure they are able to flourish.”
Arnold is inspired by the way Thomas manages his program and admires the fact that he places value on teaching the kids life lessons, even if it causes him to lose a game.
“I knew he had a better team than his record showed, but he was about doing it the right way,” said Arnold. “I know that he lost some games that he probably had a chance to win, but Joey is trying to build a program, he’s not just trying to win games.”
As the season progressed, the Bulldogs improved and posted a Metro League record of 3-2 and entered the state tournament with an overall record of 3-5. Not many people outside of the Garfield locker room expected the Bulldogs to get past their first playoff game against Everett. But according to Thomas, his team was peaking at the right time and everything was going according to the plan he laid out prior to the start of the season.
“When we created our schedule the way we did, we created it in such way that it was going to force us to be disciplined,” said Thomas. “I felt we were good, but we were city good.”
[Being city good] you’re not going to beat the upper echelon of teams, so I felt like in order to get to the next level we had to compete against people who going to force us to be disciplined,” added Thomas.
“We can be better athletically than you but if we’re not discipline then we’re going to lose,” he continued. “That’s why we played two Wing-T teams (Archbishop Murphy and Bellevue) because it’s all about your eyes and being where you’re supposed to be.”
“We wanted to put them [our players] in that situation, so they could learn the lesson early. Usually you learn the lessons at the end of the year, but the learning curve is over because your season is over,” he explained. “But if you have the learning curve in the beginning you can build upon it and build momentum throughout the year.”
According to Witherspoon, the schedule Thomas put together for the Bulldogs was going to be challenging, especially the first four games, but Thomas kept telling his players and coaches to “trust the process.”
“When I first saw the schedule, I realized that we could potentially lose all four games,” recalled Witherspoon.
“What he [Thomas] shared with me, shared with all of our coaches and our team is that we built this schedule to potentially go 0-4 or 4-0,” said Witherspoon. “But we understood that this schedule was going to really get us prepared for November. That is constantly what he kept preaching way back in August.”
Despite losing their final regular season game to O’Dea, Thomas new his kids had bought into the program and were ready for battle.
“I knew at that moment that they got it because even though we lost you could see it in their eyes,” said Thomas.
Thomas was right. The Bulldogs went on to knock off a 7-2 Everett team in the first round of the playoffs, and then they beat Lincoln (Tacoma) 44-41 on a last second field goal, and then they locked down a spot in the state semi-finals with a 13-10 win over previously unbeaten Eastside Catholic, who came into the game as the #1 team in the state.
“If there was ever a signature win of this program that was a signature win,” said Thomas. “We don’t beat Eastside Catholic if we don’t play Archbishop Murphy and we don’t play Bellevue. That game doesn’t happen, and we don’t beat them.”
While many coaches would be happy with the season ending run the Bulldogs had last season, Thomas is still focused on the bigger picture – building a program, positively impacting the lives of young men and young women, and helping kids get to college.
“You don’t coach at Garfield if it’s about you, you coach at Garfield because you generally care about the kids and the community,” says Thomas. “No one does this for the money, you do this for the love. This is for the love of my city, and the love of my community and for the love of my kids.”
“There’s something special going on 23rd & Alder and I’m just fortunate enough to be a part of it,” he concluded.
