2 weeks Ago
I did not know Donnell Thompson well, having only met him once, but I knew plenty of people who did and nary one uttered a discouraging word. With his unexpected death this week at a young 65, there has been an outpouring of grief for “Foots” in his native Lumberton community as well as Robeson County, Chapel Hill, across the state and nation, and in the NFL world. It is not true that only the good die young, but it is true that when they wrap up life the cut is the deepest.
Blood is gushing now in Lumberton. Donnell and I both graduated from Lumberton High, but he was a sophomore when I was a senior, he was black, I was white, he was a football player, and I was a golfer, so we circled in different orbits. His and my time at the University of North Carolina also overlapped for two years, but again, he was on a football field, I was at Troll’s, he was in class, I was there sparingly, he never missed a study hall, and I needed directions to Wilson Library.
So, again, different orbits. He was plowing forward with this life, and I was drifting mostly sideways, so our paths did not cross. I did meet Donnell in March this year, when he was the speaker of an event to raise money for the Boy Scouts.
Afterward, I introduced myself and complimented him on his presentation and his kindness was evident instantly. He assured me he knew who I was and was aware of my newspaper career. He touched on a lot of bases during that presentation, but the time he spent on his football career was almost parenthetical.
Donnell was an all-ACC and all-American football player for some stout defensive units at UNC, playing alongside Lawrence Taylor. He was the No. 18 pick in the first round of the 1981 draft of the Baltimore Colts, spent all his 11 seasons in the NFL with that team, and Jim Irsay, the team’s principal owner, upon hearing the news remembered No.
99 as “our beloved DE from the 80s.” What I mostly recall from Donnell’s time speaking about football, is that he was clear that the game was his ride to an education and a better life. What dominated his presentation were family, faith and friends.
He made it abundantly clear that he had plenty of help during his life’s journey, which included becoming a successful businessman in the restaurant industry. I will first apologize to those I leave out, but Thompson specifically mentioned Bob Osterneck, the Lumberton businessman and huge UNC supporter, coaches Paul Willoughby and Tommy Thompson, Allene Gane, his English teacher and “second mother,” as key figures who kept him in the middle of the road. His years playing sports at the Lumberton Recreation Department he characterized as formative.
What I remember as well is Donnell sharing that as a black youth growing up in a Lumberton still infected with Jim Crow that he was told not to trust white people and they were the enemy. He said, however, that his experience was the opposite, and although he had two wonderful and attentive parents, his success in life was a community-wide effort. Hearing him speak that day and remembering him as I write this, resurrected my time as sports editor of The Robesonian, from 1984 to 1988, when I routinely encountered young athletes of color who had skills that could have been parlayed into a free education and a springboard to a better life.
Much more often than not, I would be told by a coach that a particular athlete’s time on the field would end with high school, that he or she did not have the support in the home or community that Donnell enjoyed, and that grades would keep closed so many doors. My message today, one I have no doubt that Donnell would support fully, is that those of you in our community, positioned to help young Donnell Thompsons in our neighborhoods – and there are plenty – do so. That would be the best way to honor Donnell’s life and to lengthen his legacy.
Well done, Foots, and RIP. Reach Donnie Douglas by email at [email protected] ..
