April 7, 2008
Albuquerque Journal
Eric Thomas Was a Special Lobo
By Rick Wright Of the JournalWhen it comes to membership in the Lobo Club— not the booster organization, but the brotherhood of UNM men's basketball— don't judge Eric Thomas by his career statistics.
Judge him, instead, by all the things he shared with his more celebrated teammates:
Running the sand dunes at I-25 and Rio Bravo.
Wolfing down breakfast on the road at the Marriotts in El Paso and Salt Lake City.
Reveling in the victories; the easy part. Staying united in defeat; the hard part.
Studying through the night after a game or a long practice, then fighting to stay awake in an 8 a.m. class the next morning.
The thrill of seeing "New Mexico" pop up in the bracket on Selection Sunday.
Thomas, 36, an Albuquerque spinal surgeon, died on March 22 from complications of leukemia.
A Lobo from 1991-94, Thomas played in 18 games for a career total of 44 minutes. He averaged one point and 0.5 rebounds per game.
Tucked between Charlie Thomas (16.8 points, 7.7 rebounds) and Kenny Thomas (15.7, 8.4) in the UNM media guide's list of all-time lettermen, his contributions might seem insignificant.
Not so, says Ellis Dawson, who was in town last week saying goodbye to a dear friend.
Dawson never played a minute for UNM; yet, he too, is a Lobo for life. As a student manager from 1988-95, first as an undergraduate and then while pursuing a Master's in sports administration, he saw dozens of players come through the program.
Thomas, he said, takes a back seat to no none.
"He wasn't just an athlete," Dawson said. "He was a great student, a great human being, a great dad, a great doctor.
"It's one of those things where this guy, in a short time on this earth, was really a blessing for all of us."
Dawson, when interviewed by phone Friday, said he had spent the morning with ex-Lobos Notch Neves, Marlow White and Greg Brown. They and other former teammates gathered in Albuquerque last week for Thomas' funeral.
"Notch has been really good with helping me with the legwork," Dawson said, "with the phone calls he made to the Vladimir McCrarys of the world, the David Gibsons. Trent Heffner, J.J. Griego, Marlow, Greg ... the feedback has been overwhelming.
"It just goes to show what kind of a family we really are."
Some of the Lobos mentioned above were stars and/or starters; others, like Thomas, played lesser roles on the court.
Yet, when you're struggling to finish that timed mile run, or you're down after a butt-chewing from the coach, it doesn't matter whether the kind words or shouts of encouragement come from a starter or a backup.
Thomas was that kind of teammate, Dawson said— perhaps because, as the epitome of a student-athlete, he knew from the start that basketball wasn't life and death.
Thomas came to Albuquerque from Camarillo, Calif., in the fall of 1991 with his career goals firmly in place. Basketball, however much or little he played, would make those goals attainable.
"He always wanted to be a doctor," Dawson said, "and he used his athletic ability to make sure he could accomplish his dreams."
When Thomas wasn't holding down the Lobos' bench, he was propping up their team GPA; he was a Western Athletic Conference Scholar Athlete four years in a row.
Yet, Dawson, said, statistics— whether athletic or academic— never defined Thomas to his teammates. He simply was one of them, as much a Lobo as Luc Longley, Willie Banks, Khari Jaxon or Charles Smith.
He leaves, then, as he came in: a member in good standing of a very special club.
Catch Rick Wright's column at www.abqjournal.com. E-mail him at rwright@abqjournal.com