Cancer changed Bruceton coach Thomas' life

“Cancer is probably the best thing that’s happened to me in my life.”

That’s not a frequent comment from anyone whose life has been touched by the disease. But Bruceton assistant football coach David Thomas has that attitude after recently being told he was fully healed of cancer. It was an early gift that came right before Christmas.

A diagnosis in 2002 just after graduating college changed the direction of his life from being one focused on the big dreams of going far coaching high school football to realizing he has all he needs with his wife, children and church at Bruceton — a team he grew up loving to line up against as an offensive lineman at Huntingdon.

Graduation to cancer

Thomas’ journey with cancer began right after his college journey ended.

“I think I graduated from UT Martin around May 18 of 2002, and my buddies and I got together and were grilling out at my parents’ house in Huntingdon,” Thomas said. “I was sitting on the bed of my truck while we were talking, and I felt a knot on my left groin. I thought it was a hernia.”

Thomas had been feeling sick and tired in the weeks leading up to graduation, but he thought it was a result of the combination of working 35 hours a week as the night manager of a grocery store and doing student teaching while wrapping up other academic duties in his final semester. But he went and got it checked out.

“They were checking me for everything from mono to AIDS, and my white blood count came back OK, so cancer wasn’t their first thought until I had a biopsy,” Thomas said.

It was about a month later on June 20 when Thomas was officially diagnosed with stage four lymphoma. The recent college graduate turned 22 years old on June 23.

Fortunately for him, he was able to be covered by his father’s health insurance plan since he still lived at home.

“If I didn’t have insurance, I don’t think I’d be here talking to you today,” Thomas said.

The word “cancer” was never actually spoken by Thomas or either of his parents until the diagnosis came.

“But I knew it after a couple other things had been ruled out that it would be cancer, so I think I was prepared for it,” Thomas said. “But there were some tough times dealing with the diagnosis right after it came.”

Thomas said he and his father went as far as picking out a burial plot for him. But he got a big shot of motivation just before he started his treatment in Nashville from his old high school football coach, Huntingdon legend Mike Mansfield.

“We went to a local barbecue place for lunch one day, and coach was in there,” Thomas said. “We were talking about the cancer and dealing with it and he told me, ‘When you were playing for me, did you want to settle for a field goal when we had the ball or go for a touchdown?’

“I told him I always wanted to go for the touchdown. Then he said, ‘Then you go up there and you go for a touchdown in this.’ That was all I needed right there.”

Living at Vanderbilt

Thomas wasn’t the normal cancer patient in the oncology facilities at Vanderbilt.

He regularly played pranks and even had water fights with nurses after filling syringes with saline.

One time he commandeered a red wagon from the children’s floor and put a nurse on it and tried to bring her up to his floor to give everyone a chuckle.

“She got caught and couldn’t come with me, but they let me keep the wagon,” Thomas said. “But that’s how I wanted to be: Happy.

“I had two rules when people came to visit me. Nobody could cry when they were with me, and if they wanted to pray with me, then that would be OK.”

Thomas stayed active too. He was always up and walking around.

“I was 22 years old – just a couple years removed from being on the children’s floor, so I got a game system and played it while I was there too,” Thomas said.

Looking back, Thomas said he can see the difference staying active made.

“There was another patient there who was not much older than me, and I’d get up and go to his room and try to get him up and hang around with me and walk around the building,” Thomas said. “He wouldn’t do it, and he died a few months later.

“I don’t see how anyone – sick or not – can want to live and not stay active. Sitting around all day in an office or watching TV or whatever gets boring and can’t be good for you. I’ve got to get out and do stuff, and I had to do that when I was at Vanderbilt too.”

Four months of chemotherapy and radiation helped Thomas initially overcome cancer and put him in remission. He would have checkup visits every few months to eventually once a year until his final visit last month.

“That visit was bittersweet because I obviously wanted to get the report that I was totally, absolutely, 100 percent free of cancer,” Thomas said. “But I’d gotten to know the doctors, David Morgan and every and staff there pretty well, and when the doctor told me I wouldn’t need to come back, we both kind of teared up a bit.

“I’ll probably keep coming back just because I got to know them pretty well and will miss seeing them,” Thomas said.

There were other relationships that Thomas made because of cancer too.

Change of plans

Before Thomas got his diagnosis in the month after graduation, he’d already begun to make plans to start his career.

He’d accepted an offer to become the freshman coach for a successful program in a neighboring town in rural West Tennessee. He had plans to learn there and build his resume and move on to bigger jobs.

“I had to tell that coach that I had health issues that were coming up and I hoped there’d be a possibility to work for him in a few months,” Thomas said. “He told me good luck, but he couldn’t promise anything.”

Thomas completed cancer treatment later that year and got a job in the office of his cousin’s body shop. In January of 2003, he got calls from Bruceton and another school about job opportunities. He chose Bruceton.

“Mike Wilson was a sixth grade math teacher, and he’d been called away on (National Guard) duty,” Thomas said.

He started helping with the Tigers’ football team that spring under Bruceton legend Rod Sturdivant.

“I told Coach Sturdivant I didn’t plan to be in Bruceton long because I wanted to be a head coach at a 5A or 6A school somewhere,” Thomas said.

Thomas was officially hired to teach elementary physical education for Bruceton that fall. Another teacher was hired that fall, a young woman named Amanda Wallace whom Thomas had a few classes with at UTM and had known for a few years.

“We were both dating other people in college, so we just sort of knew each other,” Thomas said. “But I fell hard for her in the fall of 2003.”

It didn’t take long for the couple to figure out they wanted to get married, and both are in the education system of Hollow Rock-Bruceton Special Schools District. They have two young children, and they’re both active members at First Baptist Church of Bruceton.

“If you’d told me 17 or 18 years ago I’d be married with two kids coaching football and teaching P.E. at Bruceton and that I would be a deacon at one of the Baptist churches there, I never would’ve thought it,” Thomas said. “I grew up Church of Christ. My dad is an elder. I was actively involved in it growing up, but it just goes to show you that you never know what God has in store for you through your life.

“He’s had His hand on my life, and I see where I am today. I wouldn’t change anything. That’s why my cancer diagnosis was a blessing for me.”

Brandon Shields, 425-9751