At peace with the past

Published 6:30 am Wednesday, October 11, 2017

LAFAYETTE — Simeon Thomas is at peace about his past.

The Louisiana-Lafayette senior cornerback is not consumed with guilt or anger over what his Ragin’ Cajun football career could have been — or what in some people’s eyes it should have been rather. The former highly touted prospect freely acknowledges and takes ownership of those well-documented mistakes, but he is not one to dwell on those past failures, especially not now that he is so close to accomplishing some, if not all of his goals. 

“I feel like my past has helped me a lot,” Thomas said. “Every day I will take a glance back at what happened but I never take a long hard look back. Not anymore. Now I am just focused on what I can still do here. I just feel so blessed because I am still here. I still get to put on this uniform. It is truly a blessing.”

The next Carol City star

Thomas was born and raised in the Miami Gardens neighborhood of Carol City, an area of sprawling government housing developments that seem even smaller in the shadow of the Miami Dolphins’ home stadium which hovers over it.

Thomas is the second oldest of six kids to Tiffany Paramore, who first supported her children by working as a community development associate for homeless and then as a driver of a garbage truck for the city of Miami. The household may not been a wealthy one but Paramore always made sure to preach faith, family and most importantly a no-quit attitude to all of her children.

“My mom never wanted me or any of us to quit,” Thomas said. “My mom always had this mentality in our house that none of her kids were allowed to quit.”

That no-quit attitude helped Thomas excel in all kinds of youth sports growing up but he found his place on the football field, especially at Carol City High.

The neighborhood’s lone high school is well regarded as producing some of the best college and professional football players in the country. In 2009, the high school was ranked second in the U.S. for producing the most college football players. 

The list of notable Carol City High players includes former N.Y. Giants safety Kenny Phillips, All-Pro wide receiver Santana Moss, Jacksonville Jaguars wide receiver Allen Hurns, former LSU defensive lineman Rickey Jean Francois and hip-hop megastar Rick Ross.

Thomas’ focus was always to follow in those same footsteps.

Thomas quickly became a star at Carol City and by his senior season had developed into a three-star recruit. He had originally committed to play at Florida International but later de-committed and fielded offers from Akron, Buffalo, Syracuse, Ole Miss before settling on the Ragin’ Cajuns. 

“He had a great size for a cornerback,” Hudspeth said. “You know you don’t see too many 6-foot-3 corners. He was very long and athletic. He had that size dimension that is not of a prototypical cornerback. We felt that we could develop him into an outstanding player.”

Thomas arrived on campus in 2012 with plenty of buzz as many a fan, coach and journalist had labeled him as the next great Ragin’ Cajuns DB following in the footsteps of Bill Bentley, Ike Taylor, Damon Mason and Charles “Peanut” Tillman.

The latter even gave the young Thomas advice that proved to be prophetic. 

“He told me to stick with it,” said Thomas, who met the former All-Pro during fall camp his freshman season. “He told me ‘You are going to have some tough times but just stick with it. Don’t ever stop learning and whatever you do don’t look back. Just always make sure you are moving forward.’”

Thomas spent the 2013 season primarily as a backup and special teams player learning the ropes behind the likes of Bentley as the Ragin’ Cajuns won a share of the Sun Belt Conference championship and the team’s fourth straight New Orleans Bowl trip.

That was the final time Thomas played in a game for more than two and a half years.

A pair of lost seasons

That spring following the bowl game, Thomas received some unexpected and troubling news. The Ragin’ Cajuns coaching staff and advisors informed him that he was not eligible to play the following season for academic issues. For Thomas, that meant he would spend the 2014 season not as a projected starter but as a member of the scout team.

“It was tough,” said Thomas, who admits he wasn’t mentally prepared for college. “I was so far away and I came here on a mission to accomplish something. I had a lot of people looking up to me and behind me but I just let a lot of people down. My mom was real sad for me. I know I let her down.”

“I was disappointed,” Paramore admitted. “We all go through things in this life so I just wanted to stay positive for him. I told him ‘If it was easy then everybody would be playing college football.’ He needed to finish what he had started.”

Thomas worked with tutors and his advisors to improve his academic standing and wowed the coaching staff during spring and summer drills, former defensive coordinator Melvin Smith publicly stated that Thomas reminded him of Thorpe Award winner Johnthan Banks. Thomas was marked as the starter at left cornerback and then a week before the season opener against Kentucky the NCAA ruled that Thomas was ineligible for the first nine games of the season because he did not have enough credit hours to qualify. The staff decided to simply redshirt him for the entire season to save a year of eligibility.

“At the point when I found out I really didn’t want to hear anything anybody had to say,” Thomas said. “I wanted to quit. Sometimes I couldn’t look the other guys in their faces. I was just embarrassed.”

Thomas was so ashamed that he contemplated doing the unthinkable — quitting the team. 

“I remember telling my advisor that I was going to stop playing football and that I would just continue to stay in school but my coaches and my mom talked to me and helped me stick with it,” he said.

His mother wasn’t going to allow that to happen.

“That second year when it happened again I think he was at his lowest point,” Paramore said. “He felt that football wasn’t for him and that he was thinking of just coming home and getting his degree at a community college. I just told him that he had to stay the course. If God gives you something then it is not for you to give it back. Who are you to give it back? You don’t have that power. You have to stay on course until God moves you.”

During that 2015 season, Thomas did a lot of talking to his mother, himself, God and his head coach.

“I had those moments where you just talk to yourself,” Thomas said. “I did that, I talked with God and I had a lot of conversations with Coach Hud. I mean we would talk like everyday and we would have these deep conversations. He just kept telling me ‘Ask yourself who you want to be and how you want to be remembered.’ I always wanted to be great and he would always tell me I am going to be put your picture out there on the wall one day.”

For Hudspeth, it was an easy decision to keep Thomas connected to the Ragin’ Cajuns.

“I grew up with a mom and a dad,” Hudspeth said. “I grew up with a dad that taught me about a lot of life’s lessons from elementary school to junior high to high school and later on. Simeon never had that. 

“He never had that male figure to tell him what he did wrong and what do better. I just felt that it was an obligation on my part to make a difference in his life. The easy thing is always to give up but nothing worthwhile ever comes easy.”

The cornerback comeback

Thomas stayed the course and after more than two long years, he finally got to suit up once again for the Ragin’ Cajuns last season. 

That feeling of finally getting to play was one Thomas won’t soon forget.

“It felt like it was my first time playing football,” Thomas said. “Like it was the first time I had ever put on gear like I did when I was a kid.”

Thomas went on to play in all 13 games, including the team’s return trip to the New Orleans Bowl. It appeared that he had finally completed his redemption, but then an issue with his academics arose once again. 

The week of the bowl game he found out that he failed to get a high enough grade on his final exam in one course, which mean that he once again fell short of the required hours to remain eligible the following season. The NCAA suspended him for this season’s first two games.

This time though Thomas was undaunted.

To avoid having the suspension go from two to four games, Thomas took and completed 27 credit hours during the spring and summer semesters. Thomas made his debut against Texas A&M and even though he missed the first two games, he is currently second on the team in pass breakups (4) and seventh in tackles (19).

The 24-year-old Thomas also will be only two classes short of graduating with his bachelor’s degree in general studies after this semester.

“There were times that I never really believed that I would be this close to graduating,” Thomas said. “Where I come from nobody graduates from college. It is a big deal for me and my family. I probably couldn’t name you one person from where I am from that has graduated from college.” 

“I am just too excited,” Paramore said. “My baby is going to graduate. He is the first one to do it. He had a lot of obstacles to do it. He is strong to have stick it out.”

That accomplishment also brings joy to the man who spent many a hour talking with Thomas about his future.

“With everything that he has been able to overcome I am so proud of that young man,” Hudspeth said. “Especially where he has come from and with the opportunity he now has to enrich his life that he wouldn’t have otherwise. He is going to leave here with a college degree and he is going to leave here a more mature young man.”

Thomas is also at ease about his football future. The young man who arrived on campus five years ago only dreamt of playing in the NFL like the Carol City High players before him, now has other dreams away from the field.

Asked if he feels his Cajuns career was a disappointment or an accomplishment, “It is combination of both,” Thomas said. “But at the same time I feel like that I am at peace with everything that has happened and that feeling of peace just takes over. So yeah — I feel like it has been a positive.”