University of North Carolina Athletics
Tar Heel Montly: David Thornton (Part 2)
June 10, 2002 | Football
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Sometimes life isn't fair, which explains why Arnold Thornton was driving down Highway 70 in Goldsboro on his way to Interstate-95. "There is only one Paul," as he will tell you with a smile, but his life story sounds suspiciously like that of King Saul, who after an encounter on the road to Damascus went from ordering Christians to be stoned to being known as Paul, one of the greatest Christians in the Bible.
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"I had so many goals set for my family, and getting fired hurt so bad," Thornton said. "I hit that 70 Highway and it seemed like all my old mind came back to me. I was on my way back to D.C., the drug city. I was thinking, 'I can get all the dope I want up there, this job down here ain't for me anyway.'"
Tears were rolling down his face. He was leaving his wife, Janice, and their three sons and was going back to Washington to try and get in some trouble, which had never been much of a problem for Arnold Thornton, who in his earlier years had a special talent for finding mischief. As a teenager he was arrested for stealing cars, which landed him in jail for 30 days. The jail stint didn't rehabilitate him, however, and when he was released he found his way to Washington, where he was in and out of jails for several years for a variety of much more serious drug-induced offenses.
Just as he was about to exit off onto I-95, his thoughts turned. The aunts he had lived with in Washington were dead, and he didn't know anyone up there anymore. He had no money and no place to stay, and no job other than the dismal prospect of dealing dope again.
"I began to think about where God had brought me from," Thornton said. "I began to think about the things I had accomplished. My boys were like a dream come true in my life. I had always wanted three boys and a beautiful wife, and the Lord had brought that to me. I stopped the car and turned around."
He landed another job, and his wife, Janice, continued to work at her factory job to provide for the family's three sons. David was the youngest, which meant he took the brunt of the abuse when Arnold, Jr. or Terrance wanted to show off their athletic prowess. David also was the quickest to try and please, the quietest, the most observant. Without a word, he'd watch his father do something, then mimic it flawlessly a few days later.
Which could have been quite a problem if Arnold Thornton, Sr. was still living a life filled with drugs. His father -- David's grandfather, who he never knew -- had left home when he was three years old, and after that he saw him exactly twice. Once when Arnold Thornton was 11, when he remembers hugging a man who was little more than a stranger, and then again a month later, when they brought him home in a coffin. The boy was never exactly clear on how his father died, other than to know that it had something to do with alcohol and, probably, a stroke.
History repeated itself just a few years later, when Arnold Thornton fell in with the wrong crowd and began stealing cars. Ten boys were involved, and only two were caught. In hindsight, being one of the unfortunate two may have been one of the luckiest things that ever happened.
"I thank God for allowing me to be in the right place and get caught," Thornton said. "It allowed me to see the other side of life. I don't know if I'd be saved today if I hadn't made those mistakes."
Life didn't immediately turn around until 1973. Saul was blinded by an exceptionally bright light and urged to turn his life around. Arnold Thornton was hit by the voice of his mother, who constantly quoted her favorite verse, Romans 8:28 -- "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose." Despite his many failures, his mother continued to accept him at her home, and her perseverance won out when Thornton became a Christian in 1973 at the Tabernacle of Prayer in Goldsboro. That's also where he met Janice a few months later, although he was hesitant to approach her because he wasn't sure she'd be interested in someone with as checkered a background as him.
The couple raised their three sons well, and even when Arnold Thornton lost three fingers in a factory accident in 1991, it turned out to be a blessing because it allowed him to devote more time to his ministry, which often takes him into jails to urge inmates to turn their lives around.
"I want them to see I'm not just somebody with a degree," he said. "I build a platform for them to see, and my platform is my testimony. I've been in jail, I know what it is to be incarcerated. I know the feeling of rejection and the guilt that jumps on your shoulder when you're incarcerated."
Carl Torbush was out of a job at North Carolina. But before he was fired, he met with David Thornton and told him that he was placing him on scholarship for the spring of 2001. It would then be up to the new head coach to decide if the scholarship assistance would continue for the next school year.
The new head coach was John Bunting, who came into Chapel Hill talking about opportunity and then proceeded to demonstrate it. The kid from Goldsboro wasn't sure what his future would hold, but he was considering graduate school in sports administration. Thornton was also involved with UNC Upward Bound and a participant in Minority Student Recruitment. That off-the-field involvement eventually led to his induction into the Order of the Golden Fleece as a senior, an organization considered one of the highest honors any member of the University of North Carolina community can receive. But the new coach made it clear that he wanted players who were "consumed with football," which could have been a problem for his rising senior linebacker who had even more going on off the field than on it.
However, Bunting didn't intend for his players to give up every off-the-field activity. "If you're organized, football becomes a fun thing to do," he said. "If you can enjoy football and life organized, it can work. I'm not saying it's easy. It's hard. But you can do it."
Thornton was impressive in spring practice and earned a scholarship from the new head coach.
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It was on those flat plains of Norman that Thornton made his first impression. And his second, third, and then even more, on his way to 15 tackles in a performance that had sportswriters scrambling for their programs to find out who was wearing that number 30 jersey for the Tar Heels.
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"It was definitely a financial blessing and a big load off my shoulders as far as meals. Because I've experienced both worlds, I think I appreciate the things they do for me on scholarship to the utmost."
But he didn't want to just take up a scholarship. He wanted to contribute. And with the season opener at Oklahoma and their All-America linebacker Rocky Calmus, there was plenty of that opportunity that Bunting was always talking about.
It was on those flat plains of Norman that Thornton made his first impression. And his second, third, and then even more, on his way to 15 tackles in a performance that had sportswriters scrambling for their programs to find out who was wearing that number 30 jersey for the Tar Heels. He led Carolina in tackles for the first three games of the season, but all were losses.
The next game was to be against Southern Methodist, and Bunting convened a meeting of his seniors in his office early in the week. Various excuses were offered for the team's 0-3 record, and there was some finger-pointing as players tried to explain their poor performance. Usually content to stay quiet, Thornton eventually had enough of the excuses.
"The bottom line was that we had to get out there and execute," he said. "I don't speak out much around the guys, but I thought it was important for them to realize that we were the ones who had to get it done."
That was exactly what Bunting was hoping to hear. He dismissed the meeting immediately after Thornton's comments. The tragedy of September 11 wound up postponing the SMU game, making the team's next game a home date the next weekend against perennial ACC power Florida State.
What happened that day, a 41-9 shellacking that was Carolina's first win ever over the Seminoles, stunned almost everyone. And Bunting stunned Thornton the next week, when he pulled him aside after practice during the week after a win over North Carolina State.
"He commended me on the things I was doing well and encouraged me to keep working hard," Thornton said. "He asked me if I had ever considered playing professional ball, and I told him that you always dream about it. He was quick to let me know that I could play at the next level and that he was going to see what he could do for me."
NFL scouts were already beating a path to Chapel Hill to evaluate Julius Peppers and Ryan Sims. Many of them came away with a small note in their notebooks about the linebacker who always seemed to be around the ball. By the middle of the season, three scouts had asked Bunting about his middle linebacker who was among the league leaders in tackles.
"Around the halfway point of the season, I was talking with some scouts and they wanted to know who this guy was," Bunting said. "They showed me what they had on him from last year and they had some miserable statistics. They had him weighing 208 pounds and running a 4.9 40-yard dash. I told them that must be somebody else. I didn't even know his time, but I knew that his playing speed was extremely fast."
Thornton eventually ran a 4.6 40 at the NFL combines in Indianapolis. But it wasn't just his measurable statistics that made an impression on the coaches in attendance. The combine is essentially a meat market and a meet market, with teams trying to schedule interviews with players who ranked highly on their draft board.
Thornton didn't wait for the teams to call him. Instead, he made a point of going around and meeting representatives from every NFL team. When he stopped in where the Indianapolis Colts had set up headquarters, new head coach Tony Dungy happened to be in the room. The pair had a roughly 15-minute interview, and both parties left with good feelings about the other.
"It's unusual for a player to do that on his own," Dungy said. "Usually, you're trying to fight to get players to come to you. It was something that was probably typical of him but that impressed everyone there. He's a guy who is a leader, and he's very focused on what he wants to do. His whole story of going there as a walk-on and getting into a leadership position and doing so well was great. I was impressed with his maturity."
Despite the good first impression, the Colts were not one of the teams that seemed most interested in Thornton in the days leading up to the draft. He was not selected in the first three rounds, which meant he had to spend a nervous night waiting for the second day of the draft. Sunday morning at 11:20, one of the few times in his life that he wasn't in church at that hour, Thornton got a call from the Colts' director of player personnel. The walk-on from the Goldsboro was the newest Indianapolis Colt.
He has since had to attend two mini-camps. His first NFL experience came when the Colts opened their first mini-camp at the RCA Dome in Indianapolis. Wearing his new royal blue number-50 jersey, Thornton couldn't help but feel that he had been there before.
"We were at mini-camp, and there were all these fans in the stands, and none of them knew who I was," he said. "It's kind of like being a freshman again, when I ran out of the tunnel in Kenan Stadium with my name on the back of my jersey, and I wasn't playing, and no one knew who I was, but they were cheering anyway."
His biggest cheerleader isn't moving to Indianapolis just yet. Qieara will stay in Goldsboro at least until her father gets more settled in his new home. Nicole has one class left to finish her degree, but she has no illusions about her standing with her daughter. It's apparent in the way Qieara and David play together on the floor, the way they'll cover their heads with a blanket to tell ghost stories and not allow anyone else into their world.
"David is all that I could hope for as a father," Nicole said. "He has been there every step of the way. When people see him with her they can't believe it. They shut everybody else out. We could be at a family reunion with a hundred people and Qieara and David will be out on the playground by themselves. He is her best buddy. She will look right at me and not care if she hurts my feelings and say, 'I love you, mommy, but my daddy is my best buddy.'"
Her best buddy spent most of his college years doing things for other people. After making the NFL and with a significant contract in his near future, it was finally time to do something for himself.
Nicole doesn't much care for David's new ride. It's a shiny new Cadillac Escalade that was purchased with the riches that belong to an NFL star, and it's packed with even more features than that Acura Legend from almost ten years ago. Thornton-the father, the boyfriend, the football player, and the son-let her drive it on one occasion, although she deemed it too big. But that couldn't stop the thought that went through her mind when Thornton pulled up in front of her grandmother's house for the first time in his new vehicle. Watching him leave the driver's seat and flashing back through all the high school days, the numerous Andy's Specials, the diapers, the football games, only one thing was going through her mind, one thing that Nicole Lesesne knew beyond doubt:
"Baby, you made it."
