A helping hand: Coppell alum Solomon Thomas hosts youth football camp

For as much as Thomas, a 2014 Coppell graduate, wanted to return to Buddy Echols Field last year to relaunch the football camp that bears his name, the lingering effects of his knee injury required him to be elsewhere.

"I wanted to, but I was deep in my rehab and I was stuck in Orange County at the time,” he said. “My doctors told me that I was going to be fine, but I'm happy that I'm back."

After a whirlwind two years away from Coppell and now on his third NFL team in three years, Thomas was back at Buddy Echols Field on July 16.

The Solomon Thomas Free Youth Football Camp, presented by The Defensive Line Foundation, was offered free to the public and welcomed 200 youth and teens between the ages of 10-18 for an opportunity to work with Thomas and other instructors in a variety of drills.

"It really means the world to be able to come back and give back to my community, kids that went to my high school and kids in my area,” Thomas said. “This is what you dream of, going on and making it, making it to the highest level, but also to give back to the kids and show that it possible, too, and teach them the characteristics and resilience and working hard and overcoming adversity. Just the small things like that that has taken me so far, and I just want to give what I learned in high school to these kids. I'm very thankful to be here."

Thomas demonstrated a double-hand swipe, which he said is his favorite move to pass rush NFL quarterbacks.

“Wax on, wax off, in front of your eyes,” Thomas said, a reference to the 1984 movie, “The Karate Kid.”

Growing up, football camps were readily available for Thomas. He was an active participant in Nike Football Training Camps that were held in Coppell and Allen. That’s where he met people that inspired him to put together a youth football camp of his own.

“At those camps, I met guys like Ndamukong Suh, coaches like Chuck Wiley,” he said. “There was a coach that I looked up to and I wanted to bring back a camp to Coppell, to show kids that high-caliber players like me, Bill Weber, who went to Abilene Christian, Connor Williams to Texas and the NFL, can make it to places like that.

"I enjoy just the kids having fun, the kids just being here and laughing. Us being here and interacting shows them that we're human, too. Yeah, we're big guys, but we're here to have fun."

Thomas will look to have fun with Jets, a team that he signed a one-year, $2.25 million contract with on March 30. The move will reunite him with second-year head coach Robert Saleh, who was Thomas’ defensive coordinator in San Francisco.

After being selected by the 49ers third overall in the 2017 NFL draft, Thomas put up what are still career-highs in tackles (41) and tackles for loss (10), while recording 11 quarterback hits and 3.0 sacks as a rookie. The former Stanford Cardinal played in all 16 contests and started a career-high 13 of them in 2018 and made 31 tackles.

After posting just 21 tackles in 16 games in 2019 and having his 2020 season cut short because of a torn ACL, Thomas rebounded nicely in 2021. He recorded a career-high 3.5 sacks and had 34 total tackles in his only season with the Las Vegas Raiders.

Now, it’s onto New York.

"I'm super excited to be back with coach Saleh,” Thomas said. “Coach Saleh and I have a close relationship. He understands the way I work and he knows how I'm going to work in his defense. I'm super excited to be back in his defense. I love the way that he plays his defense. He lets his defensive line go out and attack. He's extremely smart in the way that he schemes us. And I just love the passion that he has. Everybody wants to play hard for him because of who he is and how he coaches us and how he loves us."