FootballSaturday, September 12, 2015
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things other than training, aca-
demics. … Because they are driven
individuals, they didn’t mind the
time they had to commit to this
program in order to obtain or reach
their goals.”
Back in high school, that work
paid off when former Michigan
assistant
coach
Curt
Mallory
noticed the two at a Michigan sum-
mer camp and recruited them.
Those camps ran well into the
summer, and then it was time for
training camp to prepare for anoth-
er season. Thomas and the staff at
Eastern Christian didn’t leave time
for anything else.
“I never really went to any par-
ties or anything,” Watson said. “I
wanted to, but I was too tired. I had
stuff going on the next day. There is
no other choice.”
* * *
It hasn’t taken long for the play-
ers and staff at Eastern Christian to
become confident in their model,
to keep pursuing bright futures in
spite of a bleak past. The school
started in 2012, when nearby Red
Lion Christian was sold to another
church that de-emphasized athlet-
ics.
At that point, the football players
(including Canteen, Watson and
Sills), parents and coaches at Red
Lion gathered and decided they had
three options: They could each go
their separate ways, staying at
Red Lion or transferring to a new
school of their choice. They could
all transfer to the same school en
masse. Or they could create a new
school.
Of course, the latter of those
three options presented the most
challenges. They would need
teachers, classes, approval from
the state and a host of new admin-
istrative measures.
But that’s what they voted to do,
and Eastern Christian was born.
“It was challenging, but it
wasn’t like climbing Mount Ever-
est,” Sills said. “It was challenging,
I’ll say that. It was a lot of work.”
Sills’ son still had three years
of high-school eligibility left, and
he had been offered a scholarship
to Southern California at age 13.
If the elder Sills had only his own
son’s football interests in mind,
he could have sent him anywhere,
most likely Oaks Christian in Cali-
fornia, where he could work with
private quarterback coach Steve
Clarkson.
But Sills had his other sons, his
adopted sons, to worry about too.
To create a new school, take in
underprivileged kids and travel
around the country playing high-
school
powerhouses
required
belief — belief in the staff, belief in
the players and belief in the system.
If Sills, Thomas and the rest of
the foundation of Eastern Chris-
tian didn’t have that belief, East-
ern Christian wouldn’t exist. And
Freddy Canteen and Brandon Wat-
son don’t know where they’d be
right now.
The new program at Eastern
Christian needed a strong leader
as coach, so when Sills founded the
school, he brought Thomas with
him. After growing up in Pater-
son, New Jersey, Thomas played
at Northern Arizona and then
coached at Montclair State, Ten-
nessee State and Delaware State.
A strong personality, Thomas is
very philosophical and exceeding-
ly confident. He says North Jersey
is becoming a recruiting hotbed,
so he says he’ll take his team up to
beat — not just play — some teams
in North Jersey. Last week, they
did, defeating Michigan safety
Jabrill Peppers’ alma mater, Para-
mus Catholic, 42-20.
“There’s
a
cockiness
here,
where I think we can develop peo-
ple wherever,” Thomas says.
Just before Eastern Christian
started, Thomas took a visit to the
IMG Academy in Bradenton, Flor-
ida. Eastern Christian has drawn
comparisons to IMG because of its
strong focus on athletics and the
criticism that it is too intense in
that area. In fact, the schools will
play each other in football next
month.
During
Thomas’
visit,
the
coach walked around the facil-
ity, had lunch and met with then-
IMG coach Chris Weinke. At the
end of the visit, Thomas went to
Weinke’s office and saw several
of his players’ names on the wall.
Weinke wanted them to transfer to
IMG; Thomas said absolutely not.
He offered Thomas a job; Thomas
said absolutely not.
Weinke said if Thomas left Red
Lion, he would never surface again.
“I said, ‘Yeah, we will,’ ” Thomas
said. “You can drop me off in Bei-
jing, China, and in two years Nick
Saban is gonna have (Chinese play-
ers) on Alabama’s team. Because
we have a formula.”
That was the end of that conver-
sation.
Thomas is his serious about his
coaching job. He believes he was
called to do this. Years ago, his
father told him the Confucius say-
ing that when you choose a job you
love, you never work a day in your
life.
He likes the intimacy of Eastern
Christian’s program, where he gets
to urge kids to realize their full
potential. College coaches ask him
when he’s going to return to col-
lege. He tells them he never will.
“At the end of the day, when we
win, I feel like we just beat Ala-
bama,” Thomas said. “And when a
kid gets a scholarship, it seems like
we just won the national champi-
onship. I’ve had years where we get
14 kids scholarships, so I won the
national championship 14 times
that year.”
Thomas came to Eastern Chris-
tian, taking the leap of faith along
with everyone else, to keep teach-
ing lessons to the kids.
“You’re going to win some,
you’re going to lose some and
some are unfortunately going to
get rained out,” he said. “But when
there’s a lesson learned, you really
don’t lose anything. That’s where
the confidence comes from.”
* * *
Eastern Christian’s building sits
in the bottom of an industrial park
off Maryland’s Route 272. It shares
the park with a closed sandwich
shop, a fencing academy and a cork
production plant, among other
things. One has to pass a precious-
metal factory and an agricultural
supplier to see the first sign of a
high school, a lone tackling sled in
the middle of a field of knee-high
grass.
But inside the building at the
bottom of the hill, it looks like a
high school. The lobby is furnished,
with flowers lining the front wall.
Photos, trophies and other memen-
tos decorate another wall. A poster
reads, “We Don’t Keep Calm. It’s
Football Season.” Another lists four
seasons: Winter, Spring, Summer
and Football. Still another, “It’s not
whether you get knocked down. It’s
whether you get up.”
The staff hangs flags on the wall
from all the schools former players
have attended. Last year’s schools
haven’t even gone up yet, and they
already need a new wall.
“Good bunch of guys, man,”
Thomas says. “We’re going to get
15 kids to college every year. That’s
our contribution to society.”
On the front desk, another stack
of mail from interested schools has
arrived for players. Thomas begins
to sort through the schools: Yale,
Army, Liberty, Maryland, Rutgers,
UCLA, Michigan State, Kentucky.
He reaches the bottom of the
stack, then sets it down, pauses and
says, “We’ll be all right.”
LEVI KIPKE/Daily