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Gratz lineman a true survivor

Simon Gratz's Raquan Thomas is attracting attention from colleges, after surviving five gunshot wounds a year ago.

Simon Gratz High Junior offensive and defensive lineman Raquan Thomas.
Simon Gratz High Junior offensive and defensive lineman Raquan Thomas.Read moreYONG KIM / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

HIS HANDS are enormous, palms thick and wide, like Belgian waffles. His cleats are a size 15, perfect for chasing down ballcarriers or pancaking would-be pass rushers.

At 6-4 and 304 pounds, Simon Gratz junior Raquan Thomas possesses all of the measurable numbers a two-way lineman needs for success on the football field.

However, after surviving five gunshot wounds following a game in October 2013, Thomas is relieved to have narrowly avoided becoming a number on a tragic list.

Unfortunately, as a victim of violent crime, the Logan resident does belong in a statistical category, but football, family, teammates and a fresh start have all given him the perspective to move forward.

"I feel like I escaped because sometimes people get shot more than once and they just die," Thomas said before Gratz began practice at the Marcus Foster Supersite, just a few blocks from where he and a teammate were shot last year.

"I'm thankful that didn't happen to me so that I'm not just another kid that, 'Oh, he was nice, but then he got killed.' It's kind of like you start a new path . . . "

That's "nice," as in good at football, because after missing most of last season, he's been anything but to opponents.

"Once I got to high school, I knew I had a little gift and I was good," Thomas said. "I always liked it. It's physical. I like hitting and I like the contact and the roughness of it. It's like whatever you're going through, sometimes you can just ball it all up and really take your anger out on somebody during a play and nothing happens. And people start to notice you more in a positive way, not in a negative way."

Head coach Erik Zipay said plenty of colleges are buzzing around Thomas, who reports a 3.0 GPA. So far, only Temple and UMass have made offers.

Last week, Gratz (9-1, 6-0) beat Northeast, 24-8, in the Public League AAAA quarterfinals. In the semifinals this week, the top-seeded Bulldogs from the Independence Division host Martin Luther King, the No. 2 seed in the Liberty.

With Thomas and other defensive leaders such as junior middle linebacker Shawn "Woozy" Jenkins, Gratz hasn't allowed double-digit points since Week 5 against Frankford. The Bulldogs won, 20-14, beating the Pioneers for the first time since 1959, according to TedSilary.com.

And to think, all of that was almost taken away.

Thomas said he and a teammate, who was also wounded, were walking after a game last year when an argument escalated over a girl.

"It happened really fast," he said. "I tried to break it up . . . somebody just swung . . . and then, all you heard were shots.

"At first when I fell, I thought it was just a real bad cramp," he continued. "I couldn't move anything and my body just locked. My friend came over to me and it just started burning. And then I saw the blood . . . "

Two shots pierced his left calf. Another pair dug into his right thigh. A single shot, which remains in his body, entered his back on the right but maneuvered to the left. Sometimes after games, that area swells. To some it might seem a permanent reminder, like walking past the spot where his blood once stained the sidewalk.

"People ask me, 'When you go past there, you don't feel some type of way?' " he said. "I think I don't feel any type of way, because it wasn't like I did something [wrong] and people have been looking for me. That's why I just try to put it past me. Yeah, it happened, but in my mind, it kinda didn't. And the more that I'm around football, I just forget about it and know that I'm lucky. And, I don't ever want to go through that again. You can't help everybody, sometimes you just have to walk away."

The cost was painful: rehab and the heartache of not being able to help his team.

"That was a real hard process, because I felt like I let my team down," he said. "I know I didn't do anything wrong, but everybody was like, 'Yo, if you were here and suiting up, people would play differently.'

"At first, I doubted it, like, 'It ain't my fault. I didn't do anything.' And then I realized in talking to my coaches and my brother, people I look up to, that I do make a difference [when I'm out there]."

These days, Thomas is back to his boisterous, jovial self, knocking heads and talking trash in practice.

Even the little guys feel his wrath.

"Yeah, he caught me one time," Nick Brown, a 5-7, 185-pound senior running back, said, laughing. "I was talking a little bit of trash and they ran a screen. I wasn't paying attention and he [destroyed] me. He stood over me and said, 'Yeah, you better stop talking back there.' "

Thomas even lifted 5-5, 150-pound receiver and defensive back Shawn "Megatron" Williams off his feet, leaving the senior thinking, "Man, this kid can really hit!"

"When he makes a play, you know it's go-time," Brown said. " 'RA' is a goofy dude, but when it comes down to the game, he doesn't play around. When he starts making plays, it's just time to turn up."

Leadership hasn't been easy. Thomas said he likes the "role-model status" it affords, but also said he sometimes struggles handling the responsibility.

However, as he balances both, Thomas said he also realizes that football, and the lessons it teaches, can lead to a better life.

"I notice from my teammates like Woozy, sometimes they say, 'Yo, talk to the team, because they look up to you,' " he said. "Sometimes you don't look at it like that. You're just playing. But that makes me go harder, because I'm not just playing for myself; I'm playing for everybody."

"[At first] I played football kind of like a hobby, but I want to take it further, so me and my family can be in a better place than we are now," he added. "And, it just opens up doors with education. If I don't go to the next level, at least I can get an education and be successful in this world, and it'll help me become a man."

Saturday's Catholic League AA championship game between Ss. Neumann-Goretti and West Catholic has been pushed back to 4 p.m. at Cardinal O'Hara because of SATs.