The Lonely Blues of Duane Thomas

As Louis Armstrong said, if they don't know what it is, then you can't tell 'em.

by Gary Cartwright

February 1973

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Duane vanished again, but in September, after the opening game, he rejoined the Cowboys, in body if not in spirit. He spoke to no one. When his name was called in meetings, he refused to answer on the grounds that anyone could see he was there. Tom Landry tried to help him. After a brilliant touchdown run by Thomas, Landry did a very uncharacteristic thing—he tried to shake Duane's hand. Duane flared his nostrils and brushed past him. There were no racial implications: Duane also refused to shake hands with black tackle Rayfield Wright. When Jethro Pugh, reputed to be the toughest man on the team, inquired politely about Duane's damaged knee, Duane froze him out and snapped: "Why do you want to know? You a doctor?"

On the team plane Duane positioned himself in a middle seat, pulled his stocking cap over his eyes and defied anyone to approach him. Meanwhile, on the field, he did his act and the Cowboys roared to their first Super Bowl championship. The players acknowledged what the public could not always accept, that Duane was invaluable, and therefore forgiveable. "As long as he can run with the ball," said Lee Roy Jordan, "we don't have to be buddy-buddy."

This time Duane showed up in the Super Bowl dressing room, in the custody of Jimmy Brown who personally delivered him to TV announcer Tom Brookshire. A former jock himself, Brookshire was at a loss for questions. In one priceless exchange, Brookshire said:

"Duane, uh, you do things with speed but you never really hurry a lot like the great Jim Brown, hee. Uh, you never hurry into a hole, you take your time, make a spin, yet you still outrun people. Are you that fast, are you quick, would you say?"

Duane looked serenely into the eye of the camera for about 20 seconds, then answered: "Evidently."

Duane's friendship with the great Jim Brown lasted about two days, at which time Duane packed his bags and slipped out of Brown's Hollywood mansion in the middle of the night. "Duane had the impression that Jim Brown was trying to use him, just like everyone else," says Raymond Mapps, an SMU football player who has known Thomas since childhood. "Duane has no illusions about being rich or famous. He just wants to do things his own way."

When Duane reported to camp only four days late last July, the Cowboys were shocked. He looked as though he had spent the winter in a dungeon at Devil's Island. "His weight was way down," said Al Ward. "He would sign in (before practice) and out (after practice) at 200, but you could tell he didn't weigh anywhere near 200. Yet, he looked great in practice, he was obviously in shape. Strength was never his suit anyway. Duane is a floater, not a plugger."

It wasn't so much that Duane violated every rule in the book; he didn't seem to know there were rules. As usual, he roomed alone and spoke to no one. He might or might not make it to practice. The only time anyone could be sure of seeing him was just before meals, when he would climb through the dining room window, load up the pouch of his shirt with fruit and celery, and disappear the way he came in.

"Tom Landry's attitude was one of bewilderment," said Al Ward. "Tom couldn't believe that the boy couldn't be reached and helped. What a crime to see all that talent go to waste. Tom would just shake his head and say, 'Why couldn't I reach him? Where did I fail?'"

In what may or may not be one of the shrewdest trades in history, the Cowboys unloaded Duane on San Diego in exchange for two of the Chargers' more gifted young players, Mike Montgomery and Billy Parks. The most extraordinary part of this agreement was that it was "unconditional"—what you see is what you get. If Thomas joined a religious order or lost interest in football altogether, the Chargers would be stuck with it; there need be no further compensation in draft choices or talent.

San Diego Coach Harland Svare had simply won the right to make Duane Thomas an offer he couldn't refuse—in this instance, $275,000 for three years. Under his old agreement with the Cowboys, Thomas would have been working in his third season for $20,000. Obviously, he deserved much more, said Svare and San Diego owner Gene Klein. When The San Diego Union Sports Editor Jack Murphy suggested that Duane's history indicated he did not bend easily to authority, Svare was reassuring: "We have only a handful of rules, and I'm confident Duane will obey them. We don't ask him to stand at attention or salute. I'm not in the business of censoring people. I don't want to change people, and I'm not going to tell him how to live...If you take a little bird in your hand, you don't squeeze it. You give it the security of your hand."

Thomas appeared at the Chargers' training camp a few times; he worked out a few times; he got together with Svare and Klein for lengthy discussions during which little apparently was verbalized but one thing or another more or less implied. At one point Duane and Svare prepared to hold a press conference, but it was cancelled when Thomas disappeared again and there seemed nothing to discuss. "That tells you something about Thomas," said Klein sympathetically. "He's like a kid who ran away from home. He wants to come back but he doesn't know how to get into the house."

At a September meeting, Svare sat in a room for three hours with Thomas, waiting for his troubled running back to unburden himself. "There was very little conversation," he recalls. "Duane didn't say much. I didn't say much. But speech isn't the only form of communication. There's a lot going on inside him. I can see that. I would like to see Thomas play, and not have all those problems."

He would't elaborate on the problems. "I have a lot of theories," he said, "but I don't know what's behind Duane Thomas." And then, a bit ruefully, he added: "We had anticipated we weren't going to be trouble-free with Duane, but we hadn't anticipated he wouldn't be here at all."

Earlier, the Chargers had persuaded a psychiatrist, Dr. Arnold J. Mandell of the University of California at San Diego, to follow and observe Thomas, the owners apparently laboring under the mistaken notion that Duane would be visible from time to time. Finally, Svare told Duane to get in touch after he'd straightened out his personal problems. "I gave him plenty of time," Svare said—and Duane clearly took him at his word. It was early November, the eighth week of the season, before Thomas showed up for two successive workouts with the Chargers.

Duane's final public appearance may have come on the following evening when the Chargers played Dallas in San Diego. Duane's motives are not yet clear, but Svare activated him in time for the Dallas game. Duane was observed the day before in a San Diego bank, cashing a check from the Chargers for $13,000. Maybe it was a last desperate gamble by Svare, who had been under considerable pressure for making the trade in the first place. Maybe Svare thought Duane would respond, facing his old teammates and all.

While a national television audience watched with new anticipation, Duane Thomas trotted onto the field in a trance. Quarterback John Hadl tried to play catch with him, but after the first toss Duane placed the ball down in the end zone and walked off. While the rest of the team warmed up at the opposite end of the field, Duane took a stance with his hands on his knees and looked at the ground for 15 minutes. During the playing of the National Anthem, he walked around like a man lost on the moon.

After that, Duane sat quietly on the bench until a few seconds before the final gun, when he stood and headed off alone toward the dressing room. Up until game time, Svare had reportedly entertained the hope of using Thomas, at least on kick returns against the Cowboys, and perhaps as a runner against Cleveland the following week. But Duane's eccentric behavior provoked more confusion and disappointment.

Up in the guest press box, a woman from Dallas told sportswriters: "He is a sick young man. We all knew that in Dallas. He needs a psychiatrist." Possibly, but the lady's judgment—arbitrary, impersonal, almost implying some sort of betrayal—was in sharp contrast to that of Duane's new employers. Svare made it clear he did not interpret Thomas' behavior as defiance, hostility or antagonism. "I certainly don't think he should be treated with any anger or punishment," he said. And sportswriter Jack Murphy agreed: "I regard Thomas as blameless and I was filled with dismay by the sight of this lonely man. Unwittingly, he had become part of a public spectacle and anybody with a sense of decency was appalled...He should have an opportunity to solve his problems without being exposed to the gaze of 54,000 people." He urged the San Diego management to put Thomas on reserve status for the balance of the season.

A day or so later, Svare did precisely that, making it clear he intended to deal with Thomas with compassion, and not in anger or disappointment. "At this point," he concluded, "our prime concern is to the human being."

Come back, Duane. There are some good people left.

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