When Greg Thomas first tumbled from the West Texas plains uphill to the University of Arkansas in 1984, a new school would follow. Thomas had brushed aside the concerns of his father and took a leap of faith that he could become the Arkansas Razorbacks’ starting quarterback in coach Ken Hatfield’s first year under legendary athletic director Frank Broyles.
It was a tumultuous out-with-the-old-in-with-the-new era of change with Hatfield— who starred as All-American return specialist and defensive back under the then Broyles-coached Razorbacks’ national championship team two decades prior in 1964 — replacing Lou Holtz on the gridiron and Eddie Sutton on his way out as basketball coach to be replaced the following year by another son of West Texas, Nolan Richardson.
Thanks to reaching the pinnacle of success by winning an NCAA basketball championship by 1994, most Razorback fans know Richardson’s history-making story arc as the first black coach at Arkansas and the “Deep South.” But growing under Richardson’s wing, the once “snot-nosed kid” Richardson once tried to shew away from a junior college gym in Snyder, Texas would share some of the trials and tribulations awaiting them both in Arkansas.
Thomas not only became the university’s first African American starting quarterback but the winningest quarterback in program history. Playing as a true freshman as the final piece to Hatfield’s underrated initial Arkansas signing class, Thomas helped lead Arkansas to a 35-13-1 record over four years — including nothing less than nine wins in each year as the team’s full-time starter.
Razorbacker Exclusive with Greg Thomas
Like Richardson, Thomas’ contributions to Arkansas’ storied sports legacy hasn’t always been fully appreciated as they both maintain an abiding love and appreciation for the best — and worst — the Natural State had to offer. Their triumphs through trial by fire not only forged them into the men they are, but paved the way for countless others.
“First and foremost, people don’t know the truth,” said Thomas, who now coaches basketball at one of the largest high schools in the Dallas Ft Worth MetroPlex in East Plano. Much of Thomas’ truth can be found in his 2022 five-time award-winning memoir, “No Doubting Thomas — the Hawg Whisperer,” which was co-authored by Leland Barclay. Thomas and teammates of that pivotal time in Razorback sports history shared even more details in this Black History Month special two-part exclusive.
West Texas Roots
Arkansas has long been a southern staging point to westward expansion into Texas and Oklahoma. That goes back to the days when legendary law men like Bass Reeves were dispatched by Judge Isaac Parker out of Fort Chaffee in Fort Smith to round up the outlaws and renegades which officials in those states often couldn’t find.
As head of the only major college football outpost outside of Texas in the old Southwest Conference, Broyles faced a similar task each year to the “Hanging Judge.” He had to find some of the most dangerous recruits in the south — not only from SWC country, but surrounding SEC and Big Eight territories as well — and turn them into a team that could compete with the best in the country.
When Holtz turned in his badge and bolted up north to Minnesota, Broyles hired on an old top hand in Hatfield, who had just earned National Football Coaches Association Coach of the Year honors for the work he did for the U.S. Air Force Academy. The final recruit to sign in Hatfield’s first haul was a six-foot, 195 pound dual-threat quarterback before dual-threat quarterbacks were a thing in college football.
Hatfield flew out to San Angelo, Texas by way of El Paso to meet with the overlooked prospect who fit the bill for the run-heavy but pass-ready “Flexbone Offense” Hatfield preferred. He had inherited from Holtz a capable senior quarterback in Brad Taylor for year one, but he also needed a back up — if not for now in the future.
Taylor had performed admirably in Holtz’ more pro-style offense, but going forward Hatfield felt his success at Arkansas depended on keeping Arkansas’ top notch defense and pairing it with the kind of offensive attack Barry Switzer — a renegade Arkansas native and former Razorback — had used to continue Oklahoma’s football dynasty after inheriting the head coaching mantle from Bud Wilkinson a decade prior.
Thomas’ father Allie Thomas Sr. had been a trail-blazing athlete himself in Waco, Texas after transferring there in high school for better opportunities. Despite his prowess as a two-sport athlete, he was denied an opportunity to play for the University of Texas Longhorns due to the racial segregation policies which ruled throughout the Southern United States at the time.
Instead he graduated from a historically black college a few blocks from Longhorn Stadium in Austin and settled down with his wife Bernice who was a music teacher in his hometown of San Angelo. There Allie became a Hall of Fame coach in his own right during and saw his youngest son, Greg, grow into a two-sport athlete as segregation ended.
The senior Thomas, who was inducted in the local black high school hall of fame in 1972, was exactly the kind of athlete (for most of the country at least) Switzer had recruited at Oklahoma to usher in the post-integration era of college football in the early 70s. Another Arkansas native Paul “Bear” Bryant had fought unsuccessfully against racial segregation at Kentucky and Texas A&M before eventually convincing Alabama Governor George Wallace to do the same at Alabama. Once Wallace relented, Bryant added three of his six national championships to an already storied resume.
Because of some negative experiences during his military reserve training at Fort Chaffee, Allie Thomas also had misgivings about his son’s last-minute recruitment pitch by Arkansas — which didn’t cotton to Switzer or Bryant’s iconoclastic ways as quickly as others. However, Baylor Waco’s Baylor University’s head coach Grant Taeff revoked Greg’s scholarship offer upon landing a more highly-touted recruit from up north.
That prompted Thomas’ high school Coach Jimmie Keeling to suggest Thomas and his family consider taking his talents to The Natural State. Not long afterwards, Hatfield met Thomas at the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport and signed Thomas as the last addition to the Arkansas recruiting class of 1984.
“Growing up in San Angelo was the best possible environment,” Thomas said. “The community, family and friends allowed for a great place to raise a family.”
Healing the Land
Keeling, who helped pioneer racial integration in Lubbock, Texas and won a 1968 Class AAA state title, later came to heal the post-integration racial divisions in San Angelo athletics by 1981. His predecessor had told a young Greg Thomas and his father to their face. “I’ll never play him at quarterback.”
Those kinds of closed-minded attitudes and shenanigans like position switching based on race, which Thomas alluded to in his book as common practice while growing up in San Angelo, changed with Keeling’s one-family approach to coaching. It allowed the new generation of American Americans to better integrate into the local sports culture, and the result was a renaissance in the program in San Angelo under Keeling.
“My family lived in the inner city of Kansas City, Missouri until my parents moved us out to the suburbs,” said Razorback former All-SWC offensive lineman Limbo Parks. “When I went out there it was a culture shock to me because I was used to black kids and hispanic kids and a few white kids. But once I moved out there it was a different world because it was predominately white.
“You could’ve put me on the moon, but my cousin and my brother were older than me. I was the baby of the group. I could always see what they were dealing with so I didn’t have to fall into those traps. It’s always good to be the younger of the group.”
Parks, who went on to a long coaching career of his own in the Kansas City area, recalled a time when he got kicked off his high school team as a sophomore. “I still fell into traps like in my sophomore year in high school. I got kicked off the team because my coach and I got into it. I wasn’t going to be talked to a certain kind of way and grabbed by the face mask and stuff like that. I just wasn't that type of person. I’m not that one. You can yell but don’t put your hands on me.”
At one point, Thomas considered moving to Dallas where he might have a better shot of fulfilling his goal of playing quarterback, but once Keeling returned to his hometown he decided to stay On multiple occasions however, Keeling had to tell the persistent and confident Thomas to wait his turn to become the team’s starting quarterback. Thomas wanted to quit after the second denial until his father told him quitting was not an option.
“I don’t raise quitters,” Allie Thomas told his youngest son. “If you think he is taking something away from you, go prove him wrong. Work your but off, but quitting is out of the question.”
Those words of wisdom would follow Thomas later to Arkansas but when the senior starter, who happened to be white, went down for the season with an injury, Thomas seized the moment.
He made such an impression at quarterback as a junior that he was invited to recruiting trips like attending the 1982 SWC showdown in Dallas with heavy SWC title implications on the line between Arkansas and Dallas’ Southern Methodist University and their “Pony Express” backfield. The Mustangs were led by future-NFL running backs Eric Dickerson and Craig James against Arkansas’ no-nonsense defense.
The high-stakes contest on national television was decided by a controversial pass interference call in favor of the Mustangs in the final seconds. The call, which later led to a changing of rules in college football, also led to the game-winning field goal in a 17-14 contest, but it wasn’t what Thomas took away most from the game. Greg’s main takeaway was the bad impression Holtz made by berating his players and grabbing one by the face mask on the sideline during the heat of battle.
When Baylor — which ran a hybrid platoon system to get an old fashioned version of dual-threat quarterbacking — reneged on their scholarship offer the following spring and left Thomas standing at the altar on signing day while teammates celebrated, Thomas tried to keep up appearances. That’s when Keeling got on the phone and suggested Thomas look outside of Texas.
In the meeting with Greg’s parents, Keeling pointed out to the doubting Thomas’ that Hatfield was bringing an offense to Arkansas which was very similar to the wishbone offense pioneered right there at San Angelo’s Central High School. San Angelo legend has it that local hero coach Emory Bellard tweaked the old dead T formation by moving the fullback position in the middle to just behind the quarterback. It made for a faster exchange between signal caller and the backfield and provided a quicker first hit at opposing defenses.
Whether that was another tall Texas tale or not, no one knows. What is known is that Switzer somehow smuggled the wishbone across the Red River into Oklahoma and parlayed it into the nation’s most potent offense weapon over the preceding decade or so.
Now, Hatfield was bringing his rendition from the Airforce. He called it the “Flexbone” and guaranteed Greg Thomas every opportunity to man the cockpit.
A New Marshall in Town
Thomas flew to Fayetteville for an official visit where he met other stray Texans like Houston’s Marshall “Rok” Foreman, who served as Thomas’ guide. Foreman had the speed of a halfback in the body of a fullback, and would become one of Thomas’ best friends at Arkansas on and off the field.
In an offense that in some ways laid groundwork for the modern read-option offenses from the spread formation, Foreman foresaw a glimpse of the future for Razorback football and beyond.
“In that system, you know, the fullback and the quarterback in particular have to have a good report and a good relationship,” he said. “It's kind of like today when they do all the read option stuff. I think Hatfield and David Lee were probably on the same page because the fullbacks and the quarterbacks met together every day. I mean, that our playbook was identical and we had to be on the same page, and everything we did was started from there.
“So it made it easier — especially for us fullbacks because we saw the offense like the quarterback saw the offense. We learned the whole thing.”
Surrounded by other strays from Texas, Missouri and Oklahoma on offense like fellow Houstonian and flanker James Shibest who now coaches at Purdue, Hatfield’s offense was set to compliment Arkansas’ notoriously stingy defense. Defensively, overlooked homegrown black sheep like Wayne Martin of Cross County, Richard Brothers Rivercrest, Ricky Williams of Little Rock Parkview, Parkview teammate Anthony Chambers, Greg Lasker of Conway and the Stuttgart Three: Kerry Owens, Reggie Hall and Odis Lloyd, Hatfield’s first recruiting class was all onboard when you throw in St. Louis’ Steve Atwater at safety. Individually or as a group, they weren’t deemed good enough to be recruited by Switzer’s Sooners or the overcrowded Texas Schools.
Arkansans like Keith Jackson, Leslie O’neal, Danny Bradley and Eric Mitchell may have taken their talents to Oklahoma, but Thomas landed right at home in Fayetteville.
But what really sealed the deal in making Arkansas his new home was when Thomas was introduced to offensive coordinator David Lee and the quarterback room. Lee noted right away that Thomas had grown some from the film he had watched during the fall.
Thomas wrote in his memoir that when he first walked into the quarterback room, he knew he measured up well and wanted to sign immediately.
“You look at the measurements and the skill set, and the offense,” Thomas said. “I know I met those standards. I just needed to earn the trust to get that opportunity.”
Sensing the real possibility of realizing his childhood dream of playing quarterback in the Southwest Conference, Thomas was ready to sign his name on the dotted line with local news crews in attendance. No sooner than he signed the letter of intent however Thomas realized the news would soon reach his father, who was now divorced from his mother.
With cell phone access still decades in the future, Thomas frantically raced to tell his father but it was too late. His father had heard the news.
“I’m afraid something bad could happen to you because you don’t know when to back down,” Thomas recalled his father saying over the phone. It would be two weeks before the two would speak again, but the younger Thomas was his own man now. He had crossed the line into the Natural State. He was officially a Razorback.
“There was a fine line,” he said. “(My father) lived it and fought so that his children and students wouldn’t have to relive those challenging memories.”
The old adage holds however. Those who forget their history are often doomed to repeat it. If Thomas doubted his father’s wisdom, the words told to him by another West Texas hero resounded through history as well.
“Stay in school,” Thomas was told once by Texas high school legend Darrell Shepphard when giving the youngster an autographed chin strap after a game. “It’s where all the fun begins”
“Greg's not one of those guys that just you can do something without him asking why” said Foreman. “I mean, he wants to know why and why is that better? Why is this not better? I mean, he's just one of those guys.”
Buckle up for Part Two.