Tyeson Thomas’ name will stick out Wednesday when Oregon State announces its latest football signees. That happens any time the Beavers sign someone from Texas.
Growing that Texas football-rich pipeline, OSU fans will excitedly say.
Except in Thomas’ case, he’s a temporary Texan. Thomas is as home grown as most Oregonians on the Beavers roster, having lived most of his life in Salem and, currently, Lake Oswego.
But it was three months in Texas that put Thomas on the Beavers’ radar. This fall, Thomas and his father Jimmie lived in Austin while Tyeson went to Del Valle High School to take classes and play football.
Play for pay? In a way, yes. The Thomases — and this particularly includes Jimmie’s wife and stepmother Amy — thought Tyeson needed to play in order to show colleges he was a worthwhile prospect. Without a senior football season of exposure, the Thomases believe college football was a long shot for Tyeson, a 6-foot-3, 215-pound safety.
That’s exactly the situation facing Tyeson Thomas. With COVID-19 closing down high school football in Oregon this fall, the Thomases made the expensive decision to get Tyeson a senior season in Texas.
They don’t, not for one second, apologize for transferring their son for fall semester from Lakeridge High to play high school football in Texas. They’ve heard plenty, too. Jimmie says “80 percent” of people around them questioned the move, labeling the Thomases as disloyal, entitled and everything in between. Tyeson says a few of his Lakeridge classmates felt like “it was a little bit of a backstab.”
To which Tyeson responds, “I understand where they’re coming from. I’ve just had frustration. I feel like I had to do it in order to go where I wanted and have been planning and dreaming of going for so long.”
And that is college football. It’s an experience close to home; Jimmie played football and baseball at NAIA’s William Penn University, and Amy basketball at Idaho and Azusa Pacific.
Tyeson wanted a taste of it, too. But with Oregon canceling high school football season last fall, and no guarantee the state could pull it off this spring, the best Tyeson could do was junior year Lakeridge footage and offseason workout video.
When an opportunity came available to move to Austin and experience Texas high school football, Tyeson was intrigued. Jimmie, a longtime high school football coach, had doubts.
Amy? You bet, you’re going.
“I questioned it almost up until the day we left. My wife was really the one who said, ‘We’ve got to do it,’” Jimmie said.
• • •
Football has been part of Tyeson Thomas’ life since the middle of grade school. He often tagged along when Jimmie went to practice as an assistant high school coach, including seven years at West Linn. Thomas spent most of his life in Salem, and began high school football at Sprague.
Tyeson lived with his mother, Cherie Schroeder, but the two didn’t live far from the Thomases in Salem. When Amy and Jimmie and their two children Josiah and Arie moved to Lake Oswego two years ago, Tyeson decided to live with his father and attend Lakeridge.
Thomas played cornerback for the Pacers, as he did for Sprague. But during the offseason, Thomas amped up his training, and grew in size but kept his speed. The goal was to become a safety.
With COVID-19 shutting down high school football team training, Thomas worked on his own. Early in the summer, a friend of Jimmie’s — the coach at Del Valle — invited Tyeson to come down to Austin to work out. There was never a thought this might lead to something other than putting on muscle and adding skill.
Lakeridge senior Tyeson Thomas played seven games for Del Valle High School in Austin, Tex. this fall at safety, earning second-team all-district honors. (Courtesy Jimmie Thomas)
Thomas returned to Lake Oswego later in the summer, but the news didn’t improve. Oregon wasn’t going to have in-person classes in the fall, which meant no high school football. Some states in the West, such as Idaho and Utah, planned to have high school football. There was widespread talk about some Oregon athletes considering a temporary move to states playing high school football in order to play.
That’s when the Thomases began to think, why not us? The adults talked with Tyeson, and they quickly came to a decision. Jimmie, Tyeson and Jalen Ellis, a cousin at Century High in Hillsboro, decided to head to Austin. The boys would enroll at Del Valle, go to school and play football.
Tyeson said his mother, Cherie, was hesitant at first, because of the racial movements and uncertainty about political climate in Texas. Nervous was how Tyeson described his mother’s feelings.
Same went for Tyeson, but for a different reason.
“I was a little nervous on how it would turn out,” he said.
Tyeson and Jalen flew to Austin ahead of Jimmie, who loaded up the family Audi with clothes and other necessities. Three days of driving alone in the Western U.S. left Jimmie with plenty of time to think. Self-reflection he called it.
“He called me a couple times with ‘What the heck am I doing?’ He’s in Arizona and said, ‘What decision did we just make?’” Amy said.
In the end, the decision came down to something Jimmie’s pastor had once said.
“He told me, ‘You’ll never regret investing in your kids,’” Jimmie said.
As soon as Jimmie arrived in Austin and picked up the boys, he knew the expense, the time away from family, the verbal barbs from outsiders, were worth it.
“First thing he said to me was ‘Dad, thank you so much for doing this. I promise I’ll work as hard as I can to make sure that it wasn’t for naught,” Jimmie said. “That was cool.”
Jimmie, who works as a medical device salesman, got the blessing of his boss to make the temporary move. The apartment where they lived wasn’t much. For three months, they slept on air mattresses, and had sparse furnishings, like a futon, a plastic fold-up table to eat meals, a small TV to watch football.
“It was kind of like living in college all over for me,” Jimmie said.
This wasn’t a vacation after all. It was a business trip, complete with 5 a.m. wake-ups in order to make workouts.
Tyeson played in seven of Del Valle’s nine games, missing two with a knee injury. He played well enough to earn second-team all-district defense. Jimmie didn’t coach, but helped out where needed.
Tyeson said Del Valle teammates were open-minded about the out-of-state transfers — it was a thing throughout Texas — and generally accepting of him and Jalen.
“I really loved the culture and their mentality. Just really hard working and humble,” he said.
Ultimately, what made the Texas trip worth it was the college contacts. Tyeson received several Division II scholarship offers, and increasing interest from FBS and FCS schools, mostly as a preferred walk-on. Oregon was regularly in contact with Tyeson. Oregon State came in late. Assistant coach Jake Cookus pitched the possibility of joining the program as a preferred walk-on.
Tyeson’s head was spinning regarding a decision. Jimmie and Amy said the Texas adventure cost about $10,000, not insignificant to them.
“People think, ‘Oh, you live in Lake Oswego, and you have all this extra money.’ It’s not like that at all,” Amy said. “It was tough on us. But when you think about spending $10,000, and then your kid has a chance to have four years of college paid for, and do something they love … well, we’ll make it work.”
Take a full ride from West Texas A&M, or other scholarship offers? Or the walk-on offer from Oregon State?
Amy made it simple for her stepson. She told Tyeson, take the money off the table. What school do you want to attend?
Then it became simple. Tyeson loved everything about Oregon State, from academics to the football program. The Beavers have a history of promoting standout walk-ons with scholarships. Two prominent starters on the 2020 Beavers were walk-ons-turned-scholarship players in Jaydon Grant and Nous Keobounnam.
They looked at Tyeson’s track record of proving himself at Sprague, at Lakeridge, at Del Valle. All three thought, why not Oregon State as well?
“My mom heart was like, I just want him to go someplace where they’re paying for it and they’re saying he’s our guy. I don’t want him to have to prove himself again,” Amy said. “But he was like that kid who said, ‘No, I want to prove myself again.’ So then, OK, if that’s your mindset, then go for it.”
• • •
The Thomases returned to Lake Oswego in December. Tyeson resumed classes at Lakeridge on Monday with the start of the second semester. He doesn’t plan on playing football for the Pacers if there is a season this spring. He wants to get a job and make a little money before heading to OSU this summer.
If Lakeridge is able to play, Tyeson says he’ll be on the sideline for every game cheering his teammates. Tyeson considers himself a Pacer, even if his final high school season was staged some 2,000 miles away in central Texas.
Thomas is a temporary Texan, and because of it, a full-time Beaver.
-- Nick Daschel | ndaschel@oregonian.com | @nickdaschel
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