|
RECOMMENDED LINKS
Vivid Seats
Ticket Liquidator
NFL Tickets
 |
||
|
|
DT Sure Had a Lot of Friends
Feb. 15, 2000
Derrick Thomas always loved a big party, and there it was Tuesday at Kemper Arena -- a big party, 31/2 hours worth, a celebration drenched in song and speeches and dance and preaching. Two giant video screens displayed it all. This was the first memorial service for Thomas -- another will be held Saturday in Miami -- and if you saw it, you saw that it was crammed with, well, with a whole lot of stuff. You wouldn't necessarily expect to see an event where NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue is followed by the Greater Pentecostal Temple Mass Choir followed by Hank Williams Jr.
But then, Derrick Thomas lived a full life.
All along, I kept trying to feel a goodbye. Holden Caulfield, the character in "Catcher In The Rye," said you should always try to feel a goodbye. When Derrick Thomas died a week ago, it was so sudden, so dramatic, so shocking. Thomas had been so full of life. Fans wrote poems for him. Children drew pictures of him. Callers told stories about him. Teddy bears were scattered about the Arrowhead Stadium parking lot. Still, it was all too hard to believe. He had been so alive.
Tuesday, I kept trying to feel that goodbye. It's hard to say exactly what to make of the service, which was touching and funny and poignant and inspiring and, most of all, really long. Fifteen people said something about Thomas, and they were all so wonderful, so passionate. No one could keep to the three-minute time limit. They just had too much to say. Too many memories rushed back.
So the service went on and on and on, and after a while the words began toppling over, and people started to leave. It was a strange scene. There was Derrick Thomas' coffin in Kemper Arena, the place where the Big 12 basketball tournament will be played next month. The speakers were heavy-metal loud. The program was a bit overwhelming. Cameramen panned the crowd looking for fan reaction. People headed for the exits. It was all a bit surreal.
There was a touching moment when Chiefs running back Tony Richardson, an Auburn man, put on an Alabama hat in Derrick's honor, the ultimate sacrifice. Rahman McGill, a gifted young man, talked about how Thomas inspired him and how he wants to be a Supreme Court justice. Thomas would call him "Justice" for short. Gunther Cunningham said that, every day, he buckles his seat belt in memory of Derrick Thomas.
The stories kept coming, fast and furious, sweet and sour, silly and somber. Tim Cunningham played a beautiful national anthem, and the people who remained chimed "Home of the CHIEFS" at the end. Bishop Marvin Donaldson sang and swayed and chanted and burst his way through an intense and unforgettable eulogy. Just about everybody talked about how Derrick Thomas was always late for appointments in life. "If you knew Derrick Thomas," said his lawyer, Kevin Regan, "you were stood up by him at least once."
None of it felt quite like goodbye, though. The service ended as it began, with a heartbreaking video that showed Thomas playing football, with all the fire and speed and joy we remember. People wonder why so much has been written and said about Derrick Thomas. Good people die young all the time. But few people touch as many lives as Derrick Thomas did. For all these years, his life intertwined with ours. His kindness reached so many of us. His mistakes made news. His play inspired us. That's why.
When the video ended and the lights sparked on, people started gathering on the Kemper Arena floor. And there, Marty Schottenheimer hugged George Brett. Otis Taylor hugged Andre Rison. Marcus Allen hugged Neil Smith. There, on the floor, were rap stars and football players and lawyers and doctors and coaches and men who served with Capt. Robert Thomas, Derrick's father, in Vietnam. There were familiar faces and family members and preachers and dancers and cheerleaders and musicians and kids, lots of kids. Everywhere you looked there were kids, some sick, some well, some younger, some older, all with Derrick Thomas buttons on their lapels.
And Derrick Thomas clutched all their hearts somehow. He lived 33 years, such a short time, but he did live those 33 years. He did live. And I had my goodbye. I stood there for a long time and just watched all these people, famous and plain, rich and poor, black and white, men and women, young and old. I just watched all these people hug and smile and whisper in each others' ears on the Kemper Arena floor. I'll never forget the way it looked out there.
Derrick Thomas sure had a lot of friends.
from kc star
|
|
|
|
||