Star Texas back makes the grade

Attention college coaches that were shying away from Longview (Texas) Spring Hill running back Jamario Thomas because of questions about academics. Those questions have now been answered.

“Jamario has now scored a 24 on his ACT and he’s got a 3.0 in his core classes,” said Spring Hill coach Steve Gaddis.

“He’s going to be a full qualifier now. He got a chance to take the test un-timed and he blew it away. That’s the one thing that kept a lot of coaches away, because they were afraid of his grades. But that’s not a problem now.”

And teams are starting to quickly catch on.

Thomas, who is 5-foot-11 and 190 pounds, has quickly scooped up scholarship offers from Arizona State, Arkansas and Colorado. But once word gets out that Thomas, one of Texas’ top running backs, has made his grades, he’ll be fighting the college coaches off.

Because simply put, Thomas is special.

As a junior, Thomas rushed for 1,749 yards and 28 touchdowns on 256 carries despite missing two games with a high ankle sprain. In addition, he added 15 catches for 220 yards and one touchdown. In his sophomore campaign, he added 1,572 yards and 27 touchdowns on the ground and 14 catches for 213 yards and had a touchdown reception.

“He’s special,” Gaddis said. “He’s a guy that can squat 520 pounds, bench press 300 pounds easily and I can take him out there this minute and have him run a 4.3-second 40-yard dash.”

Gaddis said he doesn’t expect Thomas to rush through the recruiting process now that he’s going to be a hot commodity.

“He’s going to wait and go through the process,” Gaddis said.