The phrase “LA Tech Family” is more than just lip service or a recruiting pitch. Students, faculty and alumni come together on a beautiful campus in a small college town in north Louisiana to form a bond among each other. Thomas – the Director of Football Recruiting at the time – now had to tell his boss, head football coach Skip Holtz, what was going on and if he could get a day off here or there for doctor’s visits.

“This University has been beyond great and generous throughout this whole process,” Thomas said. “They say it takes a village to raise a child but this was so much more than that. It was a program, an athletics department, a university, a town, anyone and everyone we knew constantly supported us.”

But trying to ask for extra time off during the spring recruiting months wouldn’t be easy. The initial ultrasound was in April right as spring football was ending and the coaches would be hitting the road for five consecutive weeks of recruiting. And it was Thomas’s task to organize all of that.

“It tugged on my heartstrings because I am a father with three healthy children,” said Holtz. “I can only imagine putting myself in that situation and that is what I tried to do with Thomas when he told me. I told him to do what he needed to do for his family, we would be praying for them and we will do whatever we need to do to help him.”

That included the entire football staff pitching in. Thomas would lay the foundation of a critical time in recruiting but the entire staff from Holtz down to the assistants and support staff helped wherever and whenever they could. Of course, getting someone with a work ethic like Thomas has to not think about his job was something he would have to adjust to.

“Thomas was trying to tell me how he could do both,” Holtz said of Thomas’s plan to balance his work life and home life during this time. “I told him that we don’t want him to do both. He needed to be there for his family and for his wife. He is such a good guy, he loves this school and he doesn’t want to let anyone down so he was trying to balance both. That is when I told him that his is the time to focus on your family.”

For Thomas, who was facing a daunting challenge in all aspects of his life, Holtz’s words came as a welcome relief.

“I won’t ever be able to repay him or truly thank him,” Thomas said of Holtz. “For him to not only say that but also back it up was a load off my back and that’s considering I already had a big load anyway with recruiting. It was an answered prayer not having to worry about a lot of that.”

The support the Grahams received was the true embodiment of the Louisiana Tech Family coming together to help one of their own.

“For those of us that work with him on a day-to-day basis, it was about lifting him up each day,” Holtz recalled. “Every one of our coaches was asking him constantly, ‘What can we do to help?’ I think all of those things are part of what makes you look back and reflect that you never could have made it through that period without your family, whether it be the Louisiana Tech Family or your name family.

“There is no doubt you are part of your name family but definitely being part of the Louisiana Tech Family with the number of people that care, that reached out and tried to help and that he heard from, even on a day-to-day basis,” continued Holtz. “He has told me repeatedly how much he appreciated that support, his brothers called and thanked me and his dad called and thanked me. I think it meant the world to not only Thomas but the entire Graham family, which has a little bit of history at this school.”

The LA Tech Family support didn’t end there. The program’s support staff and members of the administration pitched in, offering support whenever and wherever needed. Athletic Director Tommy McClelland offered his support in whatever he could do to help.

“President Guice was big too,” Thomas recalled. “He and my father-in-law are friends and have been for a while. My father-in-law, now an engineer with Shell, took his first class in engineering. President Guice was constantly asking about us, saying he was praying for us. This wasn’t just a few people here or there, this went all the way up to the President’s office. There are so many people that were involved, but that’s what is great about this university.”

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