This Isaiah Thomas has come a long way
The fire alarm sounded at Round Lake High School, and, as instructed, every student exited orderly.
They were instructed to go back in. Back out. Back in. Back out. Back in. Back and forth they went.
There was no fire, mind you. No smoke. Just a silly prank, apparently, on the last full day of the school year.
And all the while there stood Isaiah Thomas.
NOT Isiah Thomas, the former NBA great, mind you.
"That's usually the first thing I hear when I first introduce myself," Isaiah Thomas says, laughing. "The funny thing is, I'm terrible at basketball."
A smile stretching from ear to ear wouldn't leave Thomas' face. The sun was making Wednesday extremely warm, but Thomas wasn't sweating at all, despite the black slacks he was wearing along with an argyle sweater over a white button-down shirt.
While he's known at Round Lake for his ability to sprint fast, he wasn't running anywhere. Truth be told, he's bounced around too much during his 18 years to let a false alarm ruin his big day. He was staying put.
When normalcy resumed, Thomas sat at a table and penned his signature on a national letter of intent to continue his education and run NCAA Division I track at Mississippi Valley State University.
Understand that Round Lake doesn't have a history of churning out D-I track talent. In fact, in Kevin Brady's seven years as a coach at the school, he's never had one.
"He's persevered a lot between home life and here," Brady says of Thomas. "To see him (earn a scholarship to) go to college and run in college, I think is really cool for us as a program."
Isaiah Thomas has come a long way, and we're not talking about all the running he's done on a track.
From the age of 1 until he was 11, he bounced around from home to home, without his biological parents being a part of his life.
"Growing up, I was moved in and out of foster homes, mainly because of abusive situations," says Thomas, who was born in Chicago and later lived in Mississippi for a couple of years.
Seven years ago, he moved in with his cousin, Sharon Brown, and has been living with her in a Hainesville residence ever since. Thomas says it's the first time he's had a steady place to live.
Sharon also raises her own son, as well as Isaiah's 15-year-old brother, Kendell.
"She's been a very positive influence," Thomas says. "She always pushes me to go and be more than what I'm expected to be. She's a little hard on me sometimes, but it's good. (She's) given me a good work ethic, and I'm going to take those values with me when I go to college."
Thomas has someone else to thank for helping him to stay focused and out of trouble. Her name is Tiffany Harder, whom Thomas calls a peer and a friend. He met her when he enrolled in high school.
"She's had a really big effect - a bigger effect than I think she realizes - on my personality," Thomas says. "(She) pretty much helped with my transition from being the kind of person I was to the kind of person I am now."
Today, Thomas strikes you as a responsible young man. Maybe running helped get him on the right path, so to speak. He had started running when he was in fifth grade.
"It was just a really good release, something to do physical, to get my mind off everything," he says. "I'm the type of person that when I set my sights on something and I really like it, I become very good at it."
He's good on a track, all right - fast.
He clocked a 10.8 manual time in the 100-meter dash at Crystal Lake Central's invitational this season, and that tied the school record that Kevin Parker set in 2003. Thomas heads into Friday's Class 3A Huntley sectional as the top seed (10.85 FAT) in the 100.
If he finishes first or second, or runs the state-qualifying time of 10.84, he'll become Round Lake's first athlete to qualify for the state track meet since jumper Jaquan Glover three years ago.
He'll run only the 100 after tweaking his right hamstring during the 200 prelims of the North Suburban Conference meet last Saturday.
"It's doing better," Thomas said of his hamstring. An injury to his left hamstring kept him out of last year's sectional.
Regardless of what happens Friday, Thomas doesn't figure to lose his smile. He knows what he's overcome to get where is today, and he's appreciating it all.
Heck, he almost gave up track his freshman year.
At the Stevenson Relays, he fell face-first on the track during a baton exchange and scraped himself up enough that he didn't want to run anymore.
Brady convinced the then-freshman not to quit, and Thomas didn't. The relay wound up capturing first place.
"After that, I knew I wanted to run for him," Thomas says.
Round Lake has its graduation this weekend, and Thomas' biological mother is planning on driving in from Iowa to attend. In college, Thomas wants to study social work and psychology so someday maybe he can help kids who, like himself when he was young, need help and direction in their life.
"I just feel really lucky," he says. "People say that I shouldn't because I worked for it, but at the same time I feel lucky that I had the opportunity. You feel blessed, and you got to thank God, just because of the people that I've met along the way and all the experiences."
It's been quite a run for the sprinter.
jaguilar@dailyherald.com