San Francisco 49ers defensive end Solomon Thomas is back where it all began -- on the football field at Coppell High School.
"These are the same fields I used to play in high school, which led me to Stanford, which led me to the NFL," Thomas said. "So it was really important to come back and help these kids, show them I'm just like them. The game of football can teach you so many things about life. It can really bring people together, create a brotherhood, create a family, really teach you life lessons and how to live through adversity."
Solomon and his parents are living through some of the worst adversity imaginable. In January 2018, Solomon's sister Ella took her own life. While it's been incredibly difficult to deal with, the Thomas family said the Coppell community had given them much-needed support.
"It helped in the healing process," Thomas said. "Just a sense of family, a sense that someone's here to love you when you feel the love's all gone when you feel like your whole world is completely shattered, just having people there to show you that they love you, that there's still a way there's some light in the storm you're going through, that's what it really showed us and so just wanted to show love back and really give back to them."
Giving back in the form of a football camp that's not only fun for its participants, but also a reminder of the simple joys in life.
"You see the joy on these kids' faces," Solomon's mother Martha said. "You see the joy on these coaches' faces and it helps us to see that, to know that's still here."
