Karrol Thomas: The Lanier High School teacher who never gave up on his dreams
Thomas dropped out of college after one semester. Two decades later, he earned his bachelor’s degree and achieved his goal of becoming a teacher and football coach.
Karrol Thomas has been teaching at Lanier High School for seven years. Laeyla Walters
By Laeyla Walters
Karrol Thomas was a charismatic 39-year-old college drop-out working, as he put it, “three dead-end jobs at one time, barely able to make ends meet.” Being a blackjack dealer, yard cutter, and security guard was tiring not only physically, but mentally, too. It wasn’t the life he had imagined for himself.
Flash back to 1992. Thomas had just graduated from Warren Central High School in Vicksburg, where he had been a star fullback on offense and middle linebacker on defense for the Vikings. He felt ready to go on to the next stage in his life: college. He enrolled that fall at Tuskegee University in Alabama. He loved meeting new people and learning more about the real world. But, it didn’t take long for him to realize that he wasn’t prepared for college.
“It was overwhelming,” he said. “It’s that independence. You’re making your schedule, you’ve got to get up and go on your own. It’s not controlled like high school. You’ve got to have self-discipline, and I didn’t have that.”
He made the difficult decision to drop out after one semester and began working odd jobs to support himself financially.
For about the next decade, he was in and out of school, as life just kept getting in the way. In that time, he got married, lost his mother, and became a father. He often questioned what he truly wanted from life.
“I want that Gatorade poured on top of my head.” — Karrol Thomas
One day, while watching a high school championship football game on his living room couch, as he often did, he saw the Gatorade being poured atop the winning coach’s head and had a revelation.
“When I was watching those football games I said ‘I want that Gatorade poured on top of my head, I want to win a championship, too.’ And I prayed and prayed and prayed.”
The high spirits of the victory and the sportsmanship on the field captivated him. He had figured out what he wanted to do with his life, but not quite how to achieve it.
The following year he bumped into a former high school teammate named Tony Baldwin. Thomas was working as a security guard at the law firm where Baldwin worked as an attorney. After a few minutes of casual catching up and laughs shared between old teammates, Baldwin said to Thomas matter-of-factly, “Karrol, you are the greatest coach that has never coached.”
“It emotionally bothered me,” Thomas said. “Because I think in his eyes he thought I wasn’t gon’ make it… I did not want that to be true. That’s why I was going to make that statement false.”
Thomas had a goal in sight. Now, all he needed was a push. The catalyst came one day while driving past Mississippi Veterans Memorial Stadium, where he noticed a football game being played. Thomas became emotional and began to cry because he was on his way to a job that he knew was not advancing his career — he aspired to be a coach. Checking the mail the very next day, he found a pamphlet from Jackson State University titled, “What is Holding You Back from Chasing Your Dreams?” Inspiration struck; this brochure had just changed a simple man’s life.
He called the number on the rear of the brochure and spoke with a woman named Ms. Smith (Thomas does not recall her first name). She told him to bring his transcript to Jackson State so that they could see how many classes he needed in order to graduate. He arrived at her office the next day with his transcript in hand. He said that her office was so empty, it was as if she were waiting specifically for him. Even though Thomas was slightly overwhelmed by the prospect of returning to school after all these years, she was able to calm him down. Speaking in a soft voice with a pronounced southern drawl, she told him that he only needed to take four more classes.
He thanked God that he had decided to return to college. The end was within his reach. He just knew that he was going to achieve his dreams.
He took the remaining classes while balancing work and his duties as a father and husband. At times he felt discouraged, but Ms. Smith was always there to motivate him and keep him on track.
Thomas has earned school-wide recognition for his excellence as a teacher. Laeyla Walters
“She always told me, ‘You’re too hard on yourself. You’ve got great grades, you're doing good, you’re too hard on yourself,’” he said. “So, every time I had self-doubt she brought me back out of it… Ms. Smith, I’ll never forget her.”
Thomas graduated with a degree in Interdisciplinary Studies in 2014 with his wife and son in his corner. He had finally done it. Twenty-two years after first enrolling at Tuskegee, he had finally proved everyone right – everyone who believed in him, everyone who stood beside him and encouraged him.
“I know I’m supposed to be here.” — Karrol Thomas
Fast forward to 2018. Coach Thomas led Whitten Middle School’s football team to a district championship for the first time in 15 years. Now, Mr. Thomas teaches U.S. history at Lanier High School (I was one of his students last school year). He has been at Lanier for seven years and was on the football coaching staff from 2022-23. His plans to further his career and become a head high school football coach remain. But for now, Mr. Thomas is fully focused on instilling knowledge in his students and helping 11th graders pass their tests.
“And I know I’m supposed to be here,” he said. “I know I’m supposed to be here. And it means a lot to me when kids come up and say ‘Mr. Thomas, you said one thing to me and it changed my life.’ A young man last year said that the only reason he comes to school is because of me.”
As a testament to his impact on the Lanier community, Mr. Thomas received the Teacher of the Year Award in 2023. He said that the award solidified his purpose and affirmed that this is where he’ll make the greatest impact on the youth.
He is still determined to get that Gatorade poured atop his head. It’s the next goal in his journey through life.
