Coach Henry L. Thomas accomplished much at Gainesville State School, with humility, good spirits and a fitting motto

By Barbara Kessler, TJJD Communications

Coach Henry L. Thomas, the athletic director at Gainesville State School, has a motto – “We can accomplish great things together as long as no one cares who gets the credit.”

This call to action – originally attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson, President Harry Truman and others — has resonated over decades with the hundreds of young basketball athletes Thomas coached in public schools in Texas. It has reverberated for the last 10 years at the Lone Star High School North at Gainesville State School, where Thomas led the basketball teams and also coached football and track, which all participate in the Texas Association of Parochial and Private Schools (TAPPS) league.

“I think working with kids and coaching has been part of me, probably since I was born. When I was a kid I organized my own baseball leagues, basketball leagues, whatever season it was, we’d play. We’d get about eight or nine guys together to play. I think it’s been in my blood . . . So, the coaching and working with kids has been an easy thing to do.”

Easy for Coach Thomas, maybe. With his retirement this month, he closes the book on 42 years of coaching and teaching, a career that saw him win 500 basketball games while he was head basketball coach in Calvert, Texas, and then at Denton High School, Lewisville High School and Flower Mound High School in the DFW area.

When he says coaching was in his blood, there’s some literal truth to it. Thomas and his wife Lorena raised five children and three of them became coaches.

Their son Michael Thomas is the head basketball coach at Denton High School; daughter A’Traviya Thomas is the head girls’ basketball coach at Denton High School and daughter Jennisha Murray is the head girls’ basketball coach at George Ranch High School in Houston.

The Thomas family also prizes education. Lorena and four of their children have master’s degrees and daughter Nakithia holds a doctorate and works at Child Protective Services.

With all that coaching in the family, it’s little surprise that Henry Thomas also shepherds another flock. He is the pastor of Hamilton Chapel Baptist Church in Frisco, where he plans to continue after his retirement from state service. He and Lorena also plan to travel and spend lots of time with their 16 grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. 

Coach Thomas began his career in his home state of Arkansas, where he graduated from Arkansas University, in Monticello, with a physical education degree. He later got an additional degree in educational administration from Prairie View University.

His sports highlights include twice taking the Calvert High School Trojans basketball team to the state championships (in 1993 and 1995) and hitting those 500 career wins while at Flower Mound High School. But the highlights didn’t end there, because Thomas decided to sign on at Gainesville State School.

“Gainesville has been a perfect fit for me. After winning 500 games as a head basketball coach in public schools, this position taught me that it was more to life than winning basketball games,” Thomas said. “We got to learn how to lose sometimes as well.”

Thomas mentions the losing with his characteristic good humor. During his time at Gainesville State School the Tornadoes six-man football team had an epic year in 2018. They rose in the TAPPS rankings and made it to the state championships – where they lost.

But getting to state was still a huge victory for the scrappy team, which was also the subject of a film by a McClatchy news crew that same year. The film was part of the Titletown series, looking at the cultural significance of football in Texas. The segments on the Gainesville State School team also examined what football meant to the players, for whom the football games meant a chance to prove their worth, at least on the field, and feel redeemed and accepted. Thomas was there all along the way, clapping a youth on the back after a good play, wrapping an injury on the sidelines, bowing in prayer afterward.

That season was amazing, he recalls. The Tornadoes team bore all the ingredients of success. While they couldn’t overcome their final opponent, they were “very unselfish” and no one cared who got the credit, he said.

Watching the youths and coaches he’d mentored, lead football Coach Roy J. Burns and Assistant Coach Terrance Washington, enjoy that peak moment is among his fondest memories. And the following season, the Tornadoes were again a force in their TAPPS league, making it to the state semi-finals.

In early 2020, the team and coaches received a special sportsmanship award. The North Texas Football Officials (NTFO), based in Wichita Falls, honored the Gainesville State School’s Tornadoes football team with one of two Sportsmanship Awards the group gives out annually.

“If every team played on the field like these kids do, it would be a thrill to work these games,” said NTFO Vice President Charles Casillas, citing the Tornadoes for their resilience and positive interactions with opponents.  “When things go south, they still don’t get down on themselves or each other and they continue to play,” he said.

Those were great moments. And Thomas enjoyed many others during basketball seasons, his favorite sport and where he served as head coach. Over the years, some TJJD basketball (and track) players made TAPPS all-district, and many more took with them the valuable lessons from those friendly competitions.

But he finds enduring satisfaction in the day-to-day, as well. Whether he’s teaching physical education classes, or CPR, or casually shooting hoops with the boys in PE, he’s ever at ease and ready to help.

“My key to working with the youth has always been, not to worry about their offense, but treat them equally just as you would any other high school student. I try to create a line of communication,” Thomas said. “I think I motivate them by just encouraging them on little things. It doesn’t have to be major. Some kids have never received positive reinforcement and that’s my strong point.”

Lone Star HS North Principal Eric LeJeune confirms that Thomas exudes a magnetic positivity that can draw the best from the youth.

“Coach Thomas has been invaluable in his roles here,” LeJeune said. “He is a blessing to this school and the youth. Coach Thomas never had anything other than nice things and positive messaging for youth and staff.”

“He’s been great to work with,” said  Darryl Anderson, superintendent of the Gainesville campus. “He’s impacted the lives of numerous staff and youth.”

Like many teachers at TJJD schools, Thomas often hears back from former youth. They call to report about their successes in the community. “They will tell me that they appreciate not just the coaches, but the teachers who played an important role in their lives and have helped them be successful.”

Knowing these young people and seeing them return home and build a more successful life is the greatest reward of the job at TJJD, Thomas said. Through their involvement in sports and school at TJJD, at this pivotal, developmental point in their lives, they learned that “hard work, dedication and discipline is a must to be successful in life,” he said.

“This experience teaches all of us, that it doesn’t matter where you come from, it’s where are you going. And we can accomplish great things together, as long as no one cares who gets the credit.”

(Coach Christopher Cron, who has been assistant coach, will be taking over as athletic director when Henry Thomas retires at the end of August.)