High School Football Star Vilified For Dying Wish To Outlaw Abortion In Texas, Dies At 16
Wanted to be Christian minister
By HANK BERRIEN
August 29, 2018
A high school football star who suffered a six-month battle with bone cancer and used his Make-A-Wish request to ask Texas Gov. Greg Abbott to abolish abortion in Texas, died Sunday night.
Jeremiah Thomas led the Parkview Pacers to the state semi-finals in six-man football, won All-State honors and was named the game’s Most Valuable Player in 2016, followed by winning All-State honors again in 2017, playing every down on offense and defense as the Pacers won the state championship. He also wanted to become a minister.
On Monday, coach Bryce Frazier stated, “We lost a fighter and a good one at that. He loved everybody that he came in contact with, and showed love and he showed the love of Christ on everything he did and someone who could just could make you laugh.”
After Thomas’ request to speak to Abbott went viral, he was attacked with hate mail. Frazier said Jeremiah always answered lovingly.
Speaking in June from his wheelchair of the favorite testimonies that he had experienced, Thomas recalled one when he was in Houston:
“There was this girl; she would come and visit me a lot, and she’d bring me a bunch of snacks. We’d watch movies together; it was like super-fun. She told me about her younger sister — her father — not her younger sister, her stepsister, who, her father was murdered when she was seven; her mom passed away last year from an overdose on drugs, and she grew up real hurt from the Church. Any idea of Christianity she hated, utterly hated. It wasn’t until she walked into my hospital room that she exclaimed that she saw true Christianity and true love. She saw my mom on her knees, just praying for me, and I was sitting up in bed, real chipper and happy. She expected me to be like, dying, super-sick. She was so surprised; she gave her life to Christ. She immediately went back to church.”
Before he died, Thomas made a video in which he said, “Sometimes bravery involves giving up on everything you’ve ever known, for everyone you’ve ever loved or everything you’ve ever wanted for the sake of something greater. I don’t know how much time I have left on this earth but with a time that I do have I want it to count for my God and for my generation.”
Frazier said, “We’re going to keep his locker here for him, make sure that he still lives on in this locker room too.” He concluded, “You know I asked them (the team) Friday night if they wanted to play and they said yes, they want to fight, and that’s our word this year, fight, and it’s going to be a fight for him.”
