Introducing Brooklyn’s own ‘Rudy’: Damon Thomas
The 1993 film “Rudy” became an instant classic as it told an inspirational story about a diminutive kid who overcame the odds to achieve his dream of playing college football. Damon Thomas’ story is a bit different, though.
Thomas, who is entering his junior year at Erasmus Hall High School, didn’t grow up in the bucolic setting of a small town in Illinois. Thomas is growing up on the streets of East New York while trying to overcome a childhood trauma that might otherwise cripple someone without the most determined of spirits — the death of his parents.
Thomas’ story, as he remembers it, started when he was just 5 years old. While watching TV, he heard someone come into the house and, thinking it was his older brother, he ran downstairs to the door to greet him.
“When I got downstairs, I saw somebody that I had only seen in scary movies, so I ran back upstairs to my mom’s room,” Thomas recalled. “She asked what happened, and her and my dad went downstairs to see what was going on — [A]ll I heard was ‘bang-bang,’ and that was the last time I have ever saw my parents.”