Alonzo "Skip" Thomas (February 7, 1950 – July 24, 2011), nicknamed "Dr. Death", was an

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team wit ...

cornerback A cornerback (CB) is a member of the defensive backfield or secondary in gridiron football. Cornerbacks cover receivers most of the time, but also blitz and defend against such offensive running plays as sweeps and reverses. They create turnove ...

who played in the

National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ma ...

(NFL).

College career

Thomas was awarded a scholarship to play football at Arizona Western Junior College. Then, Thomas played college football at the

University of Southern California , mottoeng = "Let whoever earns the palm bear it" , religious_affiliation = Nonsectarian—historically Methodist , established = , accreditation = WSCUC , type = Private research university , academic_affiliations = , endowment = $8. ...

Professional career

Thomas played for the

Oakland Raiders The Oakland Raiders were a professional American football team that played in Oakland from its founding in 1960 to 1981 and again from 1995 to 2019 before relocating to the Las Vegas metropolitan area where they now play as the Las Vegas Ra ...

for the entire duration of his professional football career between 1972 and 1977. He had back-to-back six-

interception In ball-playing competitive team sports, an interception or pick is a move by a player involving a pass of the ball—whether by foot or hand, depending on the rules of the sport—in which the ball is intended for a player of the same team ...

seasons in 1974 and 1975. Although it is commonly believed that his fierce

tackling Tackle may refer to: * In football: ** Tackle (football move), a play in various forms of football ** Tackle (gridiron football position), a position in American football and Canadian football ** Dump tackle, a forceful move in rugby of picking u ...

got him the nickname "Doctor Death," the truth (per John Madden's book ''Hey, Wait a Minute (I Wrote A Book!)'') is that Hall of Fame lineman Bob "Boomer" Brown, when he first met him, thought that he looked like the cartoon character "Dr. Death," and the moniker stuck. Thomas died of a

heart attack A myocardial infarction (MI), commonly known as a heart attack, occurs when blood flow decreases or stops to the coronary artery of the heart, causing damage to the heart muscle. The most common symptom is chest pain or discomfort which m ...

on July 24, 2011. He was 61.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Thomas, Skip 1950 births 2011 deaths American football cornerbacks Arizona Western Matadors football players Oakland Raiders players People from Higginsville, Missouri Players of American football from Missouri Sportspeople from the Kansas City metropolitan area USC Trojans football players