A season that he had spent trying to ignore his personal life so that he wouldn’t be distracted from his professional life had come to a head. His divorce was proceeding. The IRS claimed he owed $10,000 in back taxes. His agent cashed his checks and paid none of his bills. Now he had to fix his financial mess himself. The first time he met Gil Brandt—before he’d been signed—Thomas asked him how a man can make a good living playing professional football. Brandt had told him, “By producing.” No one produced like Duane Thomas had in 1970. The evidence was incontrovertible.
The Cowboys treated Thomas like OCC treated me. More evidence to me that if we ignored the absolute numbers involved we would see that athletes are no different from any other workers.
