Overview
De'Anthony Marquies Thomas (born January 5, 1993) is an American football wide receiver and return specialist who is a free agent. He was drafted by the Kansas City Chiefs in the fourth round of the 2014 NFL Draft. He played college football at Oregon.
Early life
When Thomas was 12 years old, he was a Pop Warner Football star and played for the Crenshaw Bears in Snoop Dogg's Snoop Youth Football League. Snoop Dogg claims to have given Thomas the nickname "Black Mamba", though Sports Illustrated has written that another coach in the league first identified Thomas to Snoop Dogg as the "Black Mamba". Thomas himself prefers the spelling "Black Momba".
High school career
Thomas graduated from Crenshaw High School in Los Angeles, California, where he played running back, defensive back, and wide receiver under the leadership of coach Robert Garrett. Thomas rushed for 1,299 yards and 18 touchdowns on offense and collected five interceptions on defense while leading Crenshaw (12-2) to its second straight city championship. Regarded as a five-star recruit by Rivals.com, Thomas was listed as the No. 1 athlete prospect in the class of 2011. He played in the 2011 U.S. Army All-American Bowl.
Thomas was also a track sprinter, named a 2013 NCAA Division I All-American as anchor of Oregon's 4x100 relay team. He has a personal best of 10.25 seconds in the 100 meters and 20.39 seconds in the 200 meters. In high school, he won the Los Angeles City Section Championship in the 100m in 2009, and went on to finish 6th in the 100m and 2nd in the 200m at the California state meet. In 2010, he won the LACS championship in both the 100m and 200m, but at the California state meet failed to move past the preliminary rounds in the 100m and finished last in the 200m final.
From Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0).