By John Loop
Sports Writer

Although his 6-3, 263-pound muscular frame has made him one of the top defensive end recruits in the state of Texas, junior Solomon Thomas was once, believe it or not, a skinny swimmer in Sydney, Australia.

Thomas swam on the sandy beaches of Sydney for over five years after moving from his hometown of Chicago when he was just a year old.

“All I did there was swim,” Thomas said. “I was small, skinny and pretty good at swimming back then.”

The move to Sydney was not an easy decision. Thomas’ dad Chris was working as a sales manager at Procter & Gamble before being asked to make the switch overseas.

The change in scenery also meant moving to a new school for Thomas and his sister Ella, who is a 2011 graduate of Coppell High School and is now studying at the University of Arkansas.

“School was different with it being year-round,” Solomon said. “I liked it better because you always knew what you had learned and never forgot it.”

Even though schooling took up most of his day, Thomas still found time to have fun.

“Going to the beach after getting my homework done and having perfect weather was just amazing,” Thomas said. “I would always either go boogie-boarding or surfing. One time I even went to the Great Barrier Reef and scuba dived.”

Almost six years flew by, and the family decided it was time to hop back “across the pond” to the United States, specifically Connecticut, and finally, Texas.

“In Australia, you have to have a corporate sponsor or you have to have citizenship to be residents,” Solomon’s mother, Martha Thomas, said. “We tried to get residency, but without a corporate sponsor, it was impossible to do. We really felt like it was our home, even though we were not Australian. It was very sad when we had to leave.”

Both children also dropped swimming, the sport they had come to know and love, in the move back to the United States.

“Swimming is a very big part of their culture,” Mrs. Thomas said. “Part of their education is learning how to swim, with state-mandated swim lessons, so they already knew how to swim. Their coach was an Olympic medalist; that is just how it is over there.”

Solomon and Ella were immediately enrolled in the Coppell school system. The transition to an American school was long and arduous for both children, but especially Solomon.

“It was very hard,” Thomas said. “I had to make new friends and get to know the new learning system.”

Making new friends was not a problem for Thomas, as he quickly found himself on the receiving end of curious questions from his Denton Creek Elementary classmates.

“My initial reaction to finding out that Solomon had lived in Australia was a combination of shock and envy,” junior Kassidy Leonard said. “I thought it was really cool that he had the opportunity to spend the early years of his life on another continent.”

What made it even harder was the fact that Thomas had not lost his Australian accent yet. He was enrolled in speech class to help him speak like an “American.”

“They [the kids] would lie in bed at night practicing their vowels,” Mrs. Thomas said. “They shared a room, so it was fun to hear them do that.”

But still the biggest difference, in Thomas’ mind, is the food.

“The food was so good,” Thomas said. “You could get the best fish and chips in the world down there. And the sushi was good too.”

Though it was only for five and a half short years, Mrs. Thomas still believes it was a great experience for her children to grow up overseas, right in front of her eyes.

“I think both of them are definitely more open minded than kids that maybe have not lived overseas to what other people are thinking or to different cultures,” Mrs. Thomas said. “It is certainly not like moving to a third world country, but it is still very different.”

Even as he grows into a freak of nature on the gridiron, he still looks back on his experience Down Under.

“Australia is a very clean and safe place,” Solomon said. “That always made me feel comfortable there. I would go back in a heartbeat.”