LOGANVILLE, Ga. — Following the end of his eighth grade school year in June 2015, Tru Thompson took a trip to Florida State for a three-day football camp. There were high school recruits in attendance, and they were split into two groups on the first day of camp, with the freshmen and sophomores in one and the upperclassmen in the other.
Advertisement
All it took was a single victory in one-on-one drills for the FSU coaching staff to move Thompson from the underclass group to the upperclass group. When he continued to dominate even after the switch, their interest truly was piqued.
Defensive tackles coach Odell Haggins asked Thompson, then 14, his age and his grade level. Haggins then began looking around and asking, “Where are your parents? Where are your parents?”
Thompson pointed out his father, Alton.
“Odell went over and asked us the same question, ‘How old is he?’ ” Alton told The Athletic. “I said, ‘He’s 14.’ He said, ‘What grade is he in?’ I said, ‘He’s going into the ninth grade; he’ll start ninth grade this year.’
“He said to us, ‘Do not leave this camp without seeing the head football coach.’”
Then-FSU offensive line coach Rick Trickett was nearby once Thompson returned to the drills and quickly grew frustrated with the older offensive linemen who were getting pushed around with ease.
“He was cussing at these players; he was saying, ‘This is a kid that’s in eighth grade; he’s in eighth grade, and he’s whipping upperclassmen,’ ” Alton said. “He was walking with us after the drill, and he said to Odell, ‘If I were you, I’d offer him right now.’ The last day, we ended up in the front office of the Moore Center and that was history.”
Florida State offered Thompson on June 12, but he didn’t commit until nearly two years later, on March 3, 2017. In between, he received numerous others — including from Florida, Miami and LSU — but Haggins remained in touch the whole way, invited Thompson to visit campus every summer and ensured that their bond was intact. Haggins became someone who Thompson described as “like an uncle,” and that ultimately tipped the scale for the Seminoles.
“What makes me comfortable around him is he actually cares,” Tru told The Athletic. “He’s not going to sugarcoat. When he cares, he really cares. He’ll look out for you. He’ll say, ‘If you need help, I got you.’ I like that because sometimes you’re not always going to be mentally there.
Advertisement
“He’s always checking on me because I actually got hurt this year. He’s been checking up on me, like, ‘Make sure you’re healthy,’ and all that stuff like that. I like that because sometimes one day you may start thinking, ‘Man, I really miss football.’ But Coach is always there to make sure I’m OK.”
Thompson missed most of his senior season at powerhouse Grayson High after surgery in October to repair the torn left labrum that he suffered when a teammate hit him in the back at practice. He signed with FSU during the early signing period and already is on campus and enrolled. Thompson figures he’ll have a head start on learning the scheme and getting to know the staff and teammates, all the while continuing to rehab from his injury. The six-month recovery time has him set to return in April, which puts his status for spring football up in the air.
“I’m pushing for spring practice,” he said. “I feel a lot better now; it’s just they have to be cautious because it was an actual labrum tear.”
Thompson is a bit undersized — he’s a 338-pounder, but he’s just 6 feet tall — and along with the lack of senior tape, that resulted in him being labeled a three-star prospect. His father isn’t concerned about the lack of hype.
“I listened to the ‘Danny Kanell Show,’ and he said something that struck me,” Alton Thompson said. “He said he remembers when he was quarterbacking at Florida State; he had four- and five-star guys that ended up being glorified backups. I was upset at first about his rating, but I said, ‘You know what? Let his rating stand as it is, and let people underestimate him.’
“When he gets down there and when he’s healthy, once he gets over this tear and the rehab, I guarantee you when he gets his opportunity, they’re going to see something that they wish they had.”
Thompson was born in Orlando and spent his early childhood in the Fort Lauderdale suburbs before his parents got new teaching jobs and decided to move the family to suburban Atlanta in 2005. Tru, who is the youngest of four children, started playing football when he was in the second grade, then stopped for religious reasons.
Advertisement
“I’m a Seventh-day Adventist, so we go to church on Saturday,” Thompson said. “Most of the games were early in the morning with the younger group on Saturdays, so I couldn’t go to church when I really needed to. I had to give up on football.”
Seventh-day Adventists consider Saturday to be the Sabbath. And when it came down to adhering to the rules of his faith or playing football, Tru’s mom said no to football.
That all changed one afternoon when Anthony Mitchell, a former NFL safety with Baltimore, Jacksonville and Cincinnati, saw Tru and his dad in a Publix supermarket.
“What’s he doing?” Mitchell asked. “He needs to be playing some football.”
Mitchell coached a youth football team and also trained several players, including Tru’s older brother.
“He was like, ‘You should come out and come play with us. You could be a beast,’ ” said Thompson, who was in the sixth grade at the time. “I came out and tried it out. I started dominating because I was one of the strongest back then — and still am.”
Before he actually started playing, though, he needed his mother’s approval. With some help from his father — the overriding argument being that the games involving this age group were later in the afternoon and wouldn’t conflict with church — his mom relented and his football career restarted.
“That started the whole thing,” Alton said. “I have to tell you: Anthony Mitchell was the one who actually called it. Because his son also played on our team, and he said, ‘Tru is going to be a defensive tackle in the NFL.’ That was back when he was in sixth grade; he called it at that time. He said, ‘He’s a defensive tackle, and he’s going to be playing in the league.’ ”
Thompson played along both lines while he was in youth football because of his strength and size. But he enjoyed hitting people far more than he did getting hit.
Advertisement
“From when he was a baby, he was a strong child,” Alton said. “As my wife says, when you lifted him up as a baby and you had him in your arms, he felt like a piece of lead. Seriously, he was different. I have an older son, and he wasn’t like that. But Tru felt like a solid piece of lead or iron or something like that. He was always naturally strong.
“When he was outside playing with his older brother, he would be playing with the older kids and playing tackle football out there in the front yard. He had no fear whatsoever of tackling bigger kids.”
Thompson spent the offseason training with Mitchell and played his eighth grade year at Luella (Ga.) Middle School near their home in south suburban Atlanta. He was set to attend Luella High, but his mother got a job working at Griffin High, in a nearby town. Alton already had a relationship with the Griffin football coach, Jarrett Laws, and Tru decided to go there.
“I was really grateful to Coach Laws because he took care of him. He pushed him, and Tru was the starting defensive tackle at Griffin in ninth grade,” Alton said.
Headed into 10th grade, though, Tru decided to transfer to Grayson High in Loganville, which is east of Atlanta.
“It was mostly because of the school and better opportunities,” he said. “Down (in Henry County), it’s more like a country town. There’s not much going on, not a lot of connections going on down there. But my parents found a job up here at Grayson and wanted to move up there.”
Thompson went from starting at Griffin High to being part of a rotation at Grayson in 2016, when it won the Class 7A Georgia state championship. Grayson has been absolutely loaded along the defensive line in recent years. Since 2014, it has produced 18 college defensive linemen, and nine of them, including Thompson, signed with Power 5 schools.
Thompson initially modeled himself after Geno Atkins and Ndamukong Suh, and would watch YouTube videos of them plying their craft. Eventually, though, he became impressed by another short defensive tackle.
“I watched Aaron Donald a couple times. And when he blew up, I was like, ‘Who is this cat?’ ” Tru said. “I saw his Pittsburgh video, and I just started modeling myself after him.”
Donald also is listed at 6-0 and also was a three-star recruit out of high school, in the Pittsburgh area. He became a consensus All-American at Pitt, was the NFL Defensive Player of the Year in 2017 and finished the 2018 regular season with 20.5 sacks — the most by a defensive tackle in NFL history.
Advertisement
“I think what it is with a lot of schools was that Tru was an undersized defensive tackle, but we have to look at people like Aaron Donald, Grady Jarrett and other players that are considered undersized but they’re great players,” Alton said. “… Tru is athletic. He has quick feet. He’s fast. That’s one of the things that Odell was able to see year after year with us coming down there. He saw his improvement.”
That potential is what attracted Florida State to Thompson before he’d even played a snap of high school football, but a shakeup came when Jimbo Fisher left to become coach at Texas A&M in December 2017.
“At one point, it kind of did catch me off guard. But Odell was making sure that I stayed on board with the new staff,” Thompson said. “I kind of ventured off, like, ‘All right, if this doesn’t work out …’ Because you know that’s the first thing you’re always going to think: ‘What if the new staff doesn’t like me?’ ”
Thompson got a chance to meet Willie Taggart for the first time at FSU’s “Junior Day” in February 2018. Thompson heard everything he wanted to and said he never seriously considered any other school.
“Odell loved Tru, and he continues to show Tru love. But I know it had to take convincing from him with the new staff to whether they wanted him or not,” Alton said. “When we went down there for the camp in June of this past summer, I was standing there, and Coach (David) Kelly was telling me that when he looked at Tru’s film, he said, ‘Ehh.’
“He told Odell, ‘I don’t know about this guy right here.’ Odell kept on telling him, ‘Listen, Coach. You have to go see him.’ Coach Kelly came up to a practice. And when he saw Tru and the way Tru moved and how fast he was and the things that he did, he told Odell when we went back down there, ‘I will never ever doubt you again.’ ”
Thompson described himself as “dirty” and “relentless” when he’s on the football field.
“That’s mostly what I tried to focus on this year — being relentless to the ball,” he said. “Not just waiting but go attack. That’s pretty much how I am.”
He is much more laid-back off the field. Thompson spent his last semester of high school like most teenagers: He spent his free time hanging out with friends, listening to Young Thug and Peewee Longway and worked part-time at Publix.
“They pay well,” Thompson said. “I’m a bagger, I’m one of the biggest baggers out there. If you see me, you just gonna be like, ‘Wow.’ ”
He wasn’t a bagger by choice. He initially stocked shelves but had to transition after his labrum injury. But now that his career as perhaps the biggest Publix bagger ever has come to an end, he is beginning to lay the foundation for his college football career.
Advertisement
“We wanted to get him down there early to get on the weight program and all that,” Alton said. “Having the shoulder injury is a slight setback. I expect him to be back, but I don’t know how much they’ll push him in the spring. He might have to wait until the fall to actually get into anything as far as contact.
“I expect him to have a good career down there with his want-to and his tenacity. He wants to be great. That’s one thing about him. … I think that, eventually, he will be in the NFL because of the way he works so hard.”
Obviously, though, making it to the NFL isn’t a guarantee, and his family also highly values academics. As he continues to rehab, Thompson also will decide whether to pursue a degree in business or accounting.
Something he does in order to keep a positive mindset is look at Florida State defensive tackle Robert Cooper, who starred at South Gwinnett High, which is just six miles from Grayson. Cooper played four games this past season, maintaining his redshirt as a true freshman despite not enrolling early.
Cooper will back up junior-to-be Marvin Wilson at nose tackle, and Cory Durden will be the starter at defensive tackle on the depth chart. Thompson should have the chance to compete to be Durden’s backup.
Before he gets there, though, he has to recover from his shoulder injury. If there are any unexpected setbacks, the Seminoles have the depth to redshirt Thompson. That’ll all play out over the next few months, but he plans to be ready whenever he’s called upon.
“That’s my main focus — being able to play,” Thompson said. “What’s great about it is that I’m still young. I’m still going to make mistakes.
“I haven’t learned the whole way, and I’m not going to learn the whole way in one year. But it gives me that experience of playing, so later on through the years at Florida State, I can end up being, like, ‘All right. I got this. This is my year.’ ”