His dad was a Texas football legend. Now Ian Thomas is making his own mark. 'Rodney would be proud'

Tomball running back Ian Thomas poses for a portrait at Cougar Stadium in Tomball, Wednesday, Sept. 23, 2026. Thomas is a four-star junior recruit and one of the most sought-after high school running backs in the country. He is continuing the legacy of his late father, Rodney Thomas, who is one of the greatest running backs in Texas high school football history. (Brett Coomer/Houston Chronicle) Fourteen years ago, Leigh Thomas was faced with an unimaginable task.

>She had to explain to her 4-year-old son, Ian, that his father was gone.

>Leigh did the best should could, and she kept it simple.

>"When people get sick, you go to the hospital to get fixed, and then you go home," she told Ian. "But sometimes we can't fix you here, and you have to go to Heaven."

>Despite her best efforts to articulate the situation, death can be a difficult concept for a preschooler to make sense of, especially when it happens to a parent - someone whose face they see every morning, whose hand they reach for when they fall down and whose embraces provide unparalleled comfort.

>So the inevitable questions came: "Where's Daddy?" … "When's Daddy coming home?"

>But there are simply no satisfactory answers for those adolescent inquiries.

>Rodney Thomas died of a heart attack on June 14, 2014. He was just 41 years old.

>All these years later, his legacy continues to live on through Ian Thomas, who's now 16 and blossoming into one of the top high school football players in the country for the Tomball Cougars.

>Ian doesn't have much recollection of his father. But he's heard the stories of Rodney's legendary football prowess, which was outshined only by his character off the field. It's a notion that says a lot considering what Rodney accomplished on Friday nights. He became one of the greatest players in Texas high school football history during his time as a dominant running back at Groveton High School from 1987-90.

>"Everyone's told me that he was a great football player," Ian said. "But what I mostly hear is about how great of a person he was. It's always good to hear that same thing from different people. It kind of leads me by example. I want to be like that - just be a great football player, but be an even better person."

Rodney Thomas was drafted by the Houston Oilers in 1995. (George Gojkovich/Getty Images) The loss of a legendRodney was nearly unstoppable during his career in Groveton, a small town in the Piney Woods region - some 33 miles southwest of Lufkin - that still to this day only has about 1,000 residents. He rushed for 8,441 yards, which ranks eighth in Texas high school football history and holds company with some of the legends of the game like Cedric Benson and Jacquizz Rodgers. Rodney powered Groveton to state championships in 1989 and 1990, a stretch of dominance that included 32 consecutive victories.

>With an immaculate high school résumé, the Aggies came calling for Rodney, who had become a highly sought-after recruit. He signed with Texas A&M and rushed for more than 3,000 yards and scored 41 touchdowns during his time in College Station. It was during that time that Rodney met Leigh through a mutual friend. That success resulted in Rodney being selected by Houston in the third round of the 1995 NFL draft. He spent seven seasons with the Oilers/Titans and Falcons before retiring in 2002.

>Tomball head coach Dave Handal was a student at Texas A&M while Rodney was there and experienced his extraordinary playmaking abilities firsthand from the bleachers at Kyle Field.

>"Watching Rodney play, he was just a phenomenal running back, obviously," said Handal, who's now in his fifth season leading the Cougars. "But he was a better person, a human being. That's what I remember about him. He made people better, on and off the field. He could have probably gone anywhere in the country, but he chose A&M, which had a crowded backfield. His numbers weren't as gaudy as they probably would have been somewhere else, but that just tells you a lot about him. He fell in love with the place, and A&M fell in love with him. He was really fun to watch, and there's so many things that are similar about Ian - watching how Rodney conducted himself. It's really, really cool to see."

>More than three decades after Rodney made the Southwestern Conference his personal playground, Ian is making his own mark on the game as a junior in high school. He's ranked as the No. 1 running back recruit in the country for the 2028 class by 247Sports and broke onto the scene as a sophomore in 2025, amassing 1,969 all-purpose yards and scoring 22 touchdowns while leading his team to the playoffs.

>Ian has his own identity, both on and off the field, but he's also influenced by the memory of the father whose mammoth footsteps in the sport are eclipsed in magnitude only by the impact he had as a man.

>"His dad's name was not just synonymous with football," Leigh said. "It was synonymous with being a good person. That kind of goes back to when Rodney passed, and it was something Rodney would have loved. Everyone talked about his character first and the fact that he played football second. That would have been important to Rodney. That would have been the true legacy he wanted to leave."

Tomball running back Ian Thomas poses for a portrait at Cougar Stadium in Tomball, Wednesday, Sept. 23, 2026. Thomas is a four-star junior recruit and one of the most sought-after high school running backs in the country. He is continuing the legacy of his late father, Rodney Thomas, who is one of the greatest running backs in Texas high school football history. (Brett Coomer/Houston Chronicle) Leaving his own legacyFrom the time Ian was a toddler, Leigh knew she would have her hands full.

>She remembers him at 2 years old taking a daring leap over some steps off the front porch of Rodney's mother's home in Groveton. As Ian got older, the ambitious behavior continued. When the neighborhood kids flocked to the Thomas home after the purchase of a new trampoline, Ian wanted to learn how to do all kinds of flips, and he wanted to be the best at it. The same went for his flips into the swimming pool.

>Whatever endeavors Ian pursued as a youngster, he did so with fervor.

>Leigh kept Ian out of tackle football until he was in the sixth grade, knowing that he might end up playing the sport for years to come. He competed in flag football and 7-on-7 instead. But when it finally came time to strap on the shoulder pads, Leigh recognized that her son had found a true calling.

>"You could see it then," she said. "And he's just gotten bigger, faster and stronger since."

>Handal remembers first laying eyes on Ian as a seventh-grader during the Cougars' summer camp. He knew immediately that Ian had a chance to be special, and those early impressions have since become reality.

>Tomball, which has made five consecutive playoff appearances, is 3-1 this season with Thomas and fellow running back Trevon Johnson - a talented player in his own right - as the catalysts. The Cougars are averaging 281.5 rushing yards per game with Thomas leading the way at 155.8 per outing. He's also the team's leading receiver and has piled up 928 all-purpose yards and 11 touchdowns in just four games.

>Ian said he models his game after Atlanta Falcons star Bijan Robinson and takes pride in his versatility.

>"He's a competitor, man," Handal said. "He's involved in every aspect, other than playing defense, and if we threw him out there on defense, he would get out there and make plays for us. He's just an all-around running back who can do a lot of things at an elite level. Obviously, his running skills, his vision and how he finishes runs are awesome. But what sets him apart is what he can do in the passing game. He is a true every-down running back. You don't see that very often anymore on Saturdays or Sundays or even in the high school game, right? So we have the ability to move him around quite a bit, and he's such a dynamic guy with his hands and route running and understanding. It's a lot of fun having him back there."

>Despite the praise and attention that swirls around him - especially in an era where social media hype has completely infiltrated the realm of high school football recruiting - Ian remains grounded. He doesn't really like to be interviewed, and when he scores a touchdown, he simply hands the ball to the nearest official. He's even snubbed his teammates' attempts at creating synchronized celebratory handshakes.

>More than anything else, Ian just loves playing football. Everything else that surrounds it is mostly just noise. Leigh has always reminded her son that the sport doesn't define him, just as it didn't define his dad.

>"Rodney would be proud of him," Leigh said, "and not because of football. Just because he's a good kid."

SubscribeThere’s more to Houston with the Chronicle. Subscribe today for just 25¢.This article originally published at His dad was a Texas football legend. Now Ian Thomas is making his own mark. 'Rodney would be proud'.