The path to the NFL starts in Port Angeles and goes through places such as Moscow, Idaho, and West Lafayette, Ind., and Fayetteville, Ark.
Finally, more than 20 years later, Joel Thomas made it to New Orleans.
The 1993 Port Angeles High School graduate is in the final two weeks of his first season as the running backs coach for the New Orleans Saints (5-9), who host the Jacksonville Jaguars this Sunday.
After graduating from high school, Thomas played at the University of Idaho, where he ended his playing career in 1998 as one of the best running backs in school history.
He then became a college coach, serving stints as an assistant at Purdue (twice, 2000-01 and 2006-08), Louisville (2002-03), Idaho (2004-05), Washington (2009-12) and Arkansas (2013-14).
In February, he was hired by the Saints, his first NFL gig.
And he was ready. All of his experiences and everything he had learned from all of the coaches he served under during his 15 years as a college assistant made him so.
For instance, Thomas learned a mantra while he was an assistant at Washington to former USC head coach Steve Sarkisian, who was once an assistant at USC to current Seattle Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll.
“Sark always had this saying and, I think he got it from Pete: preparation will set you free,” Thomas said.
“If you’re prepared at whatever job you have — whether it’s football, accounting, whatever you’re doing, if you’re prepared, you’re going to go into any situation with the next step already laid out, even though you may not know that.
“You’ve prepared to have that path to go that way.”
So the kid who grew up in Port Angeles was undaunted when it came to start telling NFL players what to do.
“I don’t think it’s any different than when you’re a player, you know, you act as if you already are there,” Thomas said.
“You know, I didn’t just get hired because they needed a college guy. I got hired because, in their eyes, I was the best guy for the job when it got presented.
“And to answer the question, I belong there. In my mind there was nothing that said, ‘Hey, you should worry about this and that.’
“You know ball or you don’t know ball, and you go from there.”
Getting to “know ball” has been a constant learning and growing experience for Thomas.
He participated in football, wrestling and baseball for Port Angeles High School, and during summers, he played baseball for Aggies (now Wilder) and Domino’s (now defunct).
Two sports memories stick out from his time in Port Angeles.
The first is helping the Roughriders win the Olympic League his senior season.
“I mean, Port Angeles was never picked to win championships in football. It was always a North Kitsap, Olympic . . . or a Bremerton,” Thomas said.
“We had a pretty solid team, and we ended up [winning] the league.”
Port Angeles, 9-2 that season, then made one of the school’s four state postseason appearances.
The Riders traveled to face Auburn and lost 28-12. Thomas ran 75 yards for a touchdown on the first play from scrimmage to give Port Angeles an early 6-0 lead. He finished the final game of his high school career with 148 yards rushing on 24 carries.
“They were a better team, but we gave them a little run for their money,” Thomas said.
Thomas also was a three-time state placer in wrestling. His highest finish was second place as a senior. But that 190-pound championship match also was a low point for him.
“I learned a lesson in that moment: don’t ever underestimate your opponent. Because, it was a guy that I should have crushed, and I underestimated him and he got me on points,” Thomas said.
“It was just a sickening feeling that you never want to have again. And that wasn’t a team deal, it was my inability to mentally place it right.
“And I think I carried that over to college, that loss, as far as preparation and trying not to let down anything.
“I still carry it. It’s something that, you have these little lessons throughout life and you don’t know why they happen at the time, but that one, it’s clear why it happened to me, and it was to help me out down the road in other situations.”
What Thomas remembers and values the most about Port Angeles, however, are the people.
“You have your recollections, whether it’s a home run in a baseball tournament or a big game in high school, you remember those things, you have those little flashbacks,” he said.
“But, you know, it’s the relationships that you create, whether it’s your old coaches or friends or people that you met through the time that have helped you get to this point.”
Thomas’ ability to make connections has been valuable as he has made his way through his coaching career.
His first coaching job was as a graduate assistant for Joe Tiller at Purdue in 2000.
The Boilermakers’ staff that year was stacked. For instance, the wide receivers coach on that coaching staff was Kevin Sumlin, who is now the head coach at Texas A&M.
The quarterbacks coach was Greg Olson, now the offensive coordinator for the Jacksonville Jaguars, who was the quarterbacks coach at Idaho when Thomas played for the Vandals.
“He’s the one that got me there. We always stayed in contact. He’s the one that really got my foot in the door,” Thomas said.
The offensive coordinator on that Purdue staff was Jim Chaney, who was the offensive coordinator at Arkansas when Thomas was hired as running backs coach in 2013.
Chaney also knows Saints head coach Sean Payton and served as a connection when Thomas was hired earlier this year.
All of the college coaching staffs Thomas was on had familiar faces, either from his playing days or his previous coaching stops.
But also, all along the way, Thomas was making a name for himself as a coach and a recruiter.
He also put himself on the NFL radar while he was still a college coach by serving two offseason NFL internships with the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Saints.
“It’s something that, you know, I’ve aspired to do,” Thomas said of coaching in the NFL.
“Each year as college coaching has gone on, and visiting various pro teams and seeing the style and what’s entailed, you know, I always felt it’s something I can do.”
Things really got busy for Thomas in the four months after he was hired in February.
He had to move his family to Louisiana, learn an offense, learn a defense, go to the NFL scouting combine, scout 25 potential draft picks, go through offseason football school and coach at the Saints’ OTAs.
He finally took a break in late June and early July when he and his family came back to the Pacific Northwest for a vacation, which included some time in Forks and LaPush to visit his mother, Brenda Gedlund.
Thomas’ stints at Purdue obviously impacted him professionally — he kick-started his coaching career there and went to the Rose Bowl — but he also made a personal connection with a Big Ten-record-setting pole vaulter named Ebbie Metzinger.
She eventually became Ebbie Thomas, his wife, and the couple are now parents to two sons, Teyo, age 4, and Niko, 2.
“They’re off the charts,” Thomas said of his sons. “They’re blessings that, I wish everybody could meet them because they’re fun, they love life.
“Their momma’s taught them well.”
Even Teyo and Niko have helped Thomas’ career.
“I think I’m a better coach because of it,” Thomas said.
“You think about it, with infants and toddlers and little kids, you have to be super-detailed when you’re explaining something to them for the first time — you know, whenever they have an experience or they see something the first time.
“Well, football, I’m at the top level here, and it’s got to be detailed. I think it’s just, you’re always practicing being detailed.”
The coaching life never stops — the working, the learning, the evolving, and even the moving around.
Thomas has gone from Civic Field to the Mercedes-Benz Superdome, and said he isn’t thinking about what is next.
Instead, right now, he’s focused on helping the New Orleans Saints have the best group of running backs in the NFL.
“I love to coach football. I love to be on the field. I love to work with players,” Thomas said.
“And the cool thing about is I’ve got a real pool of . . . professional football players that, you know, this is their livelihood, they love to play football and they know how to do it with a professional attitude.”
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Sports Editor Lee Horton can be reached at 360-417-3525 or at lhorton@peninsuladailynews.com.
