Skip to main content
auburn logo

Auburn great Dontarrious Thomas loving life as high school assistant in Florida 

On3 imageby:Keith Niebuhr•08/10/22•

On3Keith

On3 image

TAMPA, FLORIDA — The year was 2020, the pandemic was raging and Auburn great Dontarrious Thomas, living in Minnesota at the time, was pondering his next move

Tampa became attractive.

His girlfriend was native to the area and Thomas, wanting to give coaching a try, had a connection there. Enter Jeris McIntyre, a longtime friend from their playing days at Auburn.

McIntyre is head football coach at Tampa Catholic. And needing a linebackers coach, he looked to Thomas, one of the best the Tigers have ever had at that position.

“He was like, ‘Hey, you want to have an opportunity to come coach?'” Thomas recalled. 

Thomas jumped at the chance and hasn’t regretted it.

The Auburn great is in Year 3 at Tampa Catholic

Now entering his third year with the Crusaders, he’s a valuable coach and a trusted assistant to McIntyre, who like the 41-year-old Thomas still bleeds orange and blue every hour of every day.

“I love it,” Thomas said. “But I’m still trying to feel my way out. The defensive coordinator that’s here, he’s been trying to give me tutelage on being a DC. My next step is to see what happens.”

What kind of coach is Thomas? We asked his top player, 4-star Oklahoma linebacker commit Lewis Carter for his take.

“He’s a great guy,” Carter told Auburn Live. “He always focuses on things out of sports, out of football. He always asks how I’m doing mentally. How’s my day going? How’s school? He asks about everything else and then he talks football. He’s going to push you to the limits every day. He’s big on asking how your body is doing. He cares.”

Thomas, a native of Perry, Ga., was at Auburn from 1999-2000. He was first-team All-SEC in 2003 and went in the second round of the NFL Draft the following spring. His last year in the league was 2010.

Away from football, Thomas also has been active. He’s one of the owners of VooDoo Wings in Auburn.

Thomas hasn’t attended an Auburn game since he started coaching. His Friday nights are occupied so getting to Auburn isn’t easy. But he still keeps close tabs on the program.

“I’m in wait-and-see mode,” Thomas said. “When you’ve got a new coach, we always know you’ve got to give him a couple years to get his kids in, implement his system.”

Having played at the highest level, Thomas knows things often don’t change overnight. But now that he’s a fan, too, it’s not easy being patient. 

“When I came in, Tommy Tuberville had just gotten the job,” Thomas said. “It was a building process so I know what that building process is like.”

During Auburn football weekends, Thomas is active in a text thread full of Auburn greats, notably Ronnie Brown, Jason Campbell, Karlos Dansby and Spencer Johnson. It can get pretty lively in there at times.

“We’re all competitive because we want to see them win,” Thomas said. “We know they have the talent and the ability and it’s a great school so they have the resources and the tools.”

Thomas suspects that even later in life he’ll still be closely connected to his former teammates.

“One thing I’m fortunate to have, we’ve become a small family,” Thomas said.

You may also like