Kenbrell Thompkins personifies everything that the New England Patriots would be best to avoid.
After all, the recently completed Summer of Pain for the defending AFC East champions involved much of the baggage that comes with Thompkins, plus a lengthy rap sheet and an unstable home life as a youth that led to a life of drugs and violence.
But at the same time, he also embodies many things that are right about the Patriots - the desire to move beyond his past being the most prominent, rising from the mean streets and above the lure of the rush that the lifestyle of a drug dealer provides - and having decent speed, tremendous size and dependable hands doesn't hurt at all...
...things that go a long way with Quarterback Tom Brady, along with things like being where you are supposed to be either on the field in your pattern or in the film room getting better - things that every receiver in the Patriots' camp brings to the huddle, in some respect or another - though Thompkins' journey is a bit more checkered than most.
And in all fairness, given the seriousness of his crimes,
Thompkins shouldn't even be here - and if there was any justice in the justice system, he wouldn't be...
...that said, he is in camp with the Patriots, and it appears that his road from perdition may have found nirvana in the form of Gillette Stadium - five years removed from the nightmare of one of the most crime ridden areas of Miami, five years removed from being the criminal, five years since he last experienced the hate of the culture he was born into.
Back in high school, had your daughter brought Thompkins home to meet the family, anyone with half a brain would have escorted him forcefully from the house, installed a security system immediately and hired a general education specialist to home school her - maybe get a big dog...
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| Thompkins' mugshot while in high school |
...arrested seven times before the age of 19, Thompkins was expelled three times and attended an alternative high school just to get through his Junior year - dealing coke, armed robbery, assault...hell, he even shot himself accidentally when he was very young.
Something is different about Thompkins, though. Through all of his off field troubles, he always kept football in his life, as if he knew that someday it would rescue him - something that was one of the few ways to break the cycle that he was involved in.
There is a sincerity in his tone, a quietness, as if he owed the world a respite to atone for his sins - but also a confidence that only bestows itself upon a man that has come from the bottom up - the knowledge that comes with escaping the grip of neighborhood inertia, the knowledge that things could be different, that he could be different.
Oh, make no mistake, he was a punk, a boil on the backside of society - any negative analogy will suffice - just ask him, he'll tell you. Sociologists will tell you that Thompkins was a true product of the violence inherent with the culture of the inner city, while in the same breath dismissing the kid as having nothing to offer humanity except pot and coke, of course - helping to destroy the lives of others. And for a long while, that was the truth...
...and it still may be the truth, but it hasn't manifested for five years, and the Patriots are hoping that the allure of the criminal lifestyle has dulled over that amount of time - particularly in light of the manner in which Thompkins has seized his opportunity in OTAs, the opportunities that were supposed to be for rookie names such as Dobson and Boyce, for veteran names like Jones, Hawkins and Jenkins.
All of them have a story, but none as sorted as Thompkins - which ultimately left him as an undrafted free agent despite his fight to move on from a past that hangs around his neck like an anchor, weighing him down - but, somehow, he keeps moving forward.
Raised in tough neighborhood with four brothers and one sister by his mother, who worked two jobs to keep a roof over their heads and food in their bellies - essentially on his own with no father or like-figure in his life, Thompkins evolved into what the streets offered him...
...nevertheless, keeping football in his life earning him a scholarship offer from one college, signing a Letter of Intent to attend Morgan State University while incarcerated on the armed robbery charge - but once released from Juvenile Detention, he let the scholarship fly away as the allure of his street life of violence and drugs seemed more appealing and more comforting than going away to face the unknown in college.
He became a sort of anti-role model to his younger brother. Shocked and dismayed by his older brother's indifference to the opportunity to play college football, Kendall Thompkins stayed away from drugs and off the streets, vowing not to waste an opportunity to get out of the neighborhood like Kenbrell did. He stayed in school, studied and worked hard on the football field - earning a scholarship from the University of Miami...
...a moment that Kenbrell claims changed his life. Motivated by the thought of his brother getting out of the old neighborhood, claiming the opportunity that he had passed on, Thompkins asked the judge for permission to leave Florida to clean up his life - ending up in California at El Camino Community College, where, for the first time in his life was able to concentrate on football and studies without the lifestyle distractions...
...and started tearing it up, both on the field and in the classroom. By the time he graduated from El Camino, he had set school records in receiving and attracted the attention of many major college programs, finally following his friend, teammate and roommate at El Camino, quarterback Matt Simms to Tennessee to play for Lane Kiffin.
But he never got the chance, as Kiffin bolted Tennessee shortly after he signed his letter of intent. Thompkins, not wanting to play at Tennessee without Kiffin as the coach, asked to be released from his commitment to the Volunteers, which started a long, winding road with many sharp turns, eventually ending up at the University of Cincinnati on the advice of his cousin, Pittsburgh Steelers' wide receiver Antonio Brown, whose coach at Central Michigan now coached the Bearcats.
Two years later, Kenbrell Thompkins is catching passes from Tom Brady in training camp with the New England Patriots, five years and many miles removed from dingy jail cells, a changed man.
But that's the thing. People don't change - they can say they will and may actually be mentally tough enough to resist the temptation of their past transgressions, but the rush that one gets from things like armed robbery, assault, even dealing drugs is a nearly impossible habit to break.
And who knows what happens when the lifestyle that professional football affords presents the man with an avenue back to the things that have dominion over his conscience. Many can handle it, some can't - as Patriots' fans are well aware.
So when Thompkins' tells his tale of resurrection, that seeing his little brother get the Miami scholarship motivated him to go on the straight and narrow - motivated him to leave the only life he'd ever known or ever wanted to know far behind, motivated him to find the better things in life, there is an obvious caveat.
Or is it that the person running the mean streets of Miami wasn't Kenbrell at all - just a wannabe doing what people do when restricted by neighborhood inertia, knowing that if they ever got the chance to do good, that he would make good?
It's a promise made and then broken every day, and only Thompkins knows the answer, but if it's any consolation to those betting against him, the streets of inner-city America are filled with wannabe's, and not many not recognize a legitimate opportunity to become anything other than a thug.
Thompkins did, and there's something to be said for that, if nothing else.
