DYNAMITE DOZEN PROFILE: To be the best, the very best

LEESBURG — At Lee County they love to talk about the time Thomas Wright hit a kid so hard he knocked his helmet off.

Well, he’s done it three times in three games.

They love to talk about the way he flies to the ball, explodes with bursts of lightning and chases down running backs, quarterbacks and even receivers.

“He’s so aggressive,” said Lee County safety Julius Covin, who lines up behind Wright. “He’s all over the field, running down everything.”

They love to talk about how Wright, a three-year starter at linebacker for the Trojans, is unrelenting.

“There was one play this year when he blitzed and the quarterback faked a handoff to the running back,” Lee County coach Dean Fabrizio said. “He came at the running back like he was shot out of a cannon, and he knocked him back five yards. Then he turns around and chases down the quarterback on the play.”

Wright’s got drive, desire and a passion that never ends. He believes he can tackle anyone at any time.

Well, almost anyone.

There’s Kayliegh Sullivan. He just can’t run her down.

“I can’t catch her,” Wright said. “I used to lose sleep over it, trying to come up with a way around it, a way I could catch her. But I can’t.”

It just kills Wright.

Sullivan is the No. 1 student at Lee County. She has a 4.5 GPA. Wright has a 4.435. He’s No. 2.

“She took one more AP class than I did,” Wright said. “She took an AP class when she was a freshman, and that’s the difference. I can’t catch her.”

There are plenty of numbers on Wright’s resume. There’s the 100 tackles he made as a sophomore and the 30 tackles he’s already made this season while playing in little more than one half in each of the first three Lee County routs.

He’s already got six tackles for losses, two sacks and a fumble recovery, and Fabrizio has no doubt Wright will get 100 tackles again this year.

Then there’s the weight room numbers — legendary stuff. Wright, who stands 5-foot, 10 inches and weighs 210 pounds, is as chiseled as they come. He benches 320, squats 480 and power cleans 325 pounds.

He juggles all that weight while balancing his time with four AP classes: AP physics, AP calculus, AP economics and AP literature and composition.

If he could take another one, he would. Just to catch Sullivan.

“Thomas is the rare kid who excels at everything,” Fabrizio said. “He’s got a (4.435 GPA) a 1,200 SAT score, and he’s one of the hardest working kids I’ve ever seen, and he’s the strongest kid on the team. He’s just a great kid.”

On the field, Wright never stops going.

“He is explosive,” Fabrizio said. “He’s already knocked the helmet off of three kids with hits this year. He goes from sideline to sideline, and his short bursts of speed are excellent. He’s the heart and soul of our defense. He lifts everybody up. Everybody rallies around him. We don’t have that many seniors on this year’s team, and his leadership has really stepped up. He’s one of the best leaders I’ve seen in 20 years.”

He follows, too.

Just take a look at Baltimore linebacker Ray Lewis.

“When I became a linebacker I modeled myself after him,” said Wright who was a running back until he was a ninth-grader at Lee County. “He was the most enthusiastic player, and he has command of his defense. I wanted to be like him.

“I’m still a running back at heart,” he said. “But I have grown to love being a linebacker.”

Lewis is part of the equation, but Wright, who patterned his style of play after Lewis and made the Ravens his favorite NFL team, doesn’t wear Lewis’ number. He smiled and said that wouldn’t be original.

“He’s just like him, just like Ray Lewis,” Covin said. “He’s a vocal leader. He gets us pumped up, and he’s smart on the field. He knows what’s coming up, and he knows everything about our defense.”

Carr added: “He’s like Ray Lewis with his leadership and the way he plays the game. He never takes a play off. He goes full speed all the time, 120, 130, 150 mph all the time.”

That’s Wright, the Lewis clone.

“He’s made a lot of plays, but the one that stands out in my mind was this year against Crawford County,” Lee County defensive coordinator Andy Scott said. “Prior to the Crawford County game we watched a highlight tape during the pregame meal, and on the tape there was a play on a punt where Ray Lewis peeled back and just laid a guy out.

“That night against Crawford County he goes out and he does it, the same play,” he said. “I think that’s the best description of taking something you see on a tape and putting it into action on the field.”

They call Wright “Hammer” in the press box at Lee County, and when he makes a tackle, the PA announcer says “tackle made by Thomas ‘Hammer’ Wright.” His friends kid him about being the Hammer and about being Ray Lewis, but Scott said the best thing about Wright isn’t the way he hits.

“The most important thing about him is his character,” Scott said. “His work ethic, the way he plays the game, his leadership, his academics … He has everything you could ask of a player. I wish I had 15 or 20 like him. And he has a burning desire to get better every day.”

That desire — that fire that makes Wright want to be the best on the field — is the same desire that makes him want to be the best in the classroom, or even the best artist in Georgia.

He has two pieces of art hanging in the hallways at Lee County High, a massive 12-foot by 5-foot painting that depicts a vivid sunset dancing in the background of two spiraling trees as they reach out to each other and a brilliant array of colors splashing throughout the painting.

The second piece is much smaller and uses light and darkness in a battle of imagery as a deep dark and purple background sets off a painting of a brightly lit moth in the foreground.

“That painting is electrifying,” said Thaddus Carr, a senior linebacker who lines up next to Wright. “It’s an electrifying background. His art is electrifying. It’s like when you go to a museum and are looking at a piece of art hanging there. His art is electrifying, but his football is even more electrifying.”

Wright entered a piece of art in a competition last year, and his piece was recognized regionally, but he didn’t make it to the state finals.

“I was upset,” Wright said. “But I have learned new techniques, and this year I think I will have a chance to win it.”

Nothing else will do for Wright, who has been this way since he was 9 years old.

“I want to be the best I can be,” he said. “Nobody is going to push me harder than I push myself. I’ve been this way since I was in elementary school. I was thinking about what I wanted, and I told myself that nobody is going to tell me what I can or can’t do.

“It started when I was 9,” he said. “That’s when I had a mindset that I will be the best at everything I do. My parents told me I was born to go to college, and that I would get a scholarship, an academic scholarship. They told me that when I was in elementary school.”

Wright isn’t sure where he will end up, but he has thoughts of becoming an architect or studying visual arts in college — and ultimately he wants to own his own business. No one has offered him a football scholarship, but both Fabrizio and Scott are certain he can play at the Division I level.

At times he seems unstoppable.

He suffered MCL and PCL tears to his left knee and had to sit out the start of last season. Doctors told Fabrizio and Wright that he would be out for at least six weeks. He came back in four.

“I just worked hard at the rehab,” Wright said. “If they told me to do three sets of 50, I did four sets of 75. I hated not being in there and helping my teammates.”

What else would you expect?

He just can’t find a way to beat Sullivan.

“If I could find a way, but I can’t,” he said. “She’s a friend. It’s just I’m competitive. I want to be the best, the best at everything.”

Getting to know Thomas Wright — The Dynamite