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New Dolphins guards take unlikely paths

By BEN VOLIN
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Monday, April 28, 2008

DAVIE — The magnet school in Connecticut where Donald Thomas attended high school didn't have a football team. And when Thomas enrolled at the University of Connecticut in 2003, his focus was on earning his political science degree.

"I went to school just to go to school and be a regular student," said Thomas, who - like Dolphins coach Tony Sparano - is a native of West Haven, Conn. "I saw I was just as big as some of the kids there. I decided to try my luck and walk on the football team."

Four years later, Thomas (6-foot-4, 303 pounds) is a Miami Dolphin, drafted in the sixth round Sunday. And with Miami jettisoning both guards from last year's team, Thomas might compete for a starting job.

"It's unreal. I can't even put it into words," said Thomas, an All-Big East first-team selection last season, his only year as a starter.

Another guard drafted by Miami took an even more circuitous route to the NFL. Shawn Murphy, selected 110th overall after the Dolphins traded up five picks in the fourth round, played at three schools and went on a Mormon mission before he was drafted Sunday.

Murphy, 25, is the son of former Atlanta Braves slugger Dale Murphy. Shawn was a frequent visitor to West Palm Beach as a child in the 1980s, when the Braves held spring training in town.

He went on his religious mission to Brazil from 2002-04, and played at tiny Ricks College in Rexburg, Idaho, and Dixie State Community College in Utah before settling at Utah State in 2006.

Murphy (6-foot-4, 320 pounds) struggled at defensive line and offensive tackle before thriving at guard last season, earning All-America honorable mention.

Murphy said he feels that he needs to prove to the Dolphins that he was worth the price they paid (a sixth-round pick) to move up in the draft.

"It feels like you're indebted to them," Murphy said. "The fact that they traded up to get me just reinforces that fact."

Thomas, 22, has had to prove himself every year since joining Connecticut as a walk-on in 2004. His UConn bio credits him with three varsity football letters at Hill Regional Career Magnet High School, but according to The Hartford Courant, the school didn't have a team.

In 2003, a member of the Huskies football team was playing pick-up basketball with Thomas and got the idea to persuade Thomas to try out for the team.

Thomas impressed coach Randy Edsall enough to earn a spot on the roster. Thomas red-shirted in 2004. played strictly on special teams in '05 and earned a scholarship in '06. He finally won his starting spot last year.

Now, he's in the NFL.

"You couldn't ask for a better story," Edsall said.

Looks like Donald Thomas could be a late round steal. 

I think that two of the most important things you can have to improve the long-term prosperity of a football franchise are brilliance in your personnel evaluators and stability in your front office and coaching staff. I believe we have the first part now, but I'm hesitant to say we'll develop the second, based solely on Tuna's track record of "get in, tinker, get out." I hope Bill's new position is much less stressful than his old one (I think it will be), so he can stick around a while...

I doubt Parcell's will stay more than about 4 years. He's going to come in, build up the franchise from the inside and leave. Afterward, owners around the league will look at the Dolphins and see a franchise that increased its value by as much as 50% (going by what he's done elsewhere) and they'll pay Parcell's A LOT of money to come do the same for them.

Target franchises will be floundering teams in good markets: Jets, Lions, Raiders, 49ers. All teams in the bottom half of estimated franchise value (source (http://www.forbes.com/lists/2006/30/06nfl_NFL-Team-Valuations_Rank_2.html)).