Wineka column: A man of many medals

Garland Thomas has won some 540-plus medals and expects to win more in coming years. The 77-year-old works out every day, several times a week at the Y, where he plays basketball, runs, walks, stretches and rides the stationary bike. He doesn't care much about the medals he has received. He keeps them in a duffel bag in the trunk of his compact car. Photo by Jon C. Lakey, Salisbury Post.

Garland Thomas has won some 540-plus medals and expects to win more in coming years. The 77-year-old works out every day, several times a week at the Y, where he plays basketball, runs, walks, stretches and rides the stationary bike. He doesn't care much about the medals he has received. He keeps them in a duffel bag in the trunk of his compact car. Photo by Jon C. Lakey, Salisbury Post.

Garland Thomas shots basketballs at the Hurley YMCA. Thomas has won some 540-plus medals and expects to win more in coming years. The 77-year-old works out every day, several times a week at the Y, where he plays basketball, runs, walks, stretches and rides the stationary bike. He doesn't care much about the medals he has received. He keeps them in a duffel bag in the trunk of his compact car. Photo by Jon C. Lakey, Salisbury Post.

Garland Thomas has won some 540-plus medals and expects to win more in coming years. The 77-year-old works out every day, several times a week at the Y, where he plays basketball, runs, walks, stretches and rides the stationary bike. He doesn't care much about the medals he has received. He keeps them in a duffel bag in the trunk of his compact car. Photo by Jon C. Lakey, Salisbury Post.

Thomas picks up a discus that he keeps in his trunk. Garland Thomas has won some 540-plus medals and expects to win more in coming years. The 77-year-old works out every day, several times a week at the Y, where he plays basketball, runs, walks, stretches and rides the stationary bike. He doesn't care much about the medals he has received. He keeps them in a duffel bag in the trunk of his compact car. Photo by Jon C. Lakey, Salisbury Post.

Garland Thomas opened up the trunk of his red Mazda Protege, and the contents surprised me.

It wasn't what you expect to find in the trunk of a 77-year-old guy who's supposed to be enjoying his golden years by gardening, reading or delivering Meals on Wheels.

Where were the tools used for scratchin' in the dirt? The books? The lunches in Styrofoam?

Thomas' trunk looked like it belonged to a young sports nut.

I noticed a baseball glove, softball, football, a couple of basketballs — and was that a discus?

Thomas tugged at a duffel bag and pulled out a tangle of medals. They signified some of the events he had won over the years participating in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg and N.C. Senior Games.

It's hard to say with complete authority — and just as difficult to dispute — but Thomas probably has won more medals in Senior Games competition than anyone else in North Carolina.

By his count, Thomas has captured more than 540 gold, silver and bronze medals since he started competing in Senior Games in 1988.

"I've given away 50 gold medals," he estimated, shrugging. "That's why I keep them in the car. There's no value anymore."

Last year, he earned state medals in seven events: five golds and two bronzes.

The medals came in basketball shooting, the discus throw, football throw, shot put, softball throw, standing long jump and basketball tournament. I looked it up, and he had his age group's winning softball toss of 141 feet, 10 inches.

He threw the discus 88 feet, 9 inches and posted a standing long jump of 10 feet, 2.5 inches — a state record for men 75-79.

Just my quick glance of the N.C. Senior Games' stats showed him also holding the state marks for basketball shooting in the 55-59, 65-69 and 70-74 age categories. Those records were set in 1990, 2002 and 2003, respectively.

The basketball shooting competition consists of 18 various shots. Thomas went 18-for-18 in each of those record-setting years. Truth be known, Thomas said, he made 72 straight in local and state competitions during the years he was 69 and 70 years old.

I had coffee with Thomas one day at Biscuitville. He had come from the Hurley YMCA, where he works out three or four times a week since moving to Salisbury last year.

At the Y, he shoots baskets by himself or plays pick-up games. He walks and runs on the track and rides a stationary bicycle.

If he doesn't go to the Y, he sometimes rides his own bicycle or exercises elsewhere.

He never misses a day, "even when it snows," he said.

Thomas is 5 feet, 11 inches tall and weighs 182 pounds. He has a good crop of white hair, boundless energy and a quirky personality.

He loves competition and unusual challenges. He might bet someone he can play a par-3 course with a 9-iron and putter in some ridiculous time — and do it.

Before Interstate 485 opened in Charlotte, Thomas said he rode for miles on the empty highway backwards. He thinks he has devised 12 physical efforts or events that he could complete better than any NASCAR driver or member of the Carolina Panthers or Charlotte Bobcats.

"I like to do tricky things," Thomas said.

He grew up in Charlotte, which he said should be located in the mountains because it has the highest crime, taxes and traffic. Thomas attended old Central High School and starred on the same track team as Jim Beatty, who later became the first person to break the 4-minute mile on an indoor track.

Their high school track-and-field teams were tremendous. Thomas said he was state champion in the high and low hurdles. He also played on a good Central basketball team.

Thomas served in the U.S. Army in Korea. He worked as a statistician for three years in Washington for the Institute of Shortening and Edible Oils — something not a lot of people have on their resum s.

He returned to Charlotte and took up selling insurance. He and his wife, Jo Ann, had five sons, who now range in age from 42 to 52. Michael is a letter carrier in Salisbury.

"She didn't really know I planned five, but I needed someone to play with," Thomas said.

When the boys were growing up in Charlotte, their backyard had three basketball goals, each set at a different height.

In his 40s, Thomas began competing in masters track-and-field events, then moved on to the Senior Games in 1988.

There have been some significant hurdles to his sports mania over the past decade. About nine years ago, he was driving near Asheville when a car crossed the median and hit his vehicle head-on. The three people in the other car were killed. Thomas said he had eight broken bones and was in a coma.

Doctors wound up removing 10 inches of his intestine and inserting plastic mesh to help his muscles hold things in place. Thomas pulled up his shirt to show me the scars.

Although one physician told him he couldn't play sports anymore, Thomas returned to the Senior Games as fast as he could. Three years ago, he missed the state games because of surgery for prostate cancer.

Even though many of his medals are a tangled mess in his car's trunk, Thomas plans to keep competing in the Senior Games — 12 events at a time — until he has won about 650 medals. This year, he probably will compete in the Rowan games for the first time.

Thomas doesn't smoke and hardly drinks, he said. He doesn't watch much television, except "Law and Order." Before we parted, he asked me how much I weighed.

I fudged and said 230.

"If I ever got to 200 pounds, I would not eat," he proclaimed.

His look said that's where I deserve a gold medal.