Former Minnesota Vikings safety Orlando Thomas died at the age of 42 after a battle with ALS.
Orlando Thomas, a former Minnesota Vikings safety who was an All-Pro pick as a rookie in 1995, died on Sunday after a long battle with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Mark Bartelstein, his agent, confirmed the news to ESPN’s Adam Schefter.
He was 42.
“Nobody’s ever fought a battle like Orlando fought, with so much dignity—I never saw anything like it,” Bartelstein told Schefter. “It’s simply wonderful. He was never self-pitying, never felt sorry for himself, and was always concerned about everyone else. He was simply the most incredible person I’d ever met.”
The Vikings also issued the following statement on their website:
Thomas, a second-round pick out of Louisiana-Lafayette (then known as Southwestern Louisiana), became a star during his first season. Despite starting only 11 games, he led the NFL with nine interceptions and 41 solo stops, earning an All-Pro nod as one of the few bright spots on a poor Minnesota defense.
He became a regular in the Vikings’ secondary for the next half-decade, despite his career peaked early. Thomas has 14 interceptions in his first two NFL seasons and eight in his past five.
He retired after the 2001 campaign, although being only 29 years old. Thomas recorded 22 interceptions and 350 solo tackles in 98 career games (82 starts). He is one of just seven people in Louisiana-Lafayette history whose number has been retired.
Three years after retiring, he was afflicted with a condition that would drastically alter his life. He has spent the last decade battling ALS, a debilitating degenerative disease that gradually robs people of their motor and speech abilities. When Tim Buckley of The Advertiser profiled Thomas in August, he was unable to communicate without the assistance of his wife, Demetra, and was being kept alive by a ventilator.
“There has to be a more vexing disease than this,” Bartelstein said to Buckley. “Because your mind moves perfectly, and everything else just slowly, slowly comes to a stop.”
Thomas weighed roughly 70 pounds less than his 225-pound playing weight at the time of his death, according to Bartelstein. According to Buckley’s chat with football operations director Troy Wingerter, the Orlando Thomas Courage Award is given to “the person who embodies the spirit of a Ragin’ Cajun” and is a “beacon of intestinal fortitude.”
Thomas leaves behind his wife and two children.
