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Chapter 1
Solomon Thomas is a defensive end for the San Francisco 49ers
of the National Football League. It is a particularly tough position
to play, requiring the player to overpower or outmaneuver an of-
fensive blocker on nearly every play. “There’s a saying that you
have to be a little mean to play football,” says Thomas.
One day when I was at practice at Stanford [University,
where Thomas played college football], my D-line [defen-
sive line] coach asked where I got my meanness. I stopped
and thought for a minute, and told him that, honestly, I got
beat up too many times by my sister!
5
When they were kids, Solomon and his older sister, Ella, would
wrestle. Despite Solomon’s size—close to 200 pounds (91 kg) in
third grade—Ella would always get the better of him.
Ella was an inspiration for more than Solomon’s toughness,
however. She was also an excellent student and accomplished
athlete. But when Ella was in college, she was sexually assaulted—
a fact that she kept from her family for three years. She began to
suffer from depression. In 2017 she started seeing a therapist and
taking anxiety medication. “She would seem happy, and things
would be going well with friends and at work. But then out of the
blue she would get so sad again,” recalls Solomon. On January
23, 2018, Ella took her life. Solomon remembers:
My dad called and told me what happened. I was at home
alone. I collapsed and fell to the ground, screaming and
crying. . . . My mom was at Ella’s friend’s house, where she
died. My dad didn’t want me to go, but I had to. I drove
A Disturbing Trend
