It was Valentine’s Day 2011 in Miami’s most hardscrabble of ghettos. The role of usher to a congregation of Liberty City locals was perfect for Phillip Thomas.

Absolute, in fact.

‘He turned out to be a beautiful swan,’ Marion Cooper said.

Down the aisle from his aunt, the bride Cooper, the 20-year-old Thomas completed the wedding party of Cooper and Moses Logan. Hours before, Thomas departed on a plane from Syracuse, where he is now the leader of the secondary on the Syracuse football team.

But this past February, Thomas helped greet every guest at the long-delayed union between Cooper and Logan. For as long as Cooper can remember, she and Logan maintained an on-and-off relationship. They were together through thick and thin. Mostly, it was a thicket of gun shots amid concrete jungles.

What else to expect from a lifetime working three jobs as a nurse, all while trying to raise four sons and one adopted nephew in Thomas.

But in January, Cooper finally made the decision to marry. Sure, two of her sons had major run-ins with the law. But on the whole, she realized she had done all she could in raising five boys in Liberty City. And with her baby off to college with sights on the National Football League, now was finally her time to shine. She had adopted and reared what once was an angry young man.

With Thomas’ transformation from angry young man to stable football star came the completion of Cooper’s life.

‘I was the last guy,’ Thomas said. ‘So she always wanted to make sure I had a place to go and things like that. Make sure my life was OK before she could even make it and get married.’

***

Anger is the word that typifies Thomas’ playing style. His crushing hits ooze anger. His constant jawing speaks to it.

Some mistake it as immaturity at times. But Thomas is perhaps the most mature player on the SU football team.

All spring, Thomas has been supplying big and timely hits in practice. And with SU’s Spring Game on Saturday (1 p.m., Carrier Dome), Thomas is the leader of the Syracuse defense as the only returning starter in the secondary.

In one scrimmage, Thomas racked up the licks in the final series. Burly 210-pound SU running back Jerome Smith wasn’t spared. On the last snap, Thomas forced a fumble.

‘Phillip Thomas,’ SU head coach Doug Marrone said afterward, ‘had some big hits later on.’

Thomas plays angry. But now he is not. As a child, he was. Cooper attributes it to misery, misdirection and, mostly, confusion.

Thomas was born on Nov. 19, 1990, to Michael Byrd and Sylvia Thomas.

Byrd died of AIDS when Phillip was 4, Cooper said. Thomas says he met his father once, when he saw a movie with him and his two sisters. That was it. Thirteen years passed until Phillip’s sister, Denika Byrd, revealed the reason for their father’s death. By then, Phillip said, he figured.

Sylvia has been her son’s life forever. He says he now talks to her every day, just like he talks to ‘Auntie Marion’ every day. He loves his mom like his aunt, enough to not prod about what happened that led to her losing him — when Sylvia was jailed when her son was very young.

Sylvia was out on the streets of Liberty City during Phillip’s childhood, ‘getting into trouble,’ Cooper said. After she was arrested twice for cocaine possession and trespassing, Sylvia was jailed for two years for attempting to sell four Valium pills to undercover police. As a result, in December 1997, Sylvia legally lost her right to raise him.

Phillip was 7, and Cooper remembers him as lost and bitter.

‘I had a lot of work to do with Phillip,’ Cooper said. ‘He didn’t want to listen. He did a lot of fighting.’

But Cooper fought for the fighter. She could sense what was really going on inside the athletic body he was honing on the football field at 50th Street and 12th Avenue. Charles Hadley Park was his only haven. Everywhere else, including school, Thomas ran into trouble.

She had to pull her adopted baby from high school for getting into fights. And once, he went to a juvenile detention center for being in the company of a friend who stole a watch. But Cooper saw the true Thomas. He would become happy. And she would continue to help him there.

‘He had a lot of anger in him because he didn’t know what was going on in his life,’ Cooper said. ‘He didn’t know. Everything was just turned upside down.’

Cooper provided a pillar thanks to a regiment and pure confines at home. When home, he made sure to clean the dishes, vacuum the floor and bleach the bathroom. Thomas still cleans a house the same way, now living with SU wide receiver Alec Lemon.

Outside of home and school, Cooper wanted Thomas to go to one place: Hadley Park. There she knew he could channel that anger as a speed demon for the Liberty City Optimus Prime Warriors Pee Wee football team. Six days a week, Thomas pretended to be his half-brother, Clevan. While his mother was still incarcerated, Clevan started in the secondary for a national champion Florida State team in 1999.

Clevan provided the proof that Phillip’s pursuit of happiness was possible.

‘That’s where he gets the football from, from his brother,’ Cooper said. ‘He would always be there for him.’

***

Last Oct. 23 at West Virginia, Thomas proved he could understand football as well as anyone. It came after he proved he understood life as well as anyone. It’s the one thing he will say over and over again. The death of his father, absence of his mother and upbringing by his aunt took him from that anger to understanding.

‘I understand life. Nothing is promised for everyone,’ Thomas said. ‘When I was young, I didn’t understand. But now I know life.’

With SU trailing 14-10 in the first quarter, the Mountaineers stood at the doorstep. As WVU quarterback Geno Smith scanned the end zone for an option, Thomas thought back a week, when he faltered in coverage in the end zone against Pittsburgh.

Thomas said he took a picture of the play in his mind as it happened. He intercepted Smith’s pass at the goal line. The Mountaineers wouldn’t score again. It was arguably the Orange’s biggest win in six years. Thomas was the turning point.

The turning point in Thomas and Cooper’s lives, though, came on Jan. 21, 2009. Syracuse defensive coordinator Scott Shafer visited Thomas and offered him a scholarship. Twenty minutes after meeting Shafer, Cooper was ready to put Thomas’ life in his hands. She asked only one thing.

‘If Phillip decides to go with you, how soon can you get him out of here? If you want Phillip, I want you to get him out of here as soon as possible,’ Cooper said to Shafer.

Shafer said he could get Thomas out in due time. That wasn’t good enough. Cooper wanted him out of Liberty City the next day. That weekend, Thomas visited Syracuse.

And on July 5, Cooper finally got her wish. Her baby was gone for good, as Thomas arrived in Syracuse.

Shafer picked him up at the airport. His life was anew. A short time after his friend Derrick Gloster was shot at a dice game in Liberty City, Thomas was safe in Syracuse. His aunt couldn’t ask for anything more.

He was happy. He has been nothing but happy in the 21 months since.

He was his happiest back in Liberty City on Valentine’s Day. A few days ago, back in the home Cooper raised Thomas, Cooper watched the DVD of the wedding. Thomas still hasn’t seen it.

When he does, it will usher in visual proof of a happy family that is now absolute.

‘Most of all, I owe my family because they led me to this way,’ Thomas said. ‘And my aunt.

‘I love her.’

aolivero@syr.edu

Published on April 13, 2011 at 12:00 pm